Good news and bad news

Easton and I went to his first real physical therapy appointment on Monday. Elissa said that she thought we had made some improvement already. Yea!!!!! We are doing his stretches during every bottle (5 times a day) and it seems to be working well. She said not to expect big changes but small improvements every week is a good sign. I was so happy to hear that.

Today we went to Mary Free Bed to have Easton's head scanned to determine whether or not he needs to wear a helmet. Upon his initial examination the doctor predicted that Easton would not need a helmet, that his head did not appear to be terribly mishapen. Unfortunately after putting him through the Star scan - two separate times b/c he wasn't being very cooperative at first - he got very different results. On a scale from 1 to 5 (1 being no helmet needed and 5 being extreme need for a helmet) Easton scored all 5's. The doctor was shocked. The flat spot on the lower right side of the back of his head is not that bad - that can be corrected very easily. It turns out that Easton's head is not very symmetrical when you look at him from the top of his head. He has more head on the left than he does on the right. The doc attributes that to his torticollis. This is probably not going to be able to be fixed - you can't just push an entire half of a skull over. The best he can do is try to stop the growth on the left side and encourage more growth on the right. So now we wait about 2 weeks for his helmet to be designed. Then we will go in and make sure it fits properly. He will have to make an adjustment so that the helmet does not rub on Easton's cyst on his forehead. The doctor anticipates that E will have to wear it 23 hours a day, every day, for the next 4-5 months. He gets to take the helmet off for bath time and so we can clean the helmet. Everyone says the babies don't put up a fight, that they take to it very well. I sure hope so. I'll be honest with you I cried all the way home today. Not because he has to wear a helmet, big deal. I'm just tired of hearing doctor after doctor tell me something else is "wrong" with my baby. When I look at him he is perfect - even with a bump on his forehead, a crooked neck, and a mishaped head. I wish he didn't have to go through all of this - surgery, physical therapy, and now orthotic therapy. To have to deal with one of those things is not fair for a baby, let alone all three. I can't wait for all of this to be over so that he can just be a regular kid.