Archive for the ‘Real Life Stories’ Category

Matthew wants to play hide and seek with his 5-year-old brother, Noah. He wants to see the birds he hears in the trees and the firetrucks that zoom past his house with their sirens on. But he has to wait for someone to carry him to the door to look outside and by then it’s too late. The birds and firetrucks won’t wait.

Matthew Davidopoulos of Lowell (USA) is a typical toddler in so many ways. He’s smart and talkative and curious and bursting to do all that he can. He loves to color and paint and play with his iPad and watch movies (“Cars’’ is his favorite). He has dark blond hair and perfect baby teeth and bright blue eyes. It’s having spinal muscular atrophy that separates him from most kids his age. It’s being unable to sit or stand or walk or dress himself or even stamp his foot when he gets angry. He was diagnosed with SMA when he was 8 months old, a week before Christmas. Doctors told his parents, Courtney and Paul, not only that Matthew had a degenerative muscle disease but that he would not live to be 2. They were given a Do Not Resuscitate form to fill out. Matthew is 2 ½ now, and his life is not easy, it’s HIS life. Every night his parents hook him up to a feeding tube to provide the nutrients he needs but cannot get by eating normally.

Every morning they use a machine to clear congestion in his chest that accumulates overnight. Then they bathe and dress him and get him ready for the day. They carry him downstairs, where he has to wear a special vest for about 20 minutes to further loosen congestion. Then he is strapped into a “stander’’ for two to three hours of weight-bearing pressure on his legs. Three times a week, he has physical therapy, once a week he has playtherapy and aquatherapy, and once a week he goes to a playgroup with typical kids. All this, and he is a happy child.

What Matthew needs now to progress and to participate in life, to mingle with friends, to play hide and seek with his brother, to be able to move around a room – is a POWER WHEELCHAIR. But MassHealth, the state’s Medicaid program for the poor and disabled, has twice denied the family’s request for a power chair. The rejections baffle the family and all of Matthew’s caregivers, not only because “Matthew’s condition will not change but he will always need a power chair’’ his mother explains. “But also because our primary insurance agreed to pay 90% of the $23,000 cost’’

The Davidopouloses need MassHealth to sign on not only because they don’t have the 10 percent, but also because the agency would be the insurer responsible for repairs. Among the letters the family submitted to MassHealth was documentation stating that Matthew had driven a power chair around the hallways of a rehab hospital and around other patients and people. To deprive young Mathew of the chance to enjoy life as best he can given his circumstances seems too cruel to even think about. Imagine holding this young boy in your arms and giving him a hug, then slip a $5 or $10 in his mothers hand towards his wheelchair.

Frankly it only needs a few generous folk with compassion to meet this need. WILL YOU BE ONE OF THEM? MAKE A DONATION today and give something, even if only $1. The doctors thought predicted Mathew would be dead six months ago! We’ve all heard stories like that before and gone on to see the patients defy the odds and live to experience a fulfilling life for years to come. To hear Mathew’s story brings tears to my eyes and I sincerely hope you will not let this appeal pass you by. I know times are tough but PLEASE, for mathews sake, take action now and donate whatever you can. God bless you!

“As the door opened, we faced a shocking sight. A man with a fist-sized tumor on the back of his head had crawled to the door to greet us. He was Xu Hai-Sheng, the man we had come to see. It was unbearably painful to see Xu kneeling before us in his condition.

He had suffered for twenty three years from a congenital disorder affecting the left side of his body. Both his knees were covered with thick calluses from years of crawling.

His parents had sought treatment from him, but poverty forced them to abandon the effort. His immobility, along with the tumor, now isolated him from his community.

We brought the Wheelchair inside and helped him into it. Xu cherishes this wheelchair more than anything else, for with it he can now move freely and even accomplish simple tasks.

Having suffered from inborn bandy legs for 58 years. Le Van always felt shameful when being asked about married life. “Who would marry a bandy-legged man like me, I am familiar with single life,” He is now living with his older brother who is married with three children.

When winter comes, both his legs become painful and he can barely walk one step. “I do not want to ask my brother and nieces for any help, they have to study, have to work to earn for a living, I do not want to be a burden on them, I like to do things all by myself.”

However, he sometimes still needs help from his relatives, especially when he wants to visit neighbors and relatives, or play chess with friends. “I always need someone to lead me by my side whenever I have to travel for a long distance, I cannot take a long walk.”

Though being disabled, every day he wanders around the village, hoping to be hired to do something, anything, to earn a little money for daily bread. “It is very undependable. When no one has the need for me, that day I have nothing for the meals and I depend on my brothers. Sometimes my neighbours ask me to go buy things for them. Then I need speed, I need a wheelchair to roll.”

On the day of the Wheelchair, he was thrilled and wanted to express his happiness to everyone. “From now on, I can travel more comfortably in my village to be hired much more and I can support myself,” Le Van climbed into his wheelchair and rolled home himself with his strong hands.

We arrived to the front of a simple home in a barrio in Santiago . There were four children playing outside on it. When they saw the wheelchair they knew it was for their dad.

On the way they introduced themselves. They kept pointing to their sister Ana, a cute thing seven year old girl with a shaved head. They wanted us to know that she had cancer. The children led us inside where their father was lying on a sofa.

He was partially paralyzed. We told him that we had brought him a wheelchair to help him get around. When we asked him if we could lift him onto it he said, “Oh no, my wife is the only one that can lift me.”

So, one of the children ran down the street to get his mum at a neighbor’s house. When she arrived, she squatted down, hoisted her husband up, and bent him with difficulty in order to get him into the chair. Immediately tears of joy and gratitude started flowing from his eyes. His children were hugging him and telling them how happy they were for him.

We asked him how he became ill. He replied, “I became sick a year ago when I found out my daughter has cancer.” His daughter, Ana, is the one giving him a hug.