Wednesday, July 23, 2014

Helmet Free!!

YAY!!!!  As of yesterday, Joe no longer has to wear his helmet.
He is an official Graduate!


He wore it for a total of 11 weeks and it definitely made a difference.  First, It helped round
out the back right side of his head.  When looking at his head before he wore the helmet,
that was the main area you would notice because it was so flat.  It is still a little flat, but it's
so much better than what it was.  I'm hoping that as he grows it might round out a little more
on it's own.  Here are before and after pictures (he has a stocking on his head to help
show the true shape of his head).


The other noticeable change was in his forehead.  The left side of his forehead was a little
flat.  The flattening on the back of his head caused the back left side and front
right side of his head to push and stretch out in opposite directions.  This created a flat spot
on the front left of his forehead.  In the before picture above you can see how his left cheek is visible because his forehead is not quite as rounded out as it should be there.  
The helmet helped to round out and add more width to his forehead.

Probably the craziest thing and something you wouldn't even notice by looking at him, was his eyes, ears and cheeks were on different levels, or planes as the technician put it.
  Though it's hard to tell in the pictures, that was the area where we saw the biggest change.  They have a program in the office that allows them to rotate the images of Joe's head before and after the helmet and it gave a great view to show us the differences.
Everything is now lined up and where it should be.  Though, I think he looks cute regardless.


Looking back the time actually went by really fast.  It helped a ton that the helmet didn't 
seem to bother him at all.  The only time it seemed to upset him was when it was hot out.
His poor little head would get all sweaty, so I made sure to stay inside on the hotter days or
give his head plenty of breaks to cool off.  Other than that he wore the helmet nearly 24
hours a day for the past 11 weeks.  The only time we took it off was to give him a quick bath
at night.  I was very diligent about keeping it on him, but even I started to tire of it the last
two weeks.  

I had done so well and then once it got closer to him getting it off I could hardly
wait.  Truth be told, I actually took it off him the day before we had our last appointment.  I was over it and figured one day wouldn't hurt.  I had missed snuggling his little head and
I didn't want to wait any longer.  It was well worth the wait.  I find myself nuzzling up against
his head whenever I get the chance now.  I am very happy we made the decision to help
him with a helmet, but I am even happier that we are done and we we have our
helmet free baby back.  We love you Joe!   

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