Difficult Encounter

Today was a very difficult day for me, but not for the usual reasons.  I work as a pediatric physician assistant and part of my job is monitoring normal growth and development.  I met a child a little younger than Matt-man with many classic signs of autism today.  Usually when parents share concerns about autistic-like behaviors with me, they've already seriously entertained autism as a possibility and are almost expecting the referral to get a further workup.  This family was different.  They had no idea that this was a real possibility.  The "A" word had briefly entered their thoughts, but never seriously.  They were in for a routine sick visit and mentioned some of his unusual behaviors as an afterthought.  After a very long discussion and more probing I had few doubts that their child was probably on the spectrum, and I really didn't want to tell them.  I remember keenly the feelings of shock and grief that I had experienced when first going through the diagnostic process with Matthew and those feelings resurfaced today when I looked into their eyes.  I teared up along with them as we discussed the long medical and educational diagnostic / therapeutic process that awaited them.  They have such a beautiful intelligent child with such a long difficult road ahead  - just like our little Matt-man.  I have prayed for them a lot this evening - that God will give them peace and strength through this all.