Xrays

We took the boys in this week to get the X-Rays on their heads. That was quite the experience, and one that hopefully we never have to go through again.

When we got there they took us right away. I followed the nurse carrying Kevin, and Jamie followed me carrying Alex. The next thing I know the nurse is closing the door behind me and Jamie isn't there anymore. Apparently there was a nurse behind Jamie and they took Alex into a different room. Not a big deal, but I would have liked to say good luck to Jamie and Alex before we parted ways.

The nurse got the table all ready for use and had me lay Kevin down on his back looking up at the X-Ray machine. She put a lead sheet over him, and had me wear a lead vest. Then she had me hold these foam pads on the side of Kevin's head so that he wouldn't turn while she took the X-Ray. Then she repositioned the X-Ray machine and had me keep Kevin looking straight up. So far this was seaming pretty darn easy. I thought we were going to end up being in and out in a matter of just a couple of minutes.

And then came the fun pictures. They had to get side shots of the head. So I had to turn Kevin's head to the right and hold the foam on each side. Well since he is laying on his back and looking to the right, that means one foam mat is on the back of his head and the other is pressed up against his face. As you can probably imagine he did not like having that foam pressed against his face. After a few attempts I decided that instead of holding the foam in front of his face I grabbed his toy off of the car seat and crunched the wings along side of him so that he would look at me. The nurse and I thought it was working well so she snapped the picture, and then had me go to the other side of the table and do the same thing.

Then the nurse went back to look at the pictures and saw that both of the pictures of the sides of his head were bad. So she had me lay him on his stomach and see if we could get the shots that way. Of course that did not work well, because Kevin HATES being on his stomach. So we tried for a few times, with no success. Finally I thought that I had him in the right position so the nurse ran behind the wall to the controls and snapped the X-Ray. And as I expected these were also bad. After taking 2 bad pictures of each side of his head the nurse finally went to get another nurse to help. He stood behind the wall ready to hit the button as soon as we had Kevin in a good position. So we left Kevin on his tummy and I stood in front of him with his toy, held slightly higher than his head to force him to really turn his head that way good, and the original nurse stood on the other side of the table and held his head down as best she could with the foam thing. After those set of pictures, the nurses said they were not quite perfect, but good enough so we were finally done. For all the wiggling and refusing to turn the right way at least he never cried the whole time.

Alex's went much easier for Jamie. Apparently she got two nurses right from the start. So all she had to do was go behind the wall and watch the nurses hold Alex down to take the pictures.

Now we get to go next week to the specialist and have them read the X-Rays, to tell us if the boys have to get helmets to try to straighten them out.