When one-year-old Maverick went to his pediatrician for a check-up at about 10 months old, his family got some devastating news.
“It was at his eight-week helmet checkup that they discovered a large buildup of tissue (on his head),” his mother Makayla Mullis said, explaining that Maverick, though 10 months old at the time, had only been wearing the helmet for about two months to correct a misshapen skull.
Helmet therapy, also known as helmet orthosis, is often prescribed to help mold a baby’s skull into shape when there are deformities or other abnormalities present, according to the American Academy of Pediatrics.
But, the mass was something new.
Not cancer, but still dangerous
Concerned, the baby’s pediatrician sent Maverick and his mom immediately to the Monroe Carrel Jr. Children’s Hospital at Vanderbilt for an MRI, Mullis said. There, doctors confirmed that Maverick had a non-cancerous brain tumor measuring roughly eight centimeters, about the size of a golf ball, in his head, she said.