Well, a little background in case I really haven't written about it. When Owen was born we noticed that he had a "mark" on his left forearm. Over time we realized that it was definitely a birthmark and not a bruise or discoloration of his skin. As he got older it became a little raised and then started to get hair on it. We questioned our pediatrician about it and he kept an eye on it for several months. It became obvious that it was getting larger and we wondered if we needed to have it checked by a dermatologist. We went to a local dermatologist and when he walked in a looked at it, he immediately said that it needed to be removed because it would turn into cancer. Needless to say, we weren't very pleased with what he said. So our pediatrician referred us to a pediatric dermatologist.....who's office was about an hour away. We met with him and really liked him. He told us that there was less than a 3% chance that it would turn cancerous and that it only needed to be removed if we wanted it to be.
So we left there with a better feeling than when we had gone, but with a new decision....to remove the birthmark or not. Tony and I both like the birthmark. We see it as being part of who he is and we really don't want to change ANYTHING about him.....but we both know how cruel kids can be.....we know if we have it removed now, that it would be smaller than if we waited until he was old enough to make the decision for himself (it continues to get larger as he grows). So what to do.....what to do.....Both of our Drs....the pediatric dermatologist and the pediatrician would not really tell us what to do one way or the other....so its one of those big decisions we had to make ourselves as parents....and its scary! The pediatric dermatologist did tell us that most kids do want them removed at some point....so that was the only "guidance" we had on the situation...
We finally came to the decision to have it removed. We really wanted to have it done now instead of waiting until he was bigger. Its scary to think of him having another surgery and going under anesthesia again, but I guess lots of things are scary when you are a parent! We met with the pediatric plastic surgeon yesterday and he was really nice. He answered all of our questions about scarring (which was really our biggest concern about the whole thing) and assured us that we were making the right decision to have it removed now instead of later. We went ahead and scheduled the surgery before we left....and it will be Oct 10th. It is not really that far away and I'm sure that it will be here before we know it.....
