Molluscum Contagiosum and other New Words

My second trip of the day to Phoenix on the 30th, was to take Jacob and William to the dermatologist.  William had some weird looking mole type thing that appeared on his chest about a month ago which didn't seem to be getting better and Jacob has some extra skin near his eye that is bothersome to him.  

So, first Jacob.  He was born with what looked like a little raised area next to his right eye.  It has always been there, but over the past couple of years it has become slightly more raised and bothersome to him.  So about a year ago I took him to a dermatologist who said it was a wart and that it must be something different than what I had been seeing there since he was a newborn.  We went in multiple times to have it frozen down.  It seemed to help some although it never fully went away.  We finally just stopped going to her.

It continues to bother him and I have been meaning to get him in to a pediatric dermatologist for a while now and have just not gotten around to it.  About a month ago, this spot appeared on William's chest.  

We had been watching it and it seemed to get bigger and not be clearing up.  He also had a bunch of itchy spots behind his knees which I ignored for a long time because he often has trouble with Eczema and I just figured he was having trouble with that again.  Finally he asked me to look at it, which I did and I instantly realized it wasn't eczema, but a bunch of little raised bumps.  I took him in to the pediatrician to let her take a look.  She looked at his legs and recognized it right away as Molluscum Contagiosum, a common childhood virus.  I have never heard of that before.  William does have a really bad case of it due to his skin in that area being so broken down from his eczema, but luckily it is nothing very serious and should go away within about 18 months. Yes, 18 months! 

William then showed her the spot on his chest (which at the time had been scratched and just looked like an open sore) and she said that it was most likely just another Molluscum Contagiosum spot.  She gave us some antibiotic cream for the spots where William has scratched them open while scratching his itchy eczema legs and told him not to touch them because it is contagious.  Lovely!  

So, fast forward a couple of weeks and his legs look much better.  The spot on his chest however had "healed" from an open sore back to it's original mole like shape, grown a bit, and started to bleed a little at random times.   I decided it was time to call and get them both in to the pediatric dermatologist.  I called Friday, they had an appointment by Tuesday.  

The doctor looked at William first and confirmed that what was on his legs was Molluscum Contagiosum, but that what was on his chest was something different.  Most likely a Pyogenic granuloma.  Yeah, I didn't know what that was either.  They said that although they were 99.99 percent sure that's what it was, they wanted to remove it and have it tested, just to be sure.  They checked out Jacob and then removed William's spot.  It made William nervous, but poor sensitive Jacob was a wreck watching his brother have to go through that.  I got a call yesterday and with the results.  Luckily it is just a benign pyogenic granuloma which is no longer on my son's body.

I felt weird explaining to this doctor that Jacob had been born with this spot by his eye and it seemed to be exactly where this "wart" was now.   As she looked at it and asked more questions she said that it isn't a regular wart at all like we had been told before, but that it was an epidermal-nevus (nope, hadn't heard of that one before either).  Finally, someone else knew that it wasn't just my imagination that he had been born with this thing!  She said that you don't really have to do anything about this, unless it is bothersome, which it really is to Jacob.  She also said that often once they hit puberty it will grow and could spread and become more noticeable.  She said that since it's roots are deep under the skin, the only way to really get rid of it is to dig it out.  She gave us a name of a plastic surgeon and recommended that we talk to her about removing it.  It would need to be done by a plastic surgeon because of how close it is to his eye.

When I asked Jacob how he felt about just leaving it or having it removed he said, "well, I've always wanted to try to stay awake when they give you the medicine to go to sleep, so yeah, I say let's do the surgery."   I don't think that is a good enough reason for surgery!  I'm not sure at this point which way we will go.  Still need to do some praying about that one.

When the dermatologist was looking over Jacob, she also saw a small mole on his chest and one under his hair.  The one on his head is pretty large and a bit worrisome to them.  We were told to just let our pediatrician know about it so that they can keep an eye on it for now, but if it changes at all, we will need to go back and have it checked out.

After their appointment, we went into the cafeteria and let them get a little snack.  Although I really dislike doctor's appointments and hospitals, I love spending time with my boys.  I really love this picture of the two of them together.   They can definitely fight like brothers, but when all is said and done, they really do love each other!