Emmit – Lambdoid


Emmit: born in Little rock AR. February 9th. 8lb 6oz

When Emmit was born he was like most babies. There was nothing wrong with him at all, a healthy baby boy. On his first wells checkup his doctor told me that his head is tilted and to start stretching the muscle in his neck. Of course I started doing that but after more and more wells checkups they finally sent him to therapy for torticollis when he was about 3 months, and just after my husband deployed. They said he was getting a flat spot on his head because he always tilted his head to left and turned it right. He went for about 2 months and the torticollis was gone, but his head still had that “flat spot”. They told me it should start to reform to normal because he is sitting up and crawling, and not putting so much pressure on that one part of his head. I drove down to FL where my family lives so I could give my parents a chance to see their grandkids grow while my husband was away. On Emmit’s 6th month checkup I asked again, why his head still has a flat spot.

They sent me to doctor Stelnicki (a pediatric plastic surgeon) all I was thinking is “He will just need a helmet for a few months and he will be fine” They took a scan of his head and it was not bad, but told me I would need to get an X-ray done to make sure to rule out anything else before he would get a helmet. X-ray was fine and didn’t take long at all. I go back to Dr. Stelnicki’s office and they told me it looks like one of the sutures in Emmit’s scull was fused shut and I would need to get a CT scan to make sure %100….. Now I’m getting nervous, but I still have hope that it was just a bad x-ray… I go get the CT scan, and sure enough he has craniosynostosis. By this time Emmit is 6 months and his dad is still deployed. We go meet Dr. Rodrigues. (The neurosurgeon) a month later, that will be will in surgery with Dr. Stelnicki.

I took everything pretty well, got a surgery date for January 9th exactly 11 months old (5 months after we found out Emmit had Lambdoid Craniosynostosis) we go to the hospital at 5:45am and at 12pm they finally took him in for surgery. I read my books and drank a lot of coffee, keeping my mind preoccupied, and I was proud of myself for not breaking down. 3 hours and some change later Emmit comes out for surgery and the dr. said he did great. 1 hour later I go in to see my baby and he is screaming and crying and had tubes and cords and a bandage on his head. He tried to roll over and started pulling on all the stuff and that was when I finally broke down… they gave him as much morphine as they could and he was still crying and screaming. Finally they gave him something to drink and he settled down and went to sleep.

We were in the hospital for 3 day and it was horrible. Emmit didn’t sleep much because he is such a light sleeper and every 2 hours when a nurse came in, he would wake up, he had almost no swelling but had something that was making his blood not clot quit right, some Vitamin K and it was better. When we got to go home he slept almost all day for 3 to 4 days and then he was getting up more and wanting to play with his older brother. He went back on schedule a week after his surgery and was back to his normal happy self. He still has his stiches and won’t keep a hat or his bandages on so he goes around showing off his scar that goes from one ear to the other but he is having fun and it doesn’t seem to bother him or his older brother so we just play all day and do what we normally do, and planning Emmit’s 1st birthday.

Now that Emmit is through his surgery we are going in to see Dr. Stelnicki again to get Damien, 2 years old, (Emmits older brother) checked out, he also has a “flat spot” but we never noticed because we have only trimmed his hair 2 times since he was born and all his curls hides his head. I am hoping that we do not have to go through this again, but I know I can do anything that needs to be done for my kids, but I will still keep my head high and a smile on my face for my beautiful boy’s.