The Leg

We're now over two weeks past Jacob's mole removal surgery, and here's a couple views of the scar. It's probably close to 3/4 of an inch long. It's hard to see in these pictures, but the ends currently stick up and the center dips down. Apparently this is normal. It's a pretty significant scar, but the surgeon says that it could take a year to fully heal. Regardless, it's much less scary to see a scar than a menacing looking mole...The healing process has been going fine. The bandages fell off like they said they would, and we've been treating it with polysporin. Moving forward we just have to keep it moist with lotion and massage it. Supposedly the scar is going to look worse before it looks better, and we will be going back to the surgeon one more time in a couple months to double check it.

As far as the pathology goes...Jacob is fine. They definitely got all of the offending tissue, and it wasn't cancerous. However, the makeup of it was slightly irregular so we definitely need to keep a close eye on Jacob's body as time goes on. We need to go for a follow-up visit with the dermatologist we originally saw. I imagine we'll be going there for a baseline exam, and if we start noticing additional changes to his skin, we'd have to go back. I'm hoping it's not going to be too frequent, as I'm not too excited about the prospect of more $40 co-pays. We'll do it, obviously, but between this and his twice-per-year visits to the pediatric pulmonary doctor, it gets to be pricey. I really should go to a dermatologist myself, just because of a family history of skin cancer and plenty of moles to get double checked, but I've been holding off myself. If only they could combine our visits! I've only noticed one other blemish on Jacob's body--a small, light colored mole on his scalp--so I feel like this is an easy enough thing to keep an eye on long-term.

It's scary that he has to deal with stuff like this already, but hopefully this was just an isolated thing and he'll never have to worry about it again. We're pretty diligent with the sunscreen, so I'm hoping that we'll be doing all we can to avoid more problems. However, for now, I'm just glad it's over.