Here's the Answer

Here's the answer to the picture I posted Wednesday. For all you people who answered, Chelsea - you are correct. This picture was taken in October - 2002 and was published on the cover of the The Chicago Tribune Magazine(in the insert of the Sunday edition)
Chelsea had a major surgery done in Chicago, in January of 2002. She has a syndrome called Crouzons. The New York Times wanted to do a story on this surgery, so we met a reporter who followed us through this whole surgery and follow-up. There was a 1/2 page story on Chelsea in The New York Times but the reporter (Brenda) knew the editor of The Chicago Tribune
and told here she wanted to do a bigger story on her for The Tribune.

Throughout these next few weeks or so, I plan on posting about my children. I'm starting with Chelsea and this is a major part of her life.
Let me just explain a bit about Crouzons Syndrome. This is a craniofacial syndrome which affects the development of the face. This can be passed down from a parent of just because of a gene mutation. My husband has this syndrome also and his was because of some mutation.
Part of what happens is that the bones in the head close early. You know the soft spot that baby's have - it's important. It allows for the growth of the brain and when it closes early, there has to be a surgery to open it up again. The head tends to grow upward; therefore they have to build the forehead out. When kids are around 10 - the midface does not grow properly, so they have to pull that out through surgery. Chelsea had surgeries when she was 9 months, 15 months and 28 months. These were all for the forehead area. Then when she turned 10 - they did this midface surgery. I'll go into more details in future posts but hopefully this will give you an idea of what this all is about. I'll try to find some pictures to show also. Thankfully, they've come a long way since Dave was a child. If you have any questions you'd like me to cover, feel free to ask and I'll do my best to answer.