New Accessories

Girls get to wear hair bows, tights, skirts...

Boys get to wear hats.

Sounds pretty boring...

Asher decided we needed to spice things up with a new shiny "helmet"

He is a line backer in training...

well not really but, we are trying to shed some light on this folks.

Yesterday didn't go like we thought it would.

Asher loves hats. Never pulls them off, he actually pulls them over his eyes.

He likes things over his face. We figured this would be no big deal....

Asher was tired and hungry before his appointment. Mommy mistake #1

Too many kids in the waiting room for him to pay attention to nurse.

They called him back and immediately put his cranial band (aka. helmet) on his head.

He screamed. Bloody Murder.

Panic set in. This looks much bigger than I expected.

I spent hours on their website www.cranialtechnologies.com looking at other bands.

Visited online support groups, facebook page. I thought I was prepared.

I kept it together, but felt like losing it inside.

No Boob was going to help soothe him at this point. I tried to nurse, he screamed louder. More panic for mommy.

Anytime he would lay his head down he would get louder.

Daddy had the magic touch. He finally calmed down.

They came back 10 minutes later to check on him. Screaming.

They needed to trim part of it away. It was hanging over his left eye.

15 minutes later (notice the amount of time we were waiting kept getting longer...)

Back on and more screaming, no nursing.

We finally left with a very unhappy child...to be expected, I guess?

He fell asleep 5 minutes before we pulled up to the house. FINALLY nursed when we got home and went back to sleep in the swing for an hour. When he woke up he was pretty happy so I snapped a few photos of him and his cuteness.

Although I was probably as traumatized as he was it is already growing on me.

Because his band covers the entire back of his head he didn't wear it to sleep the first night.

The daytime regimine is: on for 2 hours, off to check for red marks...stays off till they are 100% gone and back on again. This happens for the first 2 days. He will wear his band for 23 hours a day for 8-12 weeks. We should notice a difference within 2 weeks!

Why is Asher getting Cranial Band (DOC Band) ?

As I have mentioned Asher has Benign Paraoxysmal Torticollis. Torticollis causes him to crank his neck in a way that has caused his head to develop unevenly causing further neck problems. One side of his face (left) is pulling forward. If this went uncorrected he could have neck, ear, jaw problems as he gets older...and a very odd shaped tilted head. Asher has both Brachycephaly (flattening in the back and disproportionately wide) and Plagiocephaly (oblique slant of the main axis of the skull). The cranial band is not for cosmetic purposes. We are not that vain. This band costs more than most plastic surgery and insurance has denied coverage (we are working on that!) 100% medical.

We are going to try to have fun with his band. We are getting his band painted within the next week by a local artist who does amazing work: www.treasuredinteriors.net. I wont give away what we are doing but it promises to be very cute.

Wish us luck on our first night sleeping in the band!

ps. it's not a helmet...just a cranial band