Our daughter Vismita was born on 21 December 2014. After trying many years without success, she is an angel to our lives. She was born full term, through c-section, healthy and everything went well until a week. I found her forehead and eyes were asymmetrical. Her left forehead was slightly bulged than the right. I brought it to the attention of my pediatrician, she did not take it seriously, she said it could be because of the pressure in the womb, should correct on its own by 6 months. I was not satisfied with her answer and kept asking in every visit. She referred us to an ophthalmologist at 3 months of age. The specialist asked us to wait another five to six months since she was too young to come to any conclusion. Vismita was growing normal in terms of height, weight and activities. On her 6th months visit, the pediatrician found something terribly wrong with the shape of her forehead because it was not changed at all, so she then referred us to a neurosurgeon. We took an appointment with Dr. Ahn at Johns Hopkins hospital, Baltimore. As soon as he saw Vismita, he said surgery is the only option since she has passed the three months window for endoscopic surgery. She was diagnosed with Coronal Craniosynostosis. This was a new term for us. We could not believe our ears; it took some time to realize the fact. He explained us the surgery procedure and assured the surgery will be safe and she will be fine. We returned home deeply saddened. We simply couldn’t accept the truth, I cried for days imagining the surgery done to my baby but we did not lose the hope. We got a second opinion from another neurosurgeon and he also recommended the same. We had no option but to accept the truth. We met the neurosurgeon, plastic surgeon and geneticists and discussed the surgery plan. I started doing research online about Craniosynostosis. Cranio Care Bears, CAN and other websites which helped a lot in understanding cranio. I contacted some of the parents via emails and shared my questions and concerns. Cranio Care Bears sent a wonderful package for Vismita which had stuff required for staying at the hospital. Sheila Grantham from CAN sent a beautiful floral headband.

We were fortunate to have Dr. Dorafshar as our plastic surgeon. He is so good and a nice person and he took care of Vismita as his own child. Her surgery was scheduled on 4th of November 2015 at Johns Hopkins hospital, Baltimore. One month before the surgery, Vismita was scheduled for an MRI scan. She did not require any sedation; instead she was swaddled tightly and ran under the machine. She did well; it took less than three minutes to complete the procedure. Finally the surgery day came. We got ready and left for the hospital at 5 am. They drew blood to test for blood group and took vitals. Anesthesiologist, neurosurgeon and plastic surgeon came and discussed the surgery plan. We were allowed to go to the OR till she was sedated then we came back to the waiting lounge. Those were the longest moments in our life. The surgery started at 11 am and ended at 5 pm. The doctors and nurses were updating each and every stage of the surgery and Vismita was also cooperating well. Post surgery she was transferred to the NICU and we were called in. I cried the moment I saw her, she looked completely different. Her forehead was flat, and I was amazed to see her. There was no dressing around her head but they had applied some lotion. Her head was not shaved. Vismita was tired and fell asleep. The swelling began the next day and got worse over two days. Vismita got discharged on the third day post surgery. She was not prescribed any medicine but baby Tylenol and Ibuprofen. Her swelling decreased over three days and stitches were also falling off and she was back to normal after that. Now she is almost two months post surgery and she is perfectly normal. We had a 2 weeks post op appointment with her plastic surgeon and he was pleased to see her progress and asked us to come back in six months. As we looked back on all the things that transpired, we believe it as best decision we ever made for Vismita.