Alopecia

I'd like to start this post by clarifying that No.....One of my kids did NOT shave Ava's eyebrows off but that would have made one really interesting blog post. :) They have all cut each other's hair at one point or another but thank the Lord they have never taken a razor to each other!

It wasn't until I was reminiscing about our adoption last year, and looking at photographs from our Ukraine trip and of our first visits with Ava, that I realized, she used to have such pretty eyebrows and eyelashes! I'm sure they've been falling out for some time and I haven't even noticed. (I'm not the most observant person.)

So some of you noticed, and some of you had to cheat by reading comments, but yes, apparently the alopecia is affecting her eyebrows and eyelashes too. I took her back to the dermatologist yesterday and didn't get great news.

Alopecia is very very difficult to treat. The younger it sets in the more difficult it is to treat. There are several treatment options but none are extremely effective. We experimented twice on some of the bald patches with steroid creams and injections (which were surprisingly not painful as I thought they would be, Ava didn't cry either time). Interestingly, over the past several months some areas grew in, some areas did not, and even more strange.....the one area that was NOT treated, the bald spot on the back of her head, grew in the best of all. ????? There is another treatment called squaric acid, I think, but the dr. said it can be cause a lot of irritation and sometimes blistering to the scalp, and neither of us felt like we wanted to subject her to that.

So, yes I am sad and yes I am disappointed that she has alopecia, and while part of me wants to give her every chance possible to have a head-full of hair, the other part of me doesn't want to put either one of us through that fight.

We had a family discussion last night and we all agree, Ava is perfect with or without hair, with or without eyelashes, and with or without eyebrows. We will pray they grow back, but we'll take her just like she is and love her the same.

So there you have it. The case of the missing eyebrows. Solved.

On a more positive note, however, she also had a follow-up with the opthamologist yesterday and her eyes are perfectly aligned and functioning very well!!! So yes, I guess her cross-eyed-ness is also missing, and that is truly something to be happy about!