Elden's Helmet!

Today we got Elden’s helmet! We were at the hospital for several hours while they made slight adjustments for a proper fit. It is a cute little clear plastic helmet with foam padding. It fits real snug around his head and will help mold his head while his brain grows over the next year. Otherwise, his skull would grow back the way it was.

It will take several weeks for Elden (and us) to get used to his helmet. He really doesn’t like it when we put it on, but once it is on, he seems to be ok with it. We are starting off slowly with a 1 hour on, 1 hour off schedule. And we will increase the time he wears it until he is wearing it 23 hours a day – in about a weeks time. Once he wears it 23 hours, we will only take it off at diaper changes, when we get him dressed and bathed– all of those small increments of time over the course of the day should add up to an hour. He will take naps in it and sleep at nighttime in it. Every time we take it off, we will need to clean it out with rubbing alcohol. Elden will wear a helmet until he is at least 18 months old. We will come back to San Antonio several times over the next year to get another scan and another helmet (because he will outgrow the helmet), which takes about a week each time. The next time we will come will be in 6 weeks.

There wasn’t an option to have a colored helmet, bummer!. They said we could paint it, but we don’t feel comfortable with him sitting in a painted helmet (off-gassing of paint?) So, we are going to get stickers to decorate it. We can have fun with that!

Today (Tuesday) was also Mom’s (Grandma’s) birthday! We went to a seafood restaurant on the River Walk to celebrate. Happy Birthday Mom!

On Wednesday we will go to the hospital one last time for our follow-up appointment with the surgeon at 1 pm. And tomorrow we will head home. Hooray! We will probably post one more time before we leave. Thanks everyone for joining us on this journey!