Overwhelmed

Last week, we had our final testing at the audiologist's office. Dylan's behavior therapist, Mr. D., feels that contrary to what his developmental pediatrician thinks, we are looking at a central auditory processing disorder (CAPD) vs. your run-of-the-mill ADHD. We found an audiologist who would see us since most won't touch a kid for CAPD until they are at least 7 (not mature enough to handle the testing which requires they sit for long periods of time and attend to tasks). Well, this audiologist (top in her field) does the testing in small bits so she was able to fully test him over 3 visits and the outcome was.... he has CAPD. Challenge is, she really can't give him that diagnosis for at least a year and be taken seriously but we know and we can now work towards helping him. Except, nothing really helps. That's what Mr. D told us. Mr. D, in addition to being a therapist, also has a child with CAPD. He's done it all. He's tried it all. He said we basically need to stay on him to keep trying and keep working his butt off in school. It's going to get harder because he's not going to want to always work hard so it's our job to keep him on task. David used the "d" word last night. As in "your son is disabled". I am really struggling with this. I mean look at him, he's strong, he's healthy, he's smart. How can you call this child disabled. But he is. I know that but it's killing me.