Bye-Bye Helmet!

After almost a year after we started this journey, it was finally time for Rhett to "graduate" from his DocBand.  After 41 trips to Austin, it was such a great feeling to head to Rhett's final appointment at Cranial Technologies.  If you have not heard Rhett's story, you can read where it started here.  

When we got there, the wonderful staff took some final images of Rhett's head.  They have a super fancy machine in this super fancy room to take the pictures.  Every time we go into this room I am nervous that one of my children are going to break something.  Ha!  

Rhett did great!  He had to wear a net over his hair/face, sit on a stool, and sit still, while the cameras did their work.  I bribed him with some silly songs and a light up toy.

Then we waited in another room while the images loaded.  The twins had a little snack, a quick diaper change, and some time to play while we waited.

This is the expression we got from Rhett when we told him he was not going to have to wear his helmet anymore...  Well, actually, this was the face he made when he saw his snack.  But he was excited to get rid of that stinky helmet, too!

And now, the really cool pictures.  The images on the left side will show Rhett's face/head before he wore the helmet.  The image on the right is the current shape.

This one is amazing.  You can really see how Rhett's head was so prominent on the right side, and it shows the flatness on the left side.  We sill have some flatness there, but it is so much better!

This next one is an aerial view.  You can see how his head is so prominent on the right side.  The DocBand helped the left side (the flat side) to fill out more. So the right side will always stick out a little bit more because that was what we started with.  Even though Rhett's head will never be perfectly round, we are so pleased with the progress.

They also take photos with a regular camera for comparison purposes.  Here are a few of Rhett from start to finish.

And here is Rhett receiving his first ever certificate!  He is now officially a DocBand Graduate!  And we couldn't be happier!

We are forever thankful to the wonderful staff at Cranial Technologies for the special care they gave our baby boy.  In a very scary and overwhelming situation, they offered precise expertise, support, encouragement, and guidance.  

Bye bye helmet(s)!!!

(For those of you who are wondering, we still have all 3 helmets that Rhett wore.  Since they are custom made, they can only be used one time, by one child.  We weren't sure what we wanted to do with them, and I felt weird about throwing them away.  I am not one to keep "stuff" but for now we are just hanging on to them.  I think it will be neat to show Rhett something that was such a huge part of his first year of life!  Who knows....he may even take a helmet to kindergarten for show-and-tell!  I figured we will let the twins play with them on their stuffed animals when they get a little older.)