It’s been a long time since Tommy was first diagnosed. Not long enough to forget. Getting that diagnosis was my only goal. I guess I thought that it was an easy leap from a diagnosis to a cure. I was so naive. I started out complaining to Tommy’s pediatrician that something was wrong. The doctor called me an anxious mother and sent me to parenting classes. Everything the “experts” told me to do just made things worse. I sought out a new doctor who sent us down the testing road. We spent almost a year driving to and from appointments for testing. It was exhausting, frustrating, expensive and depressing. I just wanted that diagnosis so very, very badly. I was better off than most. So many people searching for a diagnosis are missing the one symptom that would put the puzzle together. In the back of my head I already knew what the diagnosis was going to be. Every free moment was spent reading and researching and I had diagnosed Tommy in my head long before I was able to say the word aloud. Finally, a doctor looked me in the eyes and said Asperger’s out loud. He immediately described a prognosis that was grim. Too grim. I walked out of his office and never went back. I identified myself completely with the parents in the waiting room whose children were severely disabled. I wasn’t able to see the hope in my bright, talkative son, but I refused to close the doors on his future. I would do everything and anything to see my son succeed. It wouldn’t be the same success as any other parent dreams of for their child, but it wouldn’t be the institution that doctor described. A decade later, I sat in a hematologist’s office waiting for a diagnosis that I already knew. Older, wiser and more experienced, I could see how different my middle son’s Von Willebrand diagnosis was than that of the very sick cancer patients in the waiting room. The future before all of us is unchartered territory. Anything and everything is possible. If you feel you have any symptoms related to cancer please contact prostate cancer naperville il.