Support Matt's Recovery and Independence

Matt and I met around 1994 when his family moved to my hometown for his dad’s position as elementary school principal. Over the course of 30 years, I still call him one of my most cherished, trusted, hilarious and wildly independent friends (as would anyone who is fortunate enough to call him friend).

Matt has dealt with the side effects of diabetes for a number of years now and most recently, it turned serious. He no longer has income and has since lost insurance. If you can spare a few bucks for a night out, can you spare a few to help keep him in his own home with food on his table?

Here’s his account of what happened:

"Due to medication or another unidentified circumstance, I have been waking up in the middle of night and falling down. On Sunday March 2nd I lost conscious for a split second and hit the wall in such a way that caused me to have complete paralysis for several minutes. Dez had to peel me away from the wall and bring me back into the bedroom where I eventually regain feeling in my legs after several minutes, it took several more minutes to regain the use of my arms. I had a pins and needs feeling and anything that I touched or touched me burned. A hyper-sensitivity. Dez brought me to the Buffalo ER where the took a CT scan and MRI, they found my spinal cord was damaged and swollen, i was taken by ambulance to North Memorial ER. From there I was moved to the ICU and scheduled for surgery that afternoon. I had a laminectomy where they removed some bone from the spine to allow the cord to swell and they put pins and rods in my spine for stabilization. So C5 C6 and C7 is pinned and all that is fused to T1 and T2. After spending almost two weeks in the ICU, I have finally been released to come home.

I want to thank everyone who has reached out and given me mental and emotional support.“