twins.

Born twins, they’d developed to be to very independent individuals. One had been sick earlier in the week & was visiting the office again with his brother, now much bigger than him.

He recognized me right away, as did his mom, & I was greeted kindly at the door.

His twin brother, I was informed immediately, was autistic. The mom warned me that chances were slim I would get a good exam on him, given his behavioral apprehension toward strangers.

So with solid reassurance from his much-smaller twin brother, I approached him gently. And as we looked for green monsters in his ears and listened for Thomas the Tank Engine in his chest, he relaxed. Totally relaxed. I let him listen to his heart. He got ahold of my otoscope and took advantage of the chance to shine something very bright directly into his brothers eyeballs.

We had fun. He said two words to me the whole time and otherwise used nonverbal signals to communicate. It was obvious he was on the higher end of the autism spectrum in functioning.

And he was sick. And I left the room to get my preceptor so she could confirm my findings.

When she finished her exam, she left the door open to the room. And no sooner than her and my feet left the room, our little nonverbal patient jumped off the examining table and ran to the door frame. He opened his arms as wide as the would spread, looked directly at me, and screamed,

“I LOVE YOU!!”

The shock on his mom’s face was priceless. And my heart melted and splattered all over the ground, right then and there.

No doubt that right behind him was his now-fully-recovered twin brother whom I’d seen earlier in the week, yelling the exact same thing.

Needless to say, they made my day.