The Mole

Well, as usual things never go as planned. Today that absolutely worked in our favor. When we arrived this morning at the hospital for Emilie's surgery the doctors had already decided that they wouldn't take the entirety of Emilie's mile because it was probably too invasive. They took almost the whole thing, leaving about 2 mm of dark spot and some of the very light spots alone. I told the docs this would be emilie's first hair cut and they were more than happy to save her hair for me! After she woke up the nurse told kasey that emi looked up and said, "all done?" We are glad she did well and is currently up and tormenting her sister. The only strange part of today is that we won't know the results for another three weeks. However, we are at least relieved that regardless of the biopsy results, about 98% of the mole is already gone. I want to go snuggle with the kids so I'll leave the updates at that. Sorry, typed this from my phone, so it's probably barely legible. Thanks for all of your prayers and support!

Emilie Update 7/30/10

Emilie saw the dermatologist in the beginning of June.  We were told that her mole on the top of her head had grown.  It was close to two inches long.  We waited until July 23rd for the consultation with the Plastic Surgeon.  He was concerned that the mole looked malignant.  He wants to do a biopsy first before removing the entirety of the mole to see if it is malignant.  Regardless of its cancerous status, Emilie needs to have the mole removed so that it doesn't develop into cancer cells. 

So the question is a matter of two options:

Option A: Two Surgeries.  One to remove the entire area and placing a skin-like substitute on her head.  Re-grow the skin with a series of shots in the back of her head to grow skin and then another surgery to cut and place the skin.  Painful.  Involves shots, scarring, things we really really don't like.

Option B: Three Surgeries.  One to biopsy the mole, then stitch together.  One to remove the mole, then stitch together.  One to get the surrounding breaks of the mole, you get the point.  No permanent hair loss on skull, no major scarring (we hope).  There is also hope that her skin will stretch enough to get all of the growth areas in two surgeries. 

Choosing between Option A or B involves how threatening the skin cells are.  We of course pray for Emilie's health first, but it is hard to think that she could have more surgery, more scars, etc...I hate this for her and apologize for the negative tone. 

We did get our vacation pictures back and I will be posting them soon.  We had a very enjoyable time, unfortunately coming back has reminded me of the tasks to come.