Liam and His Band...The Final Adjustment

Today was Liam's final adjustment for his DOC Band. At an adjustment, they shave off some more of the foam to make room for his head to grow. Today, they took off almost all of it in the two places he's been growing. That means he will officially outgrow his band by next Tuesday. However, his head is unfortunately not finished with its transformation. He has made great progress and it looks way better than it did, but it still needs some work. Next week at his exit appointment, they will take pictures of him and do another 3D image of his head. Then we'll truly be able to see the progress.

So we have a decision to make. Barring some miracle growth spurt, his head will still need some work. The therapist said his rate of head growth has been on the low end of the spectrum that they typically see for kids his age. Overall, it's grown about 8 mm, which isn't much. But we can't make his head grow at a faster pace. That means he needs another band. However, we really cannot afford another band. We couldn't afford this one, but the burden was eased by some very generous friends.

That means he will not be getting another band, especially not right away, and possibly not ever. We will see. It's possible to take a break and get another band later. I wouldn't mind him having another band and all that goes along with it: the daily cleaning of his head and band and the weekly adjustment appointments. The past seven weeks (really more like 9 if you count the appointments before he got the band) have gone by quickly.

I will feel bad if his head stays like it is, though. It's still flat on the top left on the back of his head. The bottom half of his head has rounded out nicely, though. I think it wouldn't be a problem as long as he has hair, but if ever goes bald (either by choice or not) it might look a little funny.

UPDATE:

Well, we realized that since we have met our out of network deductible with this first band, then getting another one before the end of the year is the cheapest way to do it. According to someone at Blue Cross, we would have to pay 30% of the second band. He really does need one. I honestly think another month or 6 weeks would be enough to get his head looking right. So now we're trying to fast forward things a little bit, and he has an appointment for an evaluation tomorrow. It will be just like the first one where they took pictures and looked at his head. So scratch what I previously wrote about not getting another band for awhile. It's actually now or never on a new band!