Ghost Story
posted May 18, 2009 at 1:25pm
Maybe it was because I was reading a ghost story at the time (specifically, “Spooky Little Girl” – the latest book by my dear friend, the prolific and hilarious Laurie Notaro — it’ll be out in April) or maybe it’s just because I scare easily.
But I literally jumped and squealed when I looked inside a blue plastic bag shoved in the back of a cabinet and found Sophie’s head.
When Sophie was three months old, we finally had our appointment with the geneticist, the guy who was supposed to impart all kinds of knowledge but really didn’t tell us anything Ray hadn’t already researched himself about Down syndrome.
As we were leaving his office, the geneticist pointed to the rather-flat back of Sophie’s head and warned, “You better do something about that head soon!”
Looking back, I can’t believe I listened to him. But I did. We got her one of those $5,000-not-covered-by-insurance helmets to round out her flat head. And turns out, I’ve still got the helmet — and the mold they made of Sophie’s head — to prove it.
I’m not knocking those helmets. One of my writers did a terrific story about DOC bands – they were invented here in Arizona, and have saved many children with serious cranial deformities from expensive and dangerous surgery.
But I’m not sure Sophie really needed the helmet at all. Which is a good thing, since it didn’t do much for her. To be fair to the folks who sold it to us, she didn’t wear it constantly, as required. Poor baby Sophie quickly rubbed herself a huge “hot spot” (yes, like the kind dogs get — looked just like that) on her head, and couldn’t wear the helmet much at all.
In a way, I was flattered when the geneticist told us to fix her head — even though at the time we were days away from open-heart surgery, and clearly had bigger fish to fry. To me, it meant Sophie was worth something, that it wasn’t okay to let her walk around with a flat head.
Today, when we’re cuddling, and I feel that flat spot on the back of her skull — I don’t think you can see it at all with her hair over it, at least I don’t notice it — I wince, hating that I gave her even a moment’s discomfort with that dumb helmet.
And yet, I couldn’t just throw the thing away. Sophie was fascinating with my find — and played with the DOC band for a while. Then I shoved the mold and the helmet back in the blue bag and hid it away high in her closet. Not a bad ghost to have to confront once in a while, I figure.
My son wore one too, for about 9 months. It was great for when he was learning to walk – saved him a lot of head injuries! And since, at the time, he just about had an ear in the middle of his face and the other one in the back of his head, it definitely helped to even things out but, like you said, not everything.