Dr. Lydia Turnbell is dermatologist, but when she noticed a tiny red bump on her 2-year-old daughter Lainey's arm, she didn't think it was serious.
“It was a tiny little bump on the back of her arm, maybe three to four millimeters — a little red bump. And I didn't really think much of it,” Lydia tells Fox 9.
Lydia thought it was maybe a molluscum, a benign skin infection. But when she treated the mole with acid, something strange happened. The mole soon grew back.
The mother knew something was terribly wrong. As a dermatologist and a mother, she felt obligated to look at the mole more seriously. After a biopsy, Lainey was diagnosed with spitzoid melanoma.
“I was horrified,” Lydia says. “I think as a parent, you never want to hear your child has cancer. So when you do… you lose everything because everything is out of your control.”
Luckily, the melanoma was caught in its early stages and hadn't spread to Lainey's lymph nodes. A surgeon removed the melanoma. Although she has a pretty big scar under her arm, her family calls it her "tiger stripe."
Lydia has a message for parents out there: Be diligent.
"You are your own best child's advocate because you are giving baths, seeing them every day. And the doctor is just meeting them for the first time once or twice per year,” Lydia says. “So it's important to look them over. Know their skin. Know the moles they have and keep an eye on them. Know if they are changing. If there's ever an ugly duckling mole that doesn't look like the rest, that's when I would pick up the phone and call. Either see a pediatrician or more importantly a board-certified dermatologist who is trained to see these lesions."
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