Hayden

Hi, I'm Tiffany and I'm the proud mother of Baby Hayden. Before Hayden was even born, I just knew that something was wrong. All of the test always came back fine, but I still knew something wasn't right. When he was born, he was just perfect...I was head over heals in love with him before I even saw him. I was so thankful that he was alright, but I still had that gut feeling that something still wasn't right. When they brought Hayden into us for the first time after getting all cleaned up in the nursery, they told us that he probably had a headache from the molding of his head; but not to worry, it would go away in a few days. When we got him home from the hospital, he began throwing up like crazy! So we took him to the doctor and she sent us to the GI doctor. When Hayden was only a few weeks old, he had his first upper GI done. It was so scary, they strapped him down to this board and just twirled him around like it was nothing. The results came back, and showed that Hayden had severe acid reflux. So after five different formulas and three different medicines, we finally got a combination that worked for him. To this day he is still on Prevacid twice a day and on a formula called Neocate that costs almost $40 a can! But atleast it works for him and he's not in pain anymore, thats what is important. At Hayden's 4 month check up, our doctor was still concerned about the shape of Hayden's head. So she sent us down to Children's Hospital to see if Hayden might need one of those cool helmets to help him out. On October 24th, our lives were changed forever. The Craniofacial doctors took one look at Hayden and knew that a helmet would not help our son. Just by feeling his head, they knew that Hayden had something called Coronal Synostosis, and the only way to fix it....major surgery to Hayden's skull. Coronal Synostosis means that the bones in Hayden's head fused together too soon, leaving no room for his brain and head to grow. The news hit me like a brick wall, I was beyond devastated...I don't even remember leaving their office. After seven long months of doctors appointments, xrays, catscans and MRIs; they found out that Hayden also had one other problem. He was diagnosed with a Chiari 1 malformation. What this means is that his second vertebra is curved downward and that makes his head "tilt" to one side more than the other. After more tests and another MRI of the spine, they have decided that it is not causing any issues right now so they will do follow-up MRI's once a year to check for changes. At our follow up appointment with the craniofacial team in April, the doctors decided that it was time to move forward with Hayden's operation. They scheduled it for May 22, 2007. We went into the hospital on a Monday for the pre-op and then the surgery was Tuesday morning at 7:30am. We were in the hospital until Friday afternoon. I've posted pictures and blogs galore so that you can follow our journey. Kids are amazing, they are so strong and so brave. Thank you for reading about my little hero Hayden...he is such an amazing little man :) Prayers and thoughts are very much needed and appreciated. I'll keep everyone updated!!♥Thanks for praying for me!♥ Love, Hayden