3 month helmet update

Playing in the lobby before his check up.

I thought I would give an update of Josiah's helmet. I just was noticing that the majority of the pictures that I have uploaded lately have been of him without it. No we where not told that he didn't need it anymore at his check up last week. It is just that most of the picture are taken at night after his bath. He still has it & we still hear the thud of it hitting the floor when he gets tired of sitting or standing up & decides to just fall back. We are going to have issues when we do get it off.

I know that they told us 4-8 months when we 1st got it, but I was secretly thinking that we might be told that he was done with it when went this past Monday for the check up. We had had so much improvement during the 2nd month that I was thinking that it would be even more this time and we might be done. Well I was wrong. The computer index numbers actually got worse. The wrong side (the "good" side or bigger side) grew a 1/16 of an inch more than the other (the "bad" side or smaller side) and that made everything appear to be worst than the last time. I say appear b/c it is still much better than when we started. The computer index was 9 when we started and was the same after 1 month in the helmet. At 2 months it had improved to a 3 (0 is what we are looking for), so I was thinking that maybe just maybe he would get it off early. This time the index was a 5, yeah that is right a tiny little one sixteenth of an inch made it go up 2 points. It is still so much better than when we first met with the neurosurgeon and then physical therapist. If his head does not get any better I would still be happy, b/c it looks good. You can no longer notice a flat spot on the back right of his head.

The helmet does not prevent the "good" side from growing it just encourages the growth to occur on the "bad" side. So it is normal for the growth to occur on the "wrong" side at times. It all depends on how much Josiah grows and where that growth occurs. I think that we have seen such good improvements because we make sure that he wears the helmet like he is suppose to. He is suppose to wear it 23 hours a day. I think that there have been more days that he had it off for less than an hour than off for more than an hour. Trey laughs and calls me the helmet nazi, b/c I am always watching the clock and asking is it time to put his helmet back on.

We take it off at night when we give him his bath. We clean the helmet with alcohol most of the time. If it is super smelly we will use alcohol or peroxide and baking soda to make a paste and put it in the helmet. The baking soda is hard to rinse out so we have to run water over it, so it takes longer to dry. The extended drying time causes me to worry that it will not dry fast enough so I will walk around the house swing his helmet around to help it dry. He loves playing and then drinking his bedtime bottle before we put the helmet back on the put him to bed.