So we walk into the small waiting room that has a dungeon feel nestled down in the basement of the University Hospital. As I followed the twist and turns of the dingy hallway to locate the room, it definitely wasn't evoking the pristine hospital scenery you see on tv. I sign Brooke in and proceed to change her diaper. My debris litters the small room but I figured it was no big deal since we had it all to ourselves. Since the temperature was 18 degrees I had my coat and purse strewn on some chairs, Brooke's blanket, hat and gloves on another, and the diaper bag, her car seat and all the diaper changing paraphernalia strewn about me. For the chairs that I haven't clogged up I'm blocking the path to get to them since I now have Brooke sprawled on the floor (on a changing mat of course) and I'm poised to take off her diaper when a gruff guy walks in. As I'm waiting to pull the tabs of Brooke's diaper off, the man walks to the reception window and I'm thinking/hoping he has the wrong room. Of course he doesn't and he finishes checking in and turns around to find a seat. I nervously smile and apologize and move my coat over so there is an open seat for him. Now that he is sitting so close to us I have second thoughts as to changing her diaper. First off I didn't want to expose my 4 month old daughter to any strange man, but secondly I didn't really want to subject the man to whatever surprise was waiting in her diaper for me. But then I decide that packing her and all our stuff off somewhere else is way too much trouble so I go to work. Then of course while I'm trying to get her cleaned up the helmet specialist (also a guy) walks in and waits for me to get Brooke put back together. I'm sure my oldest sister thinks I'm a bad mother for exposing my little girl to strange men . . . but what can you do???
Then I follow the specialist into a different room and he proceeds to ask me questions. He asked me to rate how severe I thought Brooke's head was on a scale of 1 to 5 with 5 being the most severe. He sat looking at me waiting for my answer with his pen poised in the air. I himmed and hawed and finally blurted out a 2 as if the jeopardy theme song was winding to a close and I was running out of time. "A two", he repeated making me feel as if I'd given the wrong answer. "Okay, okay, okay", I said, "how about a 2 to 3". He smiled and said "2 to 3" as his pen was scribbling away on his papers. I asked him what he thought it looked like and he said that he would've also given it a "2 to 3". So who is the specialist now, ha! He then proceeded to take measurements of her head and he said that she has 11 millimeters of asymmetry. He said that a lot of insurance companies will pay for the helmet if there is over 10 millimeters of asymmetry. So he is going to contact my insurance to see if they will cough up for the hefty bill (over $2,000 for the helmet) and then we'll proceed from there.
So I've accepted the fact that Brooke will wear a helmet even though I was secretly holding out hope that the specialist would say she doesn't need one. The good news is that the specialist said she would only need to wear it for 3-5 months which is a ton better than the 8 months my pediatrician was saying.
Note: THIS PICTURE IS NOT A PICTURE OF BROOKE. This is roughly how her helmet will look though. I guess there are different colors you can choose from.
Once again . . . this is not a picture of Brooke . . . for all of the people that didn't take the time to read my mindless ramblings above!
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