Picture the scene, we are in a shed at the bottom of the Prof's garden nervously waiting for him to arrive, Kyle is on the floor trying to open some sort of dolls house and Gary and I are nervous and avoiding all unnecessary conversation. Suddenly he arrives and he ushers us into a room that has walls covered from floor to ceiling with books and pieces of paper everywhere. Kyle sits on Gary's knee and in the hour that we were there he never so much as moved or spoke, its almost as if he knew why we were there. We were asked family history and backround, he then took out a list of questions and with quick fire sucession we were bombarded with them until we were almost dazed by it. A hour had passed by and finally he got up and reached for a pile of literature and calmly handed them to me, I looked down at them and the word AUTISM in big bold letters jumped off the page at me, for a while I was bewildered, we got up to leave and I asked him when could we expect his report and his diagnosis to which he replied 'well my diagnosis I can tell you now, it is autism your son has although it is mild'. His report was to follow a week later.
We got into the car not uttering a word, we didn't even look at one and other, it was as if we looked at each other it would become real and we would crumble. It was a very long silent journey home, at one point we passed the Brainwave office on the Crumlin Road which we are members due to Kyle's epilepsy and I said to Gary 'I am going to have to join the IAA now as if it isn't bloody enough to be involved in there as well'. The look of horror on his face said it all and the realisation of what we were facing dawned on us.
We reached my parents house to collect Lauren and when we went in my mother just looked at us and said 'well' to which I replied 'It is what we thought it was' the blood visibily drew from her face and I could see the tears well up in her eyes and it was too much to bear, it was like I had drawn out and given her the hardest slap in the face I could possibly have given. I quickly gathered the children up and made a excuse to go home and ran into the car where the floodgates opened. The tears didn't stop for a long time but when they did that was when my fight began.
