A while back (like a few months ago) Owen was at his two-and-a-half-year check-up with his pediatrician, and I happened to mention that he had a funny looking mole below his diaper line that I wanted her to look at. She was particularly interested because she had just had a melanoma removed from her leg. She looked at it, said "I'm sure it's nothing, but go see a pediatric dermatologist." So, off we went to make appointments with a pediatric dermatologist, who saw it said "I'm sure its nothing, but go ahead and call a pediatric plastic surgeon to have it removed." So, off we went to make appointments with a pediatric plastic surgeon, who saw it and said "I'm sure its nothing, but let's make an appointment at the end of the summer to have it removed." So a few days later, I get a call from the surgeon, and they had an appointment available for 3 days later. I snatched that appointment up, stewed with worry for those three days over the general anesthesia he'd be under, and come Monday morning, we drove into Fairfax, and marched our little boy into have a very, very minor surgery.
After the surgery, the doctor asked us to make a follow-up appointment for two weeks later to make sure the site was healing well and to go over pathology.
Two weeks later was two days ago, and I was battling traffic, dealing with cranky kiddos, and needing a nice hot cup of coffee when we finally arrived at our appointment. Dr Oh came breezing in on his way to a surgery looked at Owen's site, told us it was healing nicely, then said "Its a good thing we had that mole removed, because the cells came back atypical." Heart stops. "What?!" I say to him. Nothing to worry about, he assured me, but we have to watch Owen like a hawk. This mole on his abdomen had never been exposed to sun. He's never had a sunburn. He wears SPF 70. How does this happen? My crappy genes. That's how. Poor kiddo.
Anyhow, we're thankful that we were pro-active and we're thankful that we had this reality check. Now, go forth and lather up!
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