Saturday, August 12, 2006

It Has A Name


Well, my new little friend is actually not a medical mystery after all. It is, in fact, called a Pyogenic Granuloma and if you're feeling really brave, I dare you to do a Google Image search for that term. I recommend waiting a few hours after eating to start looking at the pretty pictures. The good news is that it's not malignant or anything scary like that. The wonderful hand surgeon that I saw Friday is actually treating it topically, with a silver nitrate solution that will hopefully kill it and eliminate the need for surgery. He even went so far as to call my pediatrician to make sure none of this stuff would impact the little guy's breast milk, which it won't. The silver solution seems to be working. Although the fnipple is still growing, it seems to have slowed down, is turning black and feels like someone is slowly letting the air out of it.

These aren't particularly common; my doctor says he sees two or three each year. While they don't know what causes these things, they are common during pregnancy. So my theory is that my leftover pregnancy and/or raging breastfeeding hormones are behind this. I also learned that I could've had one in my eye or mouth, so I'm considering myself quite lucky that I didn't. The pain and discomfort are manageable with an Advil now and then. The only down side is the "cap" they made to protect my fingertip. It is flesh-colored plastic, and quite hard, and looks exactly like my hand has grown a penis. Yes, the penis is covering the nipple. My friend suggested that this is my punishment for flipping everyone off as a teenager and she may be on to something. Just goes to prove my theory about God and his sense of humor.

Sorry about the excrutiating detail. So many of you have been concerned and sending me good wishes that I wanted to thank you and reassure you that this looks like it will be over in the next week or two. Besides, there's just something about being an oddity that makes you want to share it with the world.

4 comments:

Kim -today's creative blog said...

Oh wow T- how horrible. I'm so glad you are getting it taken care of and that it's nothing too serious. When you mentioned about getting on an eye, it reminds me of our neighbors dog. This is exactly what she has. Can't wait to tell them.
Good Luck.

@wesome@bby said...

LOL @ the penis! :) Glad there is no cutting involved, that it is not harming the breast milk, and that it is indeed on your finger and not protruding from, say, your eye. Yuck. Hope it's gone really soon! XOXOX

Nancywithajones said...

ewwwwwwwww bless your heart glad the penis finger will be better soon

Artful Creations by Tracie said...

Oh my! I'm a bit behind in my blog readings and so now that I'm all caught up.....eeeeeeeeew! Love the phalic reference, but I wanna know why we can't see this protruding invader instead of the phalic cap?!! C'mon, this is blogger, we share it all!!