A Bad Bad Day

Earlier this year I noticed something on Valerie's chin. At first I thought it was a pimple, but after couple of days I realized it was not going away, so I took a closer look at it and realized it looked like a wart. Then I noticed a couple more on her. I then realized that she probably had Molluscums. So I called my sister, because I knew she had dealt with these before. She told me to take her to the doctor. So I took Valerie to our pediatrician (who I really like) and was told that is was molluskum which is a kind of wart virus. I was also told this was very common and she only had a couple, so I didn't need to worry. They are not harmful, and would go away on their on. Only 1% of kids who get it have to be treated, and they don't like to treat, because it could cause scaring. So I took Valerie home and continued on with life. But the Warts kept spreading and becoming a problem.

After a couple of months I began to worry, because when one went away 5 to 10 more replaced it. So we decided to take her to a dermatologist.

I could tell right away that Doctor R did not like what he saw. He told me that he wished I had brought her in right away, because two or three is a lot easier to take care of than the 40 to 50 she had. (believe me when I say I wished I had brought her in earlier too.) But he also told me that what my pediatrician had told me was correct, and it only becomes a problem for about 1% of the people who get it.

He started us on a treatment plan where we applied creams every night before bed. (Reten A and another cream used for acne treatment.) Then we were to come back in and if there were any left he would cut them out and that should take care of it. He didn't want to just cut them out now, because there were so many of them. But the cream should take care of most of them.

The creams stung, and in some places even burned her skin, but Doctor R said it would do that and we needed to treat the spots for 1 month.

Half way through the month I noticed that Valerie was still getting new warts. I called Doctor R. His nurse told me that it was normal for that to happen during the treatment.

When the month ended I knew it had not gotten any better, in fact it seemed worse to me.
So I took her in for the checkup not sure what Doctor R was going to want to do next. He was not happy that it had gotten worse, and said it is very rare for that treatment not to work. So we now had two options, Try another treatment of putting stuff on her skin that causes it to blister, or cut out each one of the spots right then. Both processes would take two or three treatments.

I knew both would be painful, and I also didn't want to mess around anymore. So I asked Doctor R what he would do if it was his kid. I was not surprised when he said cut, because that seemed the best option to me.

So for the next hour Ryan and I had to hold Valerie still while the Doctor R cut out each little spot. He would do a group of 20-25 of them and then leave while we got her cleaned and bandaged. Then he would come do some more.

We did this process four times. It was all I could do not to start crying with Valerie towards the end, but I knew this was what we had to do. I was holding her head still, and I had her turned toward Ryan so Doctor R could get under her chin. It broke my hart when she cried to her dad.

"Daddy help me! It hurts! it hurts!"

Doctor R felt like he got most of them, and he felt like that was a good start, but we have to come back in two weeks. He hopes that there will only be 20 or less when we come back. I hope so too.

On the way home we stopped and got Root-beer Floats to make us feel better. Then later that day Ryan's mom stopped by with a special surprise.

A Dora doll who had ouches too.

Valerie liked putting the bandages on her doll, but she didn't want any more on her.

It has been a few days and things are already looking better, but I still feel so bad about the whole thing.

There is nothing harder as a parent than to watch your child suffer.