Max's Helmet

Last month, Maximus was fitted for a cranial remolding orthosis, a helmet, to correct the shape of his head. Yesterday we got the helmet from the orthotist. Max has the condition plagiocephaly, or flat head syndrome, due to his having torticollis, which causes him to turn his head predominantly to the right. Because he spent a lot of time lying on his back, and turning his head to the right while on his back, the right side of his head is flattened some. This helmet will allow the flattened parts of his head to grow out while restricting grown in the directions where his head has already grown out. After a brief break-in period, Max will be wearing his helmet for twenty-three hours a day until his head has a rounder shape. The orthotist estimated that this will take until Max is about eleven months old. So he could be wearing his helmet for about five months.

Prior to receiving the helmet yesterday, I was concerned that Max would have a problem with having the helmet on his head. However, its presence didn't seem to bother Max one bit. He does not act any differently whether it is on or off, and he hasn't tried to remove it from his head. For a couple of weeks, until he is completely adjusted to having the helmet, Max will probably have a harder time sitting up and rolling over. However, he will have the benefit of being able to fall over from a sitting position without hurting his head. Of course, when he finally gets rid of the helmet, he may be in for an unpleasant surprise when he does bump his head. We are going to have to start washing Max's hair daily now, instead of every other day as we have been doing. Otherwise, the helmet, which we will also have to wash daily, will begin to smell bad. I am really looking forward to seeing the progress that Maximus makes by wearing his helmet.

Surgery and Recovery

On Thursday I had my gallbladder removed. And as I was not going to be able to eat from between midnight prior to my surgery until after the procedure was completed, I decided that I wanted to have a large dinner Wednesday. So Mel, Emma, Maximus, my mother, including my mother, who came to visit to watch Maximus, my sister, and I went to the Cheesecake Factory for dinner. I thought that was a good place to go since their portions are notoriously large. However, I ordered an item off of their specials menu. Those entrées are not as large. Nevertheless, I still had plenty to eat. Around nine o'clock that night, I had my last food prior to my surgery, half of the cheesecake that I had brought home from the restaurant.

Thursday morning, after taking Emma to daycare, and doing some shopping at the grocery store and Target, Mel and I headed to the surgery center. I was a little nervous. Prior to this surgery, the only surgery I had had was having my wisdom teeth removed. However, the fact that this surgery was routine did help to ease my nerves a bit. I figured that the chances of something going wrong were very remote.

Upon arriving at the surgery center, the nurse prepped me for surgery, putting an IV in my hand. I really hate needles, so I wasn't looking forward to that, but it wasn't too bad. The anesthesiologist came in to ask me a few questions, and then the surgeon stopped by to tell me that he had another laparoscopic cholecystectomy to perform before mine, so he would be in good practice when it came to mine. After waiting for an hour or so, I was wheeled into the surgery room. I seem to remember them saying something about the operating table not being long enough, but that is the last thing I recall before waking up in the recovery room. When I came to, I apparently was trying to sit up, because I seem to remember the nurses yelling at me to not sit up. After being observed for an hour and a half or so, Mel and I went back home.

I actually felt pretty good initially after my surgery, although I did take some generic Vicodin upon returning home to ensure I continued to feel all right. I also had some crackers and Jell-O to eat once I got home since I was so hungry, but didn't think a full meal would be advisable. I didn't have much pain at all until I laid down to go to bed. That hurt quite a bit, but taking ibuprofen and more Vicodin helped. I ended up going to sleep fairly quickly.

Yesterday I felt fairly good and ended up eating a good lunch and dinner. Staying medicated helped to keep pain away, although my right shoulder felt stiff most of the day. In fact, I felt well enough out that Mel, Maximus, and I even went out for a little bit. I didn't feel much pain at all yesterday until I tried to feed Max and ended up stretching in an uncomfortable way. The next real pain I had last night was when a joke on truTV's World's Dumbest made me laugh. It was very painful when I laughed, but I couldn't stop! I had to get up and leave the room, because just watching the clip on the show kept me wanting to laugh.

