Matthew's story

by: Lumpy

Matthew (age 8) lives in Traverse City, Michigan.  Born with a very rare form of short stature (Primordial Dwarfism) he already faced many barriers and hurdles in life.  Matthew has lived life to the full and supported by a wonderful mum (Heather), dad (Bryan) and sister (Jessica) he strived to overcome the many barriers he faced in life!

This past October, his parents decided to take him to his local ER as he was suffering with dizziness, pains in the head for several days.  This is when their collective nightmare became a reality -- a CT scan of the head showed something was wrong and he was transferred to the University of Michigan C.S. Mott Children’s Hospital for a MRI scan.  The scan showed that he had a brain tumor, which was caused by an aggressive form of cancer called Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM).  After 13 hours of surgery, the majority of the tumor has been removed – however, Matthew still has a LONG way to go!

In terms of Great Lakes Base and Great Lakes Garrison part in all this, we first met Matthew at Cherry Capital Con back in 2011.  We were informed that there was a "special guest" who would be at the con -- who LOVED Star Wars and requested to just make sure we gave him a little extra attention when we saw him around.  Well, it didn't take long for anyone who met Matthew to absolutely love that little dude!!!  When we found out about this most recent round of medical issues, we were ready to do what we could to help out.

photo courtesy Lumpy

This past weekend, Matthew’s aunt organized a spaghetti dinner fundraiser.  For our part, we just mingled, danced, and had a good time to help with the atmosphere at the event.  Matthew did attend the event with his family, and while he looked very tired, the smile was still there.