Changes are happening

We have some changes coming to our family this year. Sierra has been diagnosed with Plagiocephaly. Which sounds a WHOLE lot worse than it is. Basically, she has a misshapen head. She prefers to lay on her right side and so her head has become flattened on that side as well has her forehead has been pushed forward a little and her ears are not symmetrical. Now, no ones head is ever really exactly round. Most people only have a difference of less than 7cm. What that means is they measured her head from the from right to the back left and then the front left to the back right. There was a 17cm difference. They then measured from her nose to her left ear which was about 90cm and her nose to her right ear which was about 97. A huge difference. And would make it difficult to wear glasses. Because she lays on one side of her head, she also has a stiff neck. Some would call it Torticollis. But she didn't have ALL the symptoms of torticollis. The pediatrician felt that her stiff neck was more from laying on one side. We are stretching her neck and repositioning her head. It has come to the point though where repositioning isn't enough. She moves too much and even will wake up when we try and turn her head to lay on her left side.

Because of the significant difference in dimensions and the lack of success when repositioning her head we have made the decision to have her wear a helmet. This helmet will be worn 23 hours a day for three months. It puts pressure on the parts of the head that they don't want to grow and leaves room for the head to grow in other places. After 3 months her head will not be perfect but it will be SO much better. A blessing for us is her easy going personality. She fusses for a minute getting her helmet on and getting it off. She just doesn't really like to be messed with. We have had it for 3 days now. She hasn't had to wear it for 23 hours yet....we're still in the getting used to it stage. Last night she slept all night with it for the first time and did OK. I was really worried that it would be a long night. Thankfully it wasn't and when she did wake up at 4:30 Bob got up with her.

The BEST part was when the boys first saw her with her helmet. The first thing Ben said was "Pretty helmet! your so pretty with your helmet!" Melted my heart. Andrew was just as loving to her. They had never gone to a DR appt and so they didn't know what to expect. I couldn't have asked for a better reaction.