Help Matthew walk, talk and eat

Hi, my name is Cristina and I'm raising money for my 3yo son Matthew who is disabled.

Matthew has a rare genetic disorder called Chromosome 8P, as well as 3 other rare diseases. All of these conditions have caused Matthew to have a lot of challenges for a 3yo. He is non mobile/non verbal yet, with feeding difficulties.

He is in therapy since he was born basically, and with weekly therapy he seems to be making very little progress.

Last year in May (2021) Matthew had his 1st intensive therapy at CI Pediatric Therapy in Wisconsin, where he had 3 hours of therapy every day for 4 weeks, he had shown so much progress that we started researching more and more about intensive therapy.

Then followed an intensive in September 2021 at Napa Center in Chicago IL (pop-up location), then another one in December 2021 in Austin also at Napa Center, then in April 2022 we went to the 1st clinic CI Pediatric Therapy in Wisconsin and last week (9/9/2022) Matthew finished an intensive in Denver Colorado at Napa Center (3week intensive where he had PT, OT, feeding and DMI.

Recently Matthew started holding on to the walker and occasionally taking steps, which is HUGE! Matthew seems so close to walking with the gait trainer, he enjoys the therapies and he is determined to walk. Being disabled is very expensive, and these intensive therapies come with a high cost of therapy, traveling and lodging expenses.

Matthew's insurance doesn't cover any intensive therapy, and we paid for most of these expenses out of pocket, got a few grants from a few non profits and we're doing our best for Matthew to gain some independence like crawling, walking with the walker, getting up to sitting, communicating and eating a variety of foods and textures.

We now have another intensive scheduled for December 2022 at CI Pediatric Therapy in Madison Wisconsin which will cost us approximately $6k only for therapy.

We're basically buying Matthew's skills and it's very painful knowing that you wish you could do more and that your child's skills and abilities depend on how much money you have.

All the money donated will be used for Matthew's therapy and equipment he might need in the future.

I run an Instagram page since Matthew was a newborn, sharing our journey and you're always welcomed to take a look at it and see how hard Matthew's working, his progress and many more (@matthew8pjourney). We're forever grateful to people that support us.

Please share this.

Thank you so much for your time

Cristina Stanila, Matthew's mom