The Journey Begins

We were at Children's Hospital yesterday so that Judah could have his head fitted for his new snazzy helmet. There was a bit of a wait, but we found ways to keep ourselves busy.

These play tables are great!

Judah has a fascination with all things "furry". He won't take a soother, he'll gnaw on his hands if he's in a pinch, but he would most prefer to mow down on a stuffed animal (or real animal...). We brought Moose to keep him occupied.

Nom nom nom

But Children's has a GIANT MOOSE! We put it next to Judah and he just stroked it and made happy dinosaur noises at it.

The friendly receptionist was amused by Judah's infatuation with the giant moose, so he brought out for us... GIANT GIANT HUGE BIG BEAR! I held Judah up to it and he grabbed it with both fists and buried his face into Bear's head.

Love at first bite

(Note his arm around Bear's paw)

But on to business! We were ushered into the occupational therapy treatment room where the orthotist spend a few minutes answering our questions about cranial headbanding. From here on we will be going to a clinic in Surrey where they will fit the helmet on Judah, and adjust it at subsequent visits. We will be there weekly in March, and then it tapers down to visits every three weeks -- not too bad :). The orthotist (his name is slipping my mind... let's just call him Alan!) pulled a nylon mask over Judah's head (twice, actually... notice the wardrobe change in the pictures below. The sweater was too bulky for the sock to fit properly the first time). I was relieved to see that in Canada they use socks with face holes! I've seen some pictures of this being done in America; theirs didn't have face holes, and the poor kiddo looked like he was about to rob a bank (or have a meltdown)!

What a patient little Hawk!

... And then Alan fitted the sock around the back of Judah's head, behind his ears, tied it tight under his chin, and put stickers on his face.

My hand is blocking it, but the stickers actually were SUPER pointy at the ends and dug into his ears :(

 Next, we were told that Judah had to lie perfectly still on a cold, hard surface. If he moved at all Alan would need to redo the scan. I was allowed to hold his hands and distract him, but he wasn't even supposed to smile or blink or flinch in any way! He did amazing - it only took two tries! And that was as difficult as it was going to get for Judah at this appointment - yay!

"Judah, you're all done! Give Daddy a big smile!"
"No. I will snuggle your face."
(Those stupid stickers on his temples! So pokey! And they didn't come off easily either...)

Moose is Hawk's reward for doing so well! 

... oh, how he loves Moose!

"Booyah! I'm the man!"

 We picked out a solid blue helmet for Judah. Alan gave us a sheet of all the colours and patterns to choose from and immediately I thought, "OH NO, David is going to want us to get the one with the blue camouflage!" but thankfully we had both agreed earlier that we would get a solid colour and add our own stickers to it. He admitted afterwards that his eyes were drawn to the camo one first, but I think blue is a good choice. David made a joke about getting the one with pink butterflies, but I don't think Alan got it. He just nodded amiably and said, "Yes, that's a very nice one too." Haha... way to be PC, Doc.

I think Judah is going to look pretty darn cute in his new headgear! He wears toques almost every day (because his mother forces him to go outside for walks every day!), and my plan for the next two weeks is to put lots of different hats on him - so hopefully he doesn't mind his new helmet too much!

It's a ... bug? Frog? Haha - supposed to be a dinosaur!