Matthew Sumida: Family Fun

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Family Fun

We went to spend the day with Keiko and her family today. We have not spent time with them since the wedding and we were excited to get together, chat and hang out. With all the stress of the past few weeks it was a really a nice break and fun afternoon. It was wonderful to see how happy they all were, as if they had always been a family and this was how things were meant to be. We could not be more thrilled to see such love and happiness in that household. Matthew had fun with the boys and we were able to enjoy some adult time while the boys played with Matthew. The most beautiful thing for us was to see Matthew interact with all three boys and want to be with them. He was crawling all over them and calling them by name. A few short months ago he would not have acknowledged their presence and today he wanted to take them all home with us when we left. It is a reminder to Mark and I of all that is possible.

4 comments:

Elena - mom, wife, friend, and advocate said...: It is not surprising that Matthew wanted to play with his cousins...as, Matthew IS love. He wants to hug and kiss everyone he knows and loves. It is one of the beautiful things about Matthew. Over the last year and a half, I have watched this little boy find his voice and acknowledge his place in this world. Matthew IS love!; September 13, 2008 at 8:19 PM
Anonymous said...: Very sweet. I remember your ritual weekend treks to visit your nephews when they were young. How fun to see them play with your little one now.
Much love to Kieko's family and yours.
T; September 14, 2008 at 9:10 AM
Anonymous said...: I can't believe how big Andrew and Zach are, such handsome young men.
Matthew on his tip toes giving Keiko a kiss.... That is really cute.
Kimmy; September 15, 2008 at 5:03 PM
Ms. to u said...: OMG, I just saw this. I love the photo of Matthew and the boys. He looks happy to be in the middle of them..I can't believe how big the boys are....So fun to see them with Matthew.; September 19, 2008 at 5:48 PM

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Matthew Dean

We started this blog because we wanted to be able to keep our loved ones up to date on Matthew and the wonderful progress he is making. It has been a crazy time since receiving Matthew's diagnosis of moderate to severe Autism in February 2007.
Autism is classified by the World Health Organization and American Psychological Association as a developmental disability resulting from a disorder of the human central nervous system. It is considered to be a neurodevelopmental disorder. It typically begins before 3 and is lifelong. It is characterized by varying degrees of impairment in verbal & non verbal communication skills, social interactions, and restricted, repetitive & stereotyped patterns of behavior. Children w/autism often fail to respond to their name, are unable to speak or have delayed speech and often avoid eye contact. They tend to engage in repetitive movements like rocking, spinning, hand flapping and in self-abusive behavior such as biting or head-banging. All behaviors that Matthew was exhibiting regularly. At the time we sent letters to our loved ones, we described what autism was and that there was no cure for autism. Well...... that is not the case. You can recover from autism and to that end we are pursuing a combination of therapies. Matthew is in an intense intervention program consisting of ABA (Applied Behavioral Analysis), Speech Therapy and Occupational Therapy. He is in this program for between 6-8 hours daily. He is also on a gluten-free and casein-free diet which he has been on since February 2007. We began biomedical intervention in June 2007 as well and homeopathy in April 2008. We read stories all of the time about these parents who start the diet, biomed or other modalities and see a miracle before their eyes. We have not had that experience but with each added intervention we see improvement..... 10% here, 8% there. We know that we will reach that 100% mark and that day will be the second best day of our lives, the first being when our little angel was born! We will update this as often as possible to that you can celebrate Matthew's success with us.

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Family Fun

4 comments:

Matthew Dean

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