DD has a bruise that isn't going away.

[SaulGood]

8yo dd complained a few weeks ago that she had a bruise on her inner thigh. She said she couldn't remember how she did it. It looked very much like a mark made by her little brother pinching her which on occasion, when frustrated, he does. He also tends to aim for her thigh or the tops of her arms. She's also as active as most 8yos and rides her scooter everywhere, occasionally crashing and bruising her legs. I put it down to that.

A week ago she mentioned it was still there and I had a good look and it had faded to a browny colour but I could feel a lump directly underneath it. Around the size of a pea. She said it was sore.

A week later and it's still there, same size, sort of a reddy colour but she says it's more sore than it was. She does admit though that she squeezes it because there's a lump underneath it and it 'feels funny'. I don't know if that's exacerbating things.

I have a terrible health anxiety, particularly where the dc are concerned and I am jumping to the absolute worst conclusions. Because that helps, obviously.

She's not ill, not tired or not herself. She's perfectly well. She's also had other run of the mill, fell off her scooter or got whacked with a golf club bruises in the last couple of weeks and they've cleared up within a couple of days. It's just this bruise on her thigh.

I've made a GP appointment for after school today as it's preying on my mind but is there a chance this is absolutely nothing and my sky high anxiety and terror is unnecessary? I need to stop googling.

You are amazing. No ball dropping going on here, just a fantastic mum. Scary as it sounds at the moment all of this medical attention means they are taking it seriously and checking it out thoroughly. I think the odds are heavily in your favour of this being nothing to worry about but if it is more tricky it sounds like they have your back.
Again- you are amazing. X

Thinking of you and keeping everything crossed . Xx

If her hypermobility has some skin involvement (so hypermobiity syndrome/hypermobility sprectrum disorder) then it could just be that her skin and/or subcutaneous layers have reacted in a somewhat strange way and that is making them worried. Collagen disordered skin (which affects a minority of people with a hypermobility condition) can form all sorts of random lumps and bumps. I have Ehlers Danlos syndrome (so the more serious end of the hypermobility disorders) and my skin does all sorts-most recently a spontaneous haemangioma- without it being dangerous. I'm not sure if this is helpful or not, but just a heads up that this could be related to her hypermobility.

I clicked on this thread as I am worried my DD8 has similar, but can see you have really gone through the mill on this. Hope all goes well with the scan. Poor you and DD.

I also suffer with anxiety that has transferred into health anxiety over my DS. It is utterly hideous, and I truly sympathise. Your mind can't help but leap to the worst possible scenario, can it? It was explained to me some years ago that my catasrophising puts me in a very unhappy place that I don't have to be in at this point.

The best way it was explained to me was to visualise your thought processes as a tree. The initial problem is situated on one of the lower branches, but from this point you keep hopping way ahead onto higher branches. The path you choose to take as you move up is the most dangerous one as well - you deliberately keep picking the most precarious branch (the worst-case scenario) to move onto, as opposed to several other more sturdy looking branches (other far more likely causes of the problem). From that precarious branch you then move to the next shaky and thin-looking one, and so on, and so on, until you eventually find yourself, by now a quivering wreck, out on a tiny shaking branch with a 100ft drop beneath you. The anxiety you are experiencing at this point is unbearable.

It's incredibly hard but you have to try to break this chain of thinking, otherwise you'll crash with the anxiety. When trying this was suggested to me, my immediate response was, "Yes, but all the symptoms suggest condition X, so I can't help but assume it actually IS condition X." The answer I got was that, well, there were actually PLENTY of other benign conditions also suggested by the symptoms, but hey, if I was insistent on it being condition XYZ, then let's try out saying it is and take it from there.

I thought this was a pretty odd thing to suggest to reduce my anxiety, but it made me realise that condition XYZ was not actually at the end point of my worst-case scenario thought process - my mind had already skipped on a whole load more branches from that point. So, in my head, it was indeed condition XYZ, but a specific form of XYZ that was difficult to treat, and moreover it had probably been made worse by condition ABC making it harder to treat, so in my case, the treatment wouldn't work, and so on and so on, until I reached the scenario I feared most of all.

The thing is, at this point you're still in the low branches! The path that will lead from here is so very unlikely to be the one that you are fearing most. I also think it's really very reassuring you have heard nothing more yet!

Thinking of you

Hi OP I have been thinking of you! Do you have any news?
I am a paeds nurse and think if you haven't heard by lunchtime today you can definitely call the secretary and ask for a plan. Hopefully you'll get some steadfast plans before the weekend. Hope this helps!

Morning. I think. I didn't sleep much. I did watch 4 episodes of The West Wing at silly o'clock though. How did I miss it first time round?

Eppia, that all makes perfect sense and I'm sorry you also struggle with anxiety. I'm not sure how to stay on those low branches though. I'm up that tree and hanging from a burning jet before anybody can even suggest a ladder. I am so rational in so many other ways. I'm also good at talking other people through stuff. Health? Not a chance.

