Matthew Dodds
My son Matthew was born May 25, 1991 at Arlington Hospital. He was 9 weeks premature and spent his first six weeks in Arlington Hospital and the next two weeks at Georgetown Hospital. He was diagnosed with CP at about the age of one, and the official diagnosis is spastic diplegia, which basically is high muscle tone in his legs. Matthew first walked at the age of four, but because of his CP he did not have (and still does not have) the gait you and I have.
Matthew Dodds
Matthew has had two major operations because of his CP. The first surgery was orthopedic surgery involving his femurs, tibias, and feet. For example, the surgeons sawed through each femur completely, rotated the bones, and fastened them back together. As is often the case with kids with CP, the tightness in the muscles twisted the bones as the kids grow, despite a regimen of physical therapy. The purpose of the surgery was to realign the bones. This surgery was performed at Gillette Children's Hospital in St. Paul, MN in October 2000. The main surgeon was Dr. Gage, recognized as the best surgeon in the United States, if not the world, for these procedures. Matthew returned to Gillette in May 2001 to have the "hardware" (brackets and screws) removed once his bones had grown back together. The second surgery was neurological surgery performed by Dr. Dunn, also at Gillette, in January 2002. This procedure involved cutting through three spinal vertebrae to sever about 30 percent of the nerves coming from the legs. This surgery addressed the spasticity in a more direct way by lessening the signals from the legs which will reduce the high muscle tone in his legs. Following both surgeries, Matthew had to learn to walk all over again, a long and tedious process.
Matthew walks today with hiking sticks and is finishing the eighth grade at Hayfield Middle School. He is a history buff, an avid Green Bay Packers fan (we're not sure where that came from), and is active in the Boy Scouts (he's a Life Scout and a member of the Order of the Arrow).
