Matthew’s Story

Site created on July 14, 2019

Welcome to our CaringBridge website. We are using it to keep family and friends updated in one place. We appreciate your support and words of hope and encouragement. Thank you for visiting.

Newest Update

Journal entry by Donna Derivan

THIS COULD HELP CHANGE A LIFE!!  Matthew is a 5 year old non verbal child with autism spectrum disorder.  He has what is known as apraxia of speech.  This means that the part of the brain that controls the mouth does not send the correct impulses that would allow him to form words.  You can imagine how frustrating this is for him as he’s too young to write and express himself.  He has had services from birth to three with no success.  He’s been in his towns school system since he aged out of the program and is still not receiving intensive enough therapies to help him.  He has been accepted into a study at Duke University in 8 WEEKS where they use his cord blood stem cells and infuse them.  The end result, we hope, will be that the cells regenerate the part of the brain that has the interruption. They’ve had a 66% success rate.  The procedure costs $15,000 per infusion.  He has enough stem cels to do two rounds.  So. .  . 2x $15,000 is the $30,000 we’re trying to raise.  Any assistance you could afford is greatly appreciated.  We’re hard working people but can’t afford to do this on our own.  Trying to do whatever we can to improve the quality of his life so he can have a more independent future.  Every parent wants the same for their child.  
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