I seem to be recovering just fine from my surgery. Later this morning I will be able to remove the dressings from the four incision sites. Then I will get my first look at where the surgeon inserted his tools.

A Date with a Surgeon

Perhaps I should have written this blog entry before the previous one, but yesterday I went to see a surgeon about my gallbladder issues. Even though I haven't had any pain from it in over two weeks, the fact that I had two occurrences of pain that week, the other being two days before, the surgeon recommended that I have my gallbladder removed before it causes any more issues. So next Thursday, a week from today, I will be having a cholecystectomy done. This week has been, and next week will be busy weeks in the medical area for the Mathman family.

The Craniofacial Clinic

Back in June I blogged about how Maximus has torticollis, a condition which causes him to tilt his head to the left and look to the right. He has been going to physical therapy since then to work on that. We have also been doing exercises with him at home to stretch out his neck muscles to prevent this. However, despite this intervention, he still prefers to turn his head to the right when he is lying down, and as a result of this, he has developed plagiocephaly, or a flat spot on his head.

The hope was that his physical therapy would help in rounding his head out, but this has not happened. So today we went to the craniofacial clinic at a local hospital to have him evaluated. After taking some measurements, the nurse practicioner and orthotists decided that a helmet would help to correct Maximus's plagiocephaly. Maximus was fitted for a helmet. To do this, the orthotist put a cap on his head that contained reflective dots. She then scanned around his head with a laser which took information from the position of the dots. A computer then created a three-dimensional image of Maximus's head from the data it received. Maximus also needed to have a CT scan done to make sure that two of the bones of his skull had not yet fused. He actually did very well for that, especially considering how bundled up he was. Maximus hates being bundled up.

This afternoon, after we got home, we got a call from the nurse practitioner letting us know that the CT scan showed that everything was normal, and that we can proceed to order Maximus's helmet. I will call the orthotist tomorrow to set that up. She was supposed to email us a file showing the different color and pattern options, but she apparently did not get around to that yet. Hopefully she can do that when I call tomorrow so they can get to work on Maximus's helmet.

Getting Back on Track

I did a pretty good job at losing weight once I started back on WeightWatchers on May 5. However, since the beginning of June I have struggled a bit at continuing to lose weight, as shown in the graph below. While I am not looking forward to the prospect of having a cholecystectomy, the fact that I have been having issues with my gallbladder has made me reevaluate what I have been eating lately. This has provided the extra motivation to eat well, as I do not want another gallbladder attack. Hopefully my gallbladder issues will be resolved soon after I see a surgeon in a couple of weeks. And while I would enjoy going back to care-free eating, I think I really need to focus on eating right!

Trip to the ER

Yesterday afternoon, while I was working, I suddenly got an intense pain in my stomach. At first I thought I was just hungry, so I grabbed something to eat, a hot dog. About the same time I was eating the hot dog, I noticed that my back was hurting as well. Something just did not seem right, so I went to the computer and searched Bing to see what having back pain and stomach pain at the same time could possibly mean for me. While I was doing this I started to get a headache as well. Meanwhile, the results from my search of the Internet led me to think that I should probably go to the emergency room, or at the very least, I should call my doctor's office to see what they though.

I tried calling my doctor's office but no one answered, so I proceeded to call a hospital where I explained my symptoms to the triage nurse. She suggested that I either come to the emergency room or call my doctor for a recommendation. I called my doctor's office back and the nurse there also suggested that I go to the ER. I then called my aunt to come get Maximus. She also insisted that I should not drive myself to the hospital, so she and my cousin took me there as well.

Mel showed up after I had been admitted, but before I had been seen. She had been at a doctor's appointment of her own when I called her to let her know I was going to the hospital. I had an ultrasound done on my abdomen. About an hour and a half after the ultrasound, I learned that I either have stones or sludge in my gallbladder. Removing it wasn't an emergency, so they sent me home with instructions to see my doctor to see about having surgery done. They also sent me home with a prescription for Vicodin. I haven't used any of that though as I have yet to experience any pain since returning home.