Blade’s First Graduation!

Our Sweet Number 5 graduated from his DOC Band about a week ago – woohoo! He was in his band for just under 3 months and they flew by. Miss Kylee went along to help us celebrate :]

My sweet boy and his first certificate!

Yay Blade! He’s a clapper as of about a month ago ;)

Although I was very impressed with the technology Cranial Technologies used when the quads were in their bands, they’ve upgraded yet again and the imaging resources are amazing. This is just one of the many pictures we have of his DSI images, the left being before banded and the right picture now. When in the office, the pictures can be rotated together on the screen giving you a phenomenal look at every last angle of the baby’s head. So cool!

Here’s some of our own before and after pics…

one more before…

…and the best after I could get. This dude moves non stop these days! Huge difference and Bret and I are super happy we decided to band him.

A look back at the quads’ DOC Band graduations. Baxlyn, Korbin & Kylee…

…and our Broman after his long journey with his bands. Oh that hair!

For those of you that are the least bit concerned about your baby’s head shape, I encourage you to go visit our friends at Cranial Technologies. An evaluation is completely FREE and I promise you won’t feel forced to band if it’s truly not needed! We’ve been nothing but happy with the company and the results, well, they speak for themselves :)

My Little GRADUATE!

7 head molds and 8 helmets later we said good bye to Cranial Technologies forever! All four were "diagnosed" with moderate to severe (severe being Brody) positional plagiocephaly in July of 09. Baxlyn, Kylee & Korbin graduated out of their DOC bands back in November and yesterday was Brody's long awaited BIG day! Most babies wear their bands from 4-8weeks.... Brody sported his for nearly a year. Poor dude broke records with his and has worn it more than half of his life! Brody has a total of four molds that we were able to keep. It's amazing to hold and literally feel in your hands what his head WAS like and what it IS like today - huge difference!

My Big Man with his Certificate! Congrats Brody!
When Brody grew out of his last helmet we questioned whether or not to do another. His head surely needed it, but the question was is his head still moldable enough for the helmet to help. We thought the helmet could only help and it was (thank God) covered 100% by insurance so we went for it - helmet number 5. Just weeks after he got the new band we went on our vacation to Kentucky. While there we spent A LOT of time outside in the blistering heat therefore Brody didn't wear the DOC band. Once we got home we put it on him and within minutes he had figured out how to take the dang thing off. After many attempts at making him wear it we came to the conclusion that it was time to throw in the towel... Brody's DOC days were over.

Below are some images of Brody at the beginning of his DOC band journey (on the left) compared to this week at his final appointment. Although his head isn't anywhere near perfect it is MUCH MUCH MUCH better! (Ignore the random finger. Brody had torticollis as well making it nearly impossible to hold his head straight.)


In the pic below if you look to the bottom left of his head, you can see his shunt. The shadowed part on the right side of his head was significantly flat and caved in which now looks much better!
and a view from the top!

When the others graduated I got a sweet little group picture of them sitting together with there certificates... THIS was all I got this time around... ridiculous man! We tried and tried and tried again to get them to stay still and it just didn't happen!

Our last goodbyes to our friends at Cranial Technologies. Baxlyn leading the pack with a big wave!
Thanks to all of the staff and therapists for taking such good care of our babies over the past year! We GREATLY appreciate everything you did for us!