Another diagnosis

The dermatologist said erythroderma, the oncologist said he had no clue, and today the optometrist said Pop has ectropion - ectropion is a condition in which stretching of the lower eyelid with age allows the eyelid to droop downward and turn outward. Eyelid burns or skin disease may also cause this problem. The doctor also said that there was a stitch from Pop's cataract surgery leftover in his eye, a surgery that happened years ago.

So basically, the eye doctor said the droopy eyelids would clear up as soon as the rash did. In the meantime, he gave Nana a bunch of samples of eye drops and creams.

So that's our update for today. Next week we should have something else to explain this terrible rash.

Erythroderma

Anyone who has seen Pop in the last week has also seen the unsightly and disturbed rash that started on his hand, moved up under his eyes and now covers his entire body. Most noticeably his face, which is peeling intensely, is affected - along with his eyes, but we'll get to that in a minute.

Well now we know what to call it, erythroderma. Nana and Pop just got back from the dermatologist and he said the most likely cause of the rash is erythroderma. This is much worse than anyone expected - the general consensus (or guess, really) was that it was a side effect of one of his drugs, or withdrawal from a drug.

Erythroderma (also known as "Exfoliative dermatitis," "Dermatitis exfoliativa," and "Red man syndrome") is an inflammatory skin disease with erythema and scaling that affects nearly the entire cutaneous surface. Specifically, the doctor believes it is related to his cancer (or lymphomatous erythroderma), and took a biopsy to test - results of which will come back next week.

So I guess sometimes no news is good news...