We finally got our diagnosis - He has autism

It's been a crazy week. We're taking him off the Keppra - a drug that turned him into a zombie and  psychopath at the same time. He's had two seizures both of which started looking like an absence and turned into convulsions. But the thing that's had the biggest effect on me was that we finally got the diagnosis we had been expecting for some time.

Still, it's a shock. I had thought he was autistic for at least a year and I'd been asking various different doctors for about 5 years. But they all said "No, no, no, it's too early to say, let's just wait and see." So although I knew he was, part of me hoped that they were right and I was wrong. That he would get 'better.'

Our main developmental paediatrician (described by a friend as 'the chocolate teapot') had shooed me away about a year ago saying it wasn't important whether he had an autism diagnosis because he was already in the special school system. But I need to know. The world needs to know. And one day before he leaves school social services will need to know so we can try to get the right adult care for him.

So I ditched the 'chocolate teapot' doctor and requested a meeting with the main autism paediatrician in our county. We waited... and waited... and waited. After 9 months we finally got to see her yesterday, "It's obvious he has some kind of autistic spectrum disorder," she says, it just trips of her tongue as if she says it all the time.

I start blubbing in the office, in front of her. I cry some more on my husband's shoulder in the corridor. Again in the car park, and again when I drop him back at school. Even though I knew it was coming, even though we asked her to tell us the truth, I still feel devastated because autism is with him for life. He will never grow out of it, he will always be a little bit like he is now.

His lovely teacher takes me to a quiet room and makes me a sweet cup of tea. She listens to me for three quarters of an hour and lifts me up so I leave smiling. The brilliant HLTA hugs me as I go. "It won't make any difference to us," she says, "but maybe now you can forgive him for some of the things he does, because he just can't see that you have feelings when he hurts you." I blub again on the way home.

It feels like my life has fundamentally changed, but this morning when I wake up things are just the same. He still eats Shreddies every morning. He still wants to play on the computer all day. He still runs and climbs and gets up to mischief all the time. He is still my little monkey. And autism is part of his life, and part of his personality and part of who he is. We can't make it go away, it just is. And it's ok.