and don't drink alcohol and am healthy. We sat in disbelief as we listened and I said 'so he has brain damage'?  He said that he did and that there are different degrees of brain damage -- ranging from someone who is developmentally delayed to someone who is reliant on others for everything.  He said that Noah was at 'this end of the range', and he motioned with his hands showing us the left side.   I asked 'you mean the worst end?' and he said 'yes'. He then told us that Noah would never walk or talk, will never be able to go to the toilet on his own, is probably deaf and blind, won't be very responsive to us and will rely on us for everything.  He also said that his body would become stiffer as he got older. I listened to this and although I was shocked and sad I actually felt relieved as I knew that there was something wrong with him, and was glad to finally have some answers.  Our paediatrician then said that because of the amount of damage to Noah's brain, that Noah's life expectancy would be greatly shortened. I asked him how long he expected he would live for and he said that you couldn't really say. I kept pushing for an answer and asked if he would live to be a teenager and he said that he wouldn't.  I then asked him again how long he would live for and he still