Friday Update...

Hello all...I realized today that it has been a while since my last blog post. Shame on me...:D We have been very busy over this time and I'll tell you about that now.



Brendan went in on Monday March 2 for his 9 month appointment. It was a pretty eventful, crazy appointment to say the least. While we were in the waiting room, B sat on my lap for a while, then decided he wanted to get down and stand up. He was holding onto a table and I was holding on to him. Before I knew it he was falling backwards and bonked his head on the hard floor (I thought that I was holding onto him enough...I so do not know how it happened?!!!). So I scooped him up and he was crying bloody murder....I was trying to sooth him and then looked at his head. He had a pretty big bump on the back of his head...it really freaked me out. So I told the nurses in the front and they got me into a room and B was still crying...so they ordered an X-ray (which he probably would have gotten done anyway because we are concerned at how his head is growing....there's a flat spot). B did calm down and was all snuggly...until we had to get the x-ray done. He was bawling and bawling again. My heart was just breaking.They got the x-ray's done and we went back for his appointment. The doctor came in and said it was good news and good news. I started crying...(B has fallen off the bed and bumped his head so many times over the last week that I just lost it!) No skull fracture and the skull still has not fully sealed or whatever. B was fine during the rest of the appointment and the Dr. said I didn't have to worry about a concusion or anything...but I still felt soooo bad that it happened.


So, he did not have a skull fracture, but we were still concerned that his head was not growing out as much as we think it should have by now. I asked Dr. Becker, "Ok, what should we do about his head if we are still concerned about the shape of it?" He said he would refer us to Gillette's Children's hospital to have it checked out.



We were very lucky and got an appointment right away...it was on Tuesday of last week. It was a full day kinda thing...our first appointment was at 11 a.m. It was with a nurse practioner...she checked B out and told us that he has slight torticollis (tight muscle) in his neck, which caused a flattening of one side of his head. She told us that he would do some PT for the neck muscle and then said we COULD do a CranioCap (helmet) to help change the shape of B's head. But that decision was up to us. DH asked her what she would do if it was her child and she proceeded to give us a 3 minute run around. We were not very happy with this situation as both of us had no idea what we should do...the PT *might* help the shape on it's own, but if we wanted to...the helmet *might* help it along faster...After the first appointment, we had 1 hour until our next appointment with the physical therapist. We decided to go and have lunch and talk about the helmet. We read over the info that we had received about it...called to see what the cost of the helmet would be...called our insurance about how much was covered...then called my MIL to see what her advice was (she was the eaisest parent to get ahold of...); we were both on the fence about doing or not doing it...then my MIL gave us good advice and told us to ask the PT person what her thoughts on the helmet were because she has seen the difference between doing it and not doing it! Well, we felt good about doing that, so we finished our lunch and then went to the PT appointment. She discussed what she would do for B, showed us stretches to do at home and overall assessed the little man. (Who to this point had been an absolute angel the whole day). We then asked her what her thoughts on the helmet were and she said that if we were on the fence about it, we SHOULD do it. She said that it is amazing what a difference the helmet makes...so, we decided then and there that we would go the helmet route.



After our PT appointment, we got in with the assistive technology department to have B's head scanned for the helmet to be made. Ok, what the helmet does is pushes on the side that is grown out well and leaves an open spot of the side that is flat to grow into. B will get his first helmet (they change them periodically over the course of treatment, which is 2-4 months) on the 27th.



We had his 2nd PT appointment on Monday and the Phsycial Therapist said that she could already see improvement in his range of motion! Yay!!! His next PT will also be on the 27th. After that he goes in every 2 weeks for PT and helmet fittings. All of the appointments are in St. Paul, so we will be doing some driving over the next few months...but we totally know that it is worth it!!! We would not feel right if we didn't do something...KWIM?!? Could you imagine the poor guy when he was older going...hmmmm...what's wrong with my head. Or if he wanted to shave his head when he got older and we would have to say...Ummmm you might not want to do that, you see, you have a flat spot and we decided not to fix it for you. We totally confident in our decision to go this route with B and will update you all on the progess as we go along!