“Care wise, he is much more complex than even a toddler,” says Pronita Banarjee.
The 55-year-old from Broughty Ferry is talking about her son Aaryan, who suffers from Down’s syndrome and autism.
But Aaryan is 17 years old, and as Pronita points out, both bigger and stronger than her.
“We need to do everything for him,” she says.
Aaryan needs care 24/7
“He doesn’t have an awareness of appropriate clothing to wear so I dress him each day.
“He is toilet trained, but he will not understand when to go to the toilet.
“He needs prompting and motivation to go to the toilet.
“Once he is in the toilet, he can’t clean himself so I will need to clean him.
“He can’t take a bath or a shower by himself so I will need to help him.
“I need to feed him because he won’t eat by himself.
“He will not walk great distances, especially if he is feeling anxious.”
At night, Aaryan’s care needs intensify.
It is at this point his dad Subhayu, 55, who works as a doctor in Aberdeen, takes over.
Aaryan is a daddy’s boy
Pronita says: “At night, he suffers with persistent ear infections and sleep apnoea.
“And because of his medication, he gets night terrors, so dad sleeps with him.
“He wakes up four or five times during the night, he needs to be taken to the toilet, he needs to be given a drink.
“He sweats a lot, so every night we need to change his pyjamas and bed clothes during the night, otherwise he would be soaking wet.
“At night, dad takes over to give me a break.
“Hats off to him because obviously he is a doctor and he has got a very busy job which is very stressful, but Aaryan is a daddy’s boy so he wants daddy at night.”
It has been a particularly difficult few years for the family as Aaryan adjusts to a series of big changes in his life.
The first occurred in 2018, when his older brother Agnijo enrolled at Cambridge’s Trinity College.
Aaryan struggled with lockdown
Agnijo, 23, is a mathematical brainbox who has appeared on the latest season of hit BBC show University Challenge.
Pronita says: “When Agnijo moved to Cambridge for university, Aaryan really couldn’t comprehend why his big brother was not home anymore.
“That triggered anxiety and depression. We then reached a crisis point where he became aggressive.
“Then he was medicated and he got better, so we thought we were over the worst of it.
“And then Covid hit us.”
Aaryan, who was a pupil at Kingspark School – a facility for children with additional needs in Dundee – struggled to re-enter education following the Covid lockdowns.
He was too anxious to enter the school or engage in education in any sense.
Pronita says: “Eventually it was decided that they would transition him and class him as an adult outside of education so that he could access adult services.
“So practically, for the last two years, he has been home.”
In order to take care of Aaryan at home, Pronita reduced her working hours as a teaching assistant to just one day a week.
She said: “It is hard on family life because obviously he takes precedence over everything.
“Everything revolves around him and everything is dictated by him.”
Aaryan and big brother Agnijo ‘love each other to bits’
To help give Aaryan a sense of independence and privacy, the family built an extension onto their home for him.
The cost was mostly covered by his older brother Agnijo, who has published several books about maths.
Pronita says: “The bond they have is very close.
“Aaryan is very important to Agnijo, and vice versa. They love each other to bits.
“I would say it has made Agnijo a better human being. He is so caring and very aware of everyone’s abilities.”
She adds: “Agnijo is a very high achiever and he has done a lot in life.
“But we can never go to any of the award ceremonies.
“We couldn’t even go to his graduation ceremony together because Aaryan would never cope with that.
“Mostly his dad will go because he can travel.
“But Agnijo knows and understands mum and dad can’t be there together for him all the time.
“He is used to it.”
A strong family bond
Pronita and Subhayu, who moved from Kolkata in India to Scotland in 2002, have been together since they were 16 years old.
“Me and my husband, we know that nothing can drive us apart,” Pronita says.
“But there are times we look at each other and think, if we didn’t have such a strong thing going, this would have broken us.
“We have seen it break a lot of other marriages.
“We know we have got each others’ backs and my husband always knows when I am feeling down and he will come and cheer me up.
“And when I can see that he can’t cope and is losing it, I will cheer him up.
“Even members of our family say: ‘We don’t know how you do it’.
“But somehow we do it, because we love Aaryan.”
How Aaryan was diagnosed with Down’s syndrome and autism
But the pair have always taken Aaryan’s health issues in their stride.
Pronita even says they were “relieved” when he was officially diagnosed as a child.
Subhayu, an obstetrician, first raised his concerns that Aaryan may have Down’s syndrome when he was born, but the team of doctors disagreed.
Pronita explains: “They checked him and said, ‘No he doesn’t’.
“But we had our doubts. Then when he was six months old we felt something was not right, so he went for blood tests and after that he was formally diagnosed with Down’s syndrome.
“We were relieved because we both suspected something was wrong and the professionals had been telling us we were wrong.
“When we got the autism diagnosis three years later, it was harder because it added an extra layer of difficulty.
“But we were okay with it. At the end of the day, he is our son, so we knew when we got a diagnosis we would deal with it.”
Pronita admits that the question of Aaryan’s future is a “big burning thing”.
She says: “We have thought about all the scenarios. That is something we haven’t been able to answer.
“For as long as my husband and I are here and we are physically and mentally fit, we will continue to do what we are doing now.
“But sometimes you do think about it, which we don’t want to. It is a tough one.”
How do the family stay so positive?
Despite her concerns about the future, Pronita’s cheerful outlook in spite of the challenges her family faces is one to be reckoned with.
How does she keep her glass half full?
Pronita says: “My husband and I are positive and everyone remarks on this.
“But there have been dark days, when we have looked at each other and wondered how we will continue.
“But Aaryan is such a sweetheart and he is such a charmer when he is in a good mood.
“Every day we struggle. But he struggles the most.
“Yeah, he has his meltdowns and he has his low moments, but every day he tries so hard to achieve something.
“And at the end of the day there is always a smile on his face.
“So when you see that, and then he cuddles you, you kind of forget all of the hard stuff.”
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