Rachel update

We had the follow up appointment with Rachel's pediatric surgeon today. He confirmed what I thought. The tumor is growing back. Not only is it growing back, it is also not healing normally from when it was cut off and biopsied by the dermatologist. Dr. D now agrees that it is a "Spitz Nevus" and that we do need to go in and do a more invasive procedure to remove it 110%. The thing about these growths is that if they are not fully removed, they grow back. When they do grow back, they can be harder to biopsy. They can show possible malignant behavior without truly being malignant. Because of this, it can sometimes lead to treatments that are questionable. We don't want to get to that point.

It's confusing. Right now, the plan is to see Dr. D again on December 1st and plan the surgery for sometime between Dec-Feb depending on how the growth is doing. Dr. D wants it to heal just a bit more before he does anything. If he were to remove it all right now after just having done the original biopsy a month ago, the tissues will be too irritated to be able to biopsy the current growth. It's hard for me to explain. I really trust Dr. D's opinion and knowledge on this. He's operated on these types of growths numerous times and knows what he's doing. I really do feel at ease with him.

So that's where we are. I have had a pit in my stomach all day thinking about the day she will have to do the surgery. I'm really not comfortable with the fact that she has to be put under anesthesia. At least she is up to 24 pounds and 1 ounce! That's really good for her!

It's going to be an outpatient surgery. I can be with her when she is waking up. I'm going to need a lot of prayers and comfort while they have her in surgery. Just thinking about it now makes me feel so uneasy. The only thing that made me chuckle was that Dr. D told me how they start to administer the meds to put her to sleep. She will have to drink some tylenol that has sedatives in it. All I can say is good luck getting her to drink that. It's not going to be a fun day at all. I'm going to try to just put this at the back of my mind for now. We're just going to have to wait until her follow up appointment in 2 months and see when she will be scheduled. So surgery is definitely needed, it's just a matter of when. Ugh!