The history of tomorrow...Camryn's Doernbecher trip

About a year and a half ago, I noticed a mole growing somewhat out of the blue on Camryn's upper left arm.  Although it seemed odd for a mole like that to appear in the middle of winter, I didn't think too much of it until it started getting bigger.  And puffier. And just. not. right.  So I took her to a dermatologist to have it looked at.  Dr. R. didn't seem too alarmed, and recommended measuring, and photographing it, and keeping an eye on it until a revisit in a year...

Well, over the course of that year, wouldn't you know it, the mole grew.  It grew and grew.  In shape, and size, and color.  It became asymmetrical, and multicolored.  It just didn't look right, so I dragged took Camryn back in to Dr. R. again.  When she walked in this time, Dr. R. already had the previous summer's photo pulled up on her laptop screen, and l swear to you, she glanced at said current mole for approximately 1.2 seconds from a distance of at least 5 feet, before she said matter-of-factly, "That mole's gotta go."  She agreed that it had transformed since our last visit.  That much change is not a good sign, but instead a red flag for removal.

Without describing any of the gory details here, Camryn ended up having her mole removed right there in the office that day.  Let's just say it was not the ideal situation for my child the control freak,  who also happens to have a a bit of medical anxiety.  ("Surprise!  These three nice ladies are going to hold you down and cut a chunk out of your arm!  Won't it be worth the sucker at the end???")  Yeah...not our best day ever...  Not even Salt & Straw ice cream could make up for that one...

In any case, the mole was sent to pathology at OHSU, who, after two weeks, didn't exactly like what they saw.  So they sent it on to pathology at UCSF, who took another three weeks to get back to me, and describe it as a spitz nevus.  Now, this particular funky-sounding mole type occurs most often in children, and is typically benign.  (Good news!)  However...Camryn's did not exactly fit the typical description (Bad news!)

In fact, though the results found it to be a spitz nevus, they also described it as having a significant percentage of atypical cells that do not meet the criteria of a spitz nevus.  (Whaaaa???)  I was so confused.  Basically, they *think* it was benign, but because enough of the cells were too wonky to be considered truly benign, and because any wonky cells like those are considered precancerous, they wanted to go back to the site on her arm (which had healed up into a nice, shiny pink circle by now, thankyouverymuch), and remove more tissue.

Uggggggghhhhhhhhhh.  Not.  Again.

So tomorrow is the day.  Only this time, we get to go up the hill to Doernbecher Children's Hospital, where Dr. K., a pediatric plastic surgeon will carefully and precisely remove the entire margin of the mole site.  She will also cut and stitch in such a way to remove and minimize the scarring, so that Camryn will be left with a line, which will fade over time, instead of a dime-sized circle scar.

So...my Baby Girl is super nervous.  And so am I.  I know in my heart that she will be OK.  She will be truly OK.  She will be in good hands, in one of the most state-of-the-art children's hospitals.  Where they work miracles every day.  I know that many of the other parents sitting in the waiting room with me tomorrow will be sick with worry over much more serious injuries and illnesses that their little ones are facing.  But it's still scary.  Because even though she's almost ten, can read faster than me, has a bit of teenage sass already, and a quick mouth....she's still my baby.  And I don't like this anymore than she does.