When I got the letter through the door with the date for Dylan’s final part of his diagnosis I was overwhelmed with emotions. I cried instantly, with happiness that we finally had got a date after waiting all this time, with dread about it being final and what ifs. Thankfully it was for the next week so I didn’t have too long to wait with all these emotions flying around in my head.

I had asked on a local autism group on Facebook about what I should expect as I was pretty clueless to what would happen and wanted to at least be a little bit prepared, and I’m so glad I did ask. I was told what to expect and that the place I was going to was pretty run down and when we pulled up to it I couldn’t believe quite how run down it was. We managed to get parked in the car park which had very few spaces with the majority full and had a little pep talk about how it would be OK whatever happened.

Before we got into the building Dylan was already pretty unsettled and I was worried as had heard from a few friends that if your child isn’t compliant they will rearrange another date for you to come up and get them seen again, which obviously I really didn’t want to happen.
We were met by two lovely ladies who showed us to a waiting room which had a few toys in, typically all the ones Dylan picked up or showed a little interest in didn’t have working batteries in so this annoyed him more and me. I thought they would have ensured that the majority did have batteries considering that they are fully aware of the children who come to the clinic sometimes have a low-level of understanding. Anyway..

After waiting for about 5 minutes they came and got us and told us they would take Dylan into a room which we could see into through a 2 way mirror but that if he wouldn’t settle for them they would get me to come into the room with them and see if it helped. While we sat and watched they tried to get Dylan to engage in play with a shape sorter and some sensory toys but he just kept putting them back where they came from and was getting more and more wound up, until they got a pop up toy out. He loves pop up toys so this settled him a little bit until they tried to take it away and he just kept hugging it close to himself  and throwing away any other toys they offered him. They then asked me to come in to see if this would help settle him after having him in for 5 minutes, I looked at Ad and said I think we will have to come back..

I went in and he climbed onto my lap and was still pretty distressed by everything that was going on, one of the ladies even tried to tempt him with Play-Doh which is usually one of his favourite things but he just got madder. I had been in the room less than ten minutes and she said, “we have enough evidence now, if you want to go back out and wait” I was shocked but also super pleased that despite him not playing ball they managed to get all the information they needed and in such a short amount of time.

He was not for settling after all that had just happened and being pushed to try to settle, but the ladies came back in quickly enough and told us that they had enough evidence today to give Dylan an autism diagnosis, after this Ad took Dylan out of the room to try and calm him and so that I could chat to her and hear all the information she had to offer.

They offered for us to come back to chat without Dylan but we decided it was best if they told me then pass the information on because let’s be honest the place was a 45 min drive away, I don’t know anyone I could leave Dylan with for that length of time.

They have referred us to get support from others, are going to provide us with a few courses to go on so that we can learn as much as possible about everything that is going on and will send the report out with all the information about what they had found today in approx 6 weeks.
We then headed back to the car and Dylan calmed down when he was back in a familiar place safe in his car seat.