Matthew Sumida: March 2010

Monday, March 15, 2010

Oops!

Matthew has anxiously been waiting for March 12th to arrive, the re-opening of the Matterhorn. He has been trying to hard in school we wanted to give him a big surprise and take him Friday night. Here is that precious face on his favorite ride.

His second favorite is Thunder Mountain.

And this is where the photos of that night as well as the fun came to an end. I was standing on a bench trying to take pictures of Matthew, and as my sister eloquently put it, while trying to snap some photos I snapped something else, my achilles tendon. Fun.

The worst was that I broke my camera lens when I fell. Thankfully, my sister and brother-in-law replaced it for which I will be eternally grateful!
Thanks Keiko and Rob, we love you.

Sunday, March 7, 2010

My little Mario Andretti

Since it did not rain after all today we ventured over to Boomers for Matthew's new favorite thrill....driving go carts with Dad. He had such a good time.

For those who know Matthew well.....this is him standing in line and waiting his turn. Wow!

Getting ready to rip up the road!

Matthew feelin' the need for speed!!!!

Snacks with Dad after a few rounds of racing.

We had such a great weekend and it was nice to be able to see Matthew fully able to participate in activities and enjoy them. He is so much more in control and regulated. In all honesty there are some concerns we have noted since starting meds but overall, we feel that for now, he is reaping much benefit. I wish that things were easier for Matthew but my little trooper never gives up and always forges ahead. He makes us so proud!

As Mark was putting him down tonight he says"Daddy, do you love me?"
Matthew......the answer is Yes! More than anything in the world!

Friday, March 5, 2010

Seeing is believing

This is a video clip of Matthew taken by his shadow. This was right after the teacher called 4 names to do a project. I could hardly believe it when I saw this the first time. I still get teary every time I watch this because I see Matthew so calm, able to control his impulses and able to participate like the other kids. It is such a big step for my little boy.
I could not be more proud (yes, even the part when he picks his nose).
Great job to the best boy ever!
I love you so much!

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.