Monday, February 20, 2012

Doctor Report

I figured I better get an update on our doctor visit today, as many of you are probably wondering. We feel we did come away today with more info and encouragement than we did last week.
The 'lesion' under Marissa's nail did come back benign, praise the Lord! BUT he said that they are not totally ruling anything out yet. He said that to have completely removed it all, you have to remove a 'margin' area around and underneath the lesion to get all the cells in the surrounding area that could be infected, if it is Melanoma. Which for her, he would have had to remove some bone too since it was so deep. So, he chose to not severely deform her finger by doing that until he knew what he was dealing with. So, he removed just the lesion, not the surrounding area. Because of that, IF the margin area has infected cells, they will re-group and form another lesion that will grow out along with her new nail-bed. If that happens, then they will know they are dealing with Melanoma. We won't know what the cells are doing until her new nail-bed grows out, which is about 3 months. She is to go back in 6 weeks to see if the new nail, which will be slightly grown out till then, is at all showing signs of a new lesion. But we cannot totally know until the 3 months when hew nail is grown out. We felt relieved to know that the test was benign, but we still have to fight a deep down inside fear of what those cells are planning. He said they will keep a close eye on her since Melanoma is the worst, most aggressive and deadly cancer. Not a comforting thought. I asked him why of all places under a nail, when I think of skin cancer, I think of skin and sun exposure, not nail beds. He said only God knows why that spot. We have no way of knowing where it can pop up, it does not have to be just from the sun. I also asked if it is possible to be treating one area and it could show up at another spot at the same time, kind of like it is in your system, and he said it can. He felt confident that all is going to be well. He did speak with the doc that did the pathology test while we were there, and he agreed that this is the best thing to do since that 'margin' area is still there.
She goes back next week for the stitches to be removed. She will not be put to sleep as we originally thought since he used a very fine thread. So I am not sure how that will go. She was panicky today to have the bandage removed, she is very sensitive with her thumb. She also cried at how "disgusting" it looked. (~: Her old nail is there but not attached, and will fall off as her new nail grows in.
Once again, we thank everyone for their prayers. We do feel that God answered our prayers on the Pathology test showing benign. We now pray that those cells stay put where they are supposed to and don't cause future problems!

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