Letter Of Love

Little Georgia knows that her big brother may not live past his teens....

- Bess Browning

I smiled as I watched my two beautiful children.

‘I love you to the moon and stars and back again,’ my daughter Georgia, 5, told her big brother Sam, 10. Sam looked back, blank, but

I knew the love was mutual. They had an amazing bond.

Me and my husband Laurence, 42, had Sam, our first child, in August 2007.

‘He’s perfect,’ I grinned. We spent the next few years like any other family – walks in the park, going on holiday, playdates with friends.

But when Sam was 3, we noticed things weren’t right.

Normally bubbly and chatty, he changed.

‘He’s not talking as much as other kids any more,’ I fretted.

‘It’s a phase,’ Laurence said.

Then we spotted Sam couldn’t open his fingers when he made a fist.

And his face often had no expression.

Alarm bells ringing, we took him to our GP.

In May 2011, Sam was diagnosed with hearing loss and referred for screening, where he was diagnosed with autism. But we knew there was something else.

Four months on, a few days after his fourth birthday, Sam started primary school...

But his speech didn’t develop and he wasn’t progressing as he should be.

Referred to a geneticist, he underwent a number of tests.