Merrick Has Graduated!

[Guest guest]

Well here we are, graduation day!! I am so proud of Merrick for being

such a champ through all of this and helping us to work towards a

round little head and resolved tort. It couldn't have been easy—

dealing with the stretches, the month of repo, the accelerated tummy

time and other gross motor work, and of course the helmet. So, for

those who like empirical data…here are our numbers:

At four months when we decided to band, Merrick had 11mm cranial

vault asymmetry, 5mm mid-face asymmetry and 8 mm skull-base

asymmetry. We ended with 3mm Cranial Vault, 2mm Mid-Face and 3mm

skull-base….so that means we are Normal Normal Normal!!! For those

who like to go by sight—we are extremely pleased and as soon as CT

emails me the photos, I will post them.

A second band was not recommended for us, because we would only be

going for `perfection' and not many of us are, are we ? Also, as we

all know, they can't push in anything that has grown out already, so

there is that grown out side on the left that is what it is.

This has been a crazy journey—from when the pediatrician first

discovered all of this at 3-months to graduating from the band at 6-

months. I have learned a lot—and not just about plagio. I guess these

things have a way of making us stronger. I learned early on that the

only thing holding us back from `correcting' the plagio was my own

guilt. Once I let go of that, it was full speed ahead. I see people

arrive on this board every day and I can sense the guilt. My advice

would be to embrace it, but to let it go, guilt doesn't help us

heal. We all love our children very much and we would never

purposely try to do anything to hurt them. We only hold ourselves

and our children back when we live in that space.

I have met some amazing friends on this board. I could not have

gotten through all of this with sanity if it wasn't for everyone

here. The decorating tips helped so much that only one paint job was

needed over the eight weeks! The stinky head/helmet tips helped us to

get through with minimum stink. And the honesty from everyone helped

me to realize that I wasn't alone in my thoughts. So, a big thank you

to everyone. I will let you know when I can post pics. And, I will

stick around to try to help anyone who needs it….email any time!

One last note—we are so close to `graduating' from PT as well,

Merrick has a 10% tilt that he still falls into intermittently, so we

are still working on strength exercises…he will get there .

H.

Merrick—6-months, DOC Band Graduate 1/8/09!!!!!!!