Unweaved, I've never really considered where on the spectrum dd's hypermobility falls. Even though my friend and her DC have EDS. Knowing how much and how severely it impacts them day to day, I think I just labelled DD as "a bit bendy" as her situation wasn't remotely comparable to our friends'. I knew she was likely tending that way early on as dh's family are all similarly hypermobile. MIL does quite the party trick with it and bil has turned it into a career in gymnastics and then ballet. Sadly, at 30, he's now retired from that stuff and in constant pain. He's bendy but fucked and needs more elbow and knee surgery. DD was diagnosed because she started suffering knee and ankle pain very regularly, puberty growth spurts in particular meant she was twisting and straining her lower joints regularly. A physio diagnosed her and she sees him every 6 months and an orthotist as it has made her arches collapse. Her lower limbs are particulaly loose but it affects her fingers, wrists and elbows too.

I did some idle googling last night and actually, there's probably more to it but mostly for DH. He has always been healthy and sort of lives with a few separate issues. He has scoliosis (told it was just one of those things), bowel and occasional bladder issues (investigated and labelled IBS), reflux and anxiety (job stress), weird skin prone to stretch marks (just a weird quirk), always tired even after a good night's sleep (again job stress). Nobody has ever pulled all this together but it paints the perfect picture of hypermobility syndrome. He just gets on with the joint pain and injuries. He does triathlons! We joke that DD favours DH. She does get constipated and has since birth. We just watch her diet. She also has reflux like her dad. I've never even considered it was all linked. Sounds like I can blame DH's genes for something. Wish I could believe this lump, bruise thing is merely a product of this too but that's wishful thinking I suspect. She's never had any skin problems.

I'm going to ring the hospital at 9 and see where we are. Sadly, my eldest niece is now vomiting. Ruddy noro. We're succumbing at a rate of one per day currently.

Noro on a holiday is rough!

When are you due home?

Hope all goes well and the news is good.

Have you posted in a different name? I've only skim read so might be confused, did you want to keep this on a separate name, might you want to get it changed (ignore me if I've got it wrong, can't get the hang of scrolling back up on the app)

Hope all goes well and the news is good.

Have you posted in a different name? I've only skim read so might be confused, did you want to keep this on a separate name, might you want to get it changed (ignore me if I've got it wrong, can't get the hang of scrolling back up on the app)

Not worried about the name thing. I'm usually ShowOfHands but was trying to post as SaulGood simply for continuity from 2 years ago so it makes it easier for people to scan. I just keep forgetting to change it before posting!

Going home tomorrow.

It will be much better to be at home given all that has gone on this holiday.

yy to the West Wing.

You sound like a wonderful mum. A lot of mums wouldn't have gone to the doctors at all, you did twice and was reassured. Safe trip home and hope you get the all clear soon.

Sending love to you all

Consultant is calling back after afternoon clinic/rounds to discuss.

Trying to fill the time with debating exactly which shells we MUST take home.

Horrible waiting for the call. Hope you are doing ok?

Keep your chin up, Saul. If it weren't for you this wouldn't have been investigated at all

Cancer doesn't shrink by itself and then come back. A million billion other types of boring lumps and bumps and cysts and shite do though.

But I am another HA sufferer so my sympathies. It will be okay though.

I have a friend who gets the most amazing cysts. Honestly, the human body is capable of so much disgusting stuff. And I get them in my boobs, and they sometimes need to drain them to check they're ok. The first time that happened, I shat myself. Now, not bothered.

But you absolutely have done everything right. You haven't dropped a ball. We can't go poking our kids every week to see if they've got a lump. We would ruin their lives with anxiety. You've absolutely done this right.

Hope all is ok op. You live near me!

Trying to be at one with nature and all that jazz while we wait.

Not sure I'm doing it right but it's not a bad place to try.

Just spoken to a very lovely consultant. I know that their job is partly talking down hysterical mothers but blimey, she was good. She's the Weird and Worrying Lumps in Children Specialist.

DD needs to be seen because it's unresolved and they want to do it fairly urgently but not URGENTLY. She originally said it would be a couple of weeks but then realised she is off on holiday after next week so said she'd book her in for late next week for a contrast MRI and consultation. She also said Dd's first MRI would be looked at next Weds at a professionals meeting and that she might have more of an idea of diagnosis just from that so she'd ring and let me know more when she's reviewed the MRI. Regardless, they'll do a contrast MRI anyway as they do it as standard with undiagnosed lumps.

So, she hasn't looked at the MRI yet. Only had the report.

She was extremely lovely and said all the right things.

Give me an hour and I'll be back to panicking that she hasn't seen the MRI and she'll take one look at it and ring straight back. I know that's a given. But right now I'm less hysterical.

Haven't eaten since Tues morning either which isn't helping.

So, I'll await an appointment. Await more calls. Not sure how much of an update this is.

We're out of quarantine and have cabin fever, plus a pocket full of 2 pences and one night left in Devon. We're off to feed the tarnished slots of greed in exchange for the hope of plastic tat.

She's a Consultant Paediatric Oncologist. She deserves her proper title, not my online ramblings. And she was LOVELY.

Well done OP. Thinking positive thoughts for you. Enjoy your evening feeding the greedy slots and try not to worry

So glad the consultant was lovely, it helps so much when you feel like they're on your side. Wishing you and your dd all the best.