Old Hat...New Hat

This morning I got a phone call telling me that Ben's new helmet had arrived!  Even though I hadn't showered and had not planned on going anywhere today I made an appointment to go pick it up. 

Ben was so patient as the man at Rocky Mountain Artificial Limb and Joint tried on and adjusted the helmet several times.  It's the smallest hockey helmet he could find.  He still had to put in two layers of padding to make it fit tight enough.  

There's a chin strap on this one which he's still trying to get used to.  You have to attach three different things on this one as opposed to one on the old one which we're still trying to get used to.  The snaps are super tough to close together.  The man said they would get easier with use.  Hopefully it will work out okay though.  We're supposed to give it a week and let him know if we like it enough to order a second one to have on hand.  

Our experience today took me back to about a year ago when we got his first helmet.  

His myoclonic seizures had gotten to the point that we were so concerned about his safety every minute of the day.  He was constantly falling and crying.  He always had a new bump, bruise, bloody nose or black eye.  It was so hard on him physically and emotionally.  Often, I would start crying when he started crying because I felt so bad for him.  Our insurance case manager referred us to a place in Ogden to get our helmet.  I cringed when I saw it for the first time. 

It was so ugly...a beast of a helmet.  But if this was going to help him I would do it.

We had a helmet party that night with the family to help Ben feel more at ease about his new accessory.

 

We played helmet games and sang helmet songs...we had to really stretch some things, but we made it work.  I'm pretty sure Ben had a good time.  He never really fought it in the beginning.  It was amazing how well he took to it.  Of course there have been moments but he's been a trooper.

Well, it was just a few months before the foam started coming apart.  We took it back to Ogden and they glued it back together and said it should never come apart again.  I wish it could have been true but it continued to deteriorate...as a matter of fact, the face shield cracked a few weeks ago.

Back to our insurance case manager, which by the way, I love.  She's helped us through a lot and made things a lot easier than they probably would have been otherwise.  She told us that there was no limit to how many helmets we could order per year so we decided to order a new one.  The Ogden company told us that that was the only model they had and that if it was already falling apart maybe we needed to look elsewhere for a different helmet.  After a little searching, lo and behold, we found RMALandJ right here in Logan.  We liked Greg from the beginning.  He said that Ben's helmet looked much too medical and surely we could find something more "little boy" looking.  He was determined to find something that would work for us.  

Well, here it is and we'll keep you posted on how it turns out for us.