patient story

When her son, Jace, was just two-weeks-old, Lexi noticed that he was developing red spots around his mouth.

She took Jace to two different doctors to get them checked out. They thought it might be from his bottle or pacifier and told her to keep an eye on it.

But, as Jace grew older, he began developing more red spots. Now, there were six of them--on his face, lip, head, shoulders, neck and hip. She took him to a third doctor where they diagnosed the spots as hemangiomas. A hemangioma is a type of birthmark that happens when a tangled group of blood vessels grows in or under the skin. Some hemangiomas, like the ones that Jace had, look like a rubbery red "strawberry" patch of skin, while others may cause a skin bulge that has a blue tint. Most hemangiomas grow larger during the first year of life.

Lexi searched the internet to seek out care for her son and found Jordan Wright, MD, pediatric hematologist/oncologist and Ravindhra Elluru, MD, PhD, pediatric ENT specialist at Dayton Children’s and the vascular anomalies clinic. The vascular anomalies clinic at Dayton Children’s is comprised of experienced specialists that work together to establish an accurate diagnosis and comprehensive treatment plan for vascular anomalies, like hemangiomas.

“Dayton Children’s was amazing with Jace,” said Lexi. “Dr. Elluru performed surgery on Jace’s lip, pulled out the hemangioma and stitched it right up. And, Dr. Wright treated the hemangiomas on his body with steroids and they have shrunk so much.”

Because the hemangioma on his lip was so large, Jace had trouble speaking prior to his procedure. But after surgery, he’s made huge strides with his speech and will work with a speech-language therapist over the next several months to work on pronunciation and language development.