The Good
Anyone who knows the boys and sees them without their helmets comments “I can’t believe how much better their heads look!” And I wanted to believe that there was a change, too, but I was worried that it was just their thickening hair playing tricks on our eyes.
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| Gray, 4 months |
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| Gray, 8 months |
But on Friday, I got my proof. We went back for our 6 week adjustment and Jim the orthotist ran a scan of both boys to see their improvement. These pictures show the life-size shape of their heads as if looking down on top of them. The red line is the original scan 9 weeks ago; the blue line is their heads last week.
Ren (above) has shown great improvement considering he hasn’t grown. The boy is just as small as he was in March. But that means a growth spurt is imminent, and the helmets do their best work when babies grow suddenly. And the little bit of change he has made shows that he’s growing in the right direction.
Grayden’s massive cranium (already in the 95% percentile), on the other hand, has grown tremendously. You can see that his head is rounding out over the previous flat spot. (Where does he get that big head? Our old hairdresser in Adrian said that my mom, my sisters, and I had extremely small noggins, so it must come from the Watts family. Now that I think about it, Larry’s visors are always barely velcroed together).
The Bad
We have all become dependent on the helmets. I do not worry when Ren crawls under tables or stands using a flimsy toy for balance. Grayden thinks nothing of sitting and suddenly throwing himself backwards onto the floor. They’ve got helmets to protect them, right?
Except for that one hour of the day that I take the helmets off and clean them. After the boys’ baths, they are free to crawl on the floor. Which goes fine until they forget that their helmets are on the front porch, drying in the sun, and not on their heads, protecting their craniums from bumps and bruises. Ren will bang is head on the sliding glass door, and Grayden will tumble over and land on hard plastic toy. Shrieks and tears ensue, and if one is crying, the other is sure to join in, even if he’s perfectly fine playing on the floor. If any scratches appear where the helmet would cover them, we have to leave the helmet off until they heal! And I can only hope that when the helmets permanently come off in the next two to four months, the boys are agile movers or else they quickly learn to watch their heads!
The Ugly
United Healthcare denied Grayden’s appeal. I doubt the insurance employee even read it; the denial arrived the same day as a UHC letter saying “We’ve received your appeal” and the same day as the postal service return receipt. Ren’s has not yet been denied; I can only hope that someone is actually reading it and will approve it. Once one is approved, they cannot deny the other, can they? I am quickly learning to not assume when it comes to an insurance company. In the last two months, they have hung up on me 3 times (they claimed they were transferring me 20 minutes into the call), denied receiving my letters, and repeatedly failed to send one of the claim denials (I couldn't appeal until I had it in hand). I sent the appeal by certified mail (and also sent copies to every politician on the East Coast) because it's common for them to deny its existence. As for Grayden’s claim, I will re-appeal (by sending the exact same letter), as I have learned through my research that the squeaky wheels get oiled, rotated, inflated, and cleaned.
In Other News
Grayden is crawling! He started on June 30, taking a few “steps” before collapsing from the weight that is Grayden. Then he completely quit all attempts. If he wanted something, he cried until I retrieved it. Until the Fourth of July, when he just hoisted himself up on all fours and strolled across the blanket in the playroom. Whereas Ren will crawl to explore every corner of a room, Grayden only crawls if the action has a calculated purpose, like reaching a favorite toy or moving away from his pesky brother. At physical therapy today, his PT tried to get him to crawl about 10 feet to a toy in which he had shown interest. It wasn’t until she moved it within 4 feet that he said, “Okay, now I’ll show you.” When you’re 4 pounds heavier than your “older” brother, you’ve got to conserve energy any way you can.
With their new freedom, life is getting easier in the Watts household. I’m actually starting to think I can do this.
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