You can scroll to the very bottom and  view pictures and a slideshow of Matthew throughout his 20 years....

ABOUT MY SON MATTHEW

Matthew came into this world on 1/10/86, three weeks early, at 6:24 pm, weighing in at 6#10oz.  He immediately stole my heart and took my breath away.  We watched him grow from a curly hair toddler into a handsome young man (who hated the curls!). By 4 yrs old, we could tell he was blessed with an unbelievable imagination and a huge artistic talent. He went from markers and pens to acrylics and canvas.  Some of his paintings are in the slideshow below, and there's earlier drawings of his on the other picture tab.  He also started showing an interest in piano and in 2nd grade, after only 3 weeks of piano lessons, he played a solo of "Silent Night" using both hands and chords at his grade school Christmas program.  He played it effortlessly and perfectly.  In 5th grade, he started playing trumpet in band, and excelled at that for 5 years.  After this, he could pick up any instrument including the violin and clarinet and play without instruction.  As Matthew finished junior high and entering high school, he started displaying neurological problems, with no answers from the doctors for almost 2 years.  It wasn't until Matthew had a drop-down, grand-mal seizure splitting the back of his head open that alerted the doctors that Matthew just might have epilepsy.  EEG testing later confirmed the diagnosis. This condition plagued Matthew throughout high school and into college, with all types of numerous seizures, such as absence, grand mal (tonic-clonic), myoclonic, simple partial, complex partial, temporal lobe, etc, even including a scare with status epelipticus that left him in a drug-incuded (diprovan) coma and on a respirator for 3 days. 

Matthew suffered severe deprpession from his physical condition that caused multiple suicide attempts, all in which he survived.  I felt then that God had a greater purpose for him on this Earth.  Matthew had a heart made of gold and a smile that would warm anyone he met.  His most attractive personality trait was his warm and compassionate heart.  He would give anyone the shirt off his back or the last penny he had.  And something he had lots and lots for people were hugs; he hugged his family, people he had just met and many, many friends.  He hugged them through good times and through bad.  As a matter of fact, unknowingly his last day on this earth, as I left in the morning for work, he hugged me tightly, cupped his hands around my face, and told me how beautiful I was and that he loved me very much.  This was the last time I saw him alive and I will cherish that hug and that memory forever.   

Matthew's favorite form of art was painting; he painited when he was sad and when he was happy.  I cherish each and everyone of his paintings and drawings now.  I have some of his paintings, but most of them he gave away to friends and family; they were a piece of him and his soul that he was sharing.  If YOU happen to have one of his paintings or drawings that I don't know about, please let me know.  I don't expect to take it back, but only to get a picture of another one of his masterpieces.   

Matthew's death has left us with shattered hearts, a hole in our souls, tears in our eyes, but he has imbedded footprints in our heart.  We know he is still painting from Heaven, as we stop and take awe of the majestic and beautiful sunrises, sunsets, and rainbows showering down from Heaven.  

MATTHEW'S METHADONE STORY   

Matthew had suffered on and off from prescription drug addiction, initially due to the multiple rx's he had been prescribed for years. He had been rxdrug-free for over 7 months when he relapsed for about one week.  The timing was so sad... Matt had started getting his life back together, enrolled back in college, started going to church, and had goals and dreams for his life that he was excited about.  We searched for a new type solution for his addiction and found info on the internet about methadone treatment clincs; everything we read was so positive and with no negative impact.  It turns out I did not research long or deep enough.  Matthew started a Methadone Clinic in our town on 8/7/06.   On the afternoon after Matt's first dosage, he started experiencing very negative (and what turned out to be abnormal), side effects. He reported these side effects to the clinic the next morning and they brushed him aside and dosed him at his increased dose. He complained in the mornings, the evenings and he was repeatedly told his body would adjust. It never did.  During this time, nobody checked him, the dr was not alerted, and they increased his dose every single day.  His signs of what I now know were methadone toxicity intensified everyday; they were obvious signs for the clinic of his intolerance to the level of methadone he was receiving. He suffered cruelly that week, but asked me to remind him that "this too shall pass"... and it did.  On the 5th day of treatment, 8/11/06, I talked with Matt on the phone around 10am, about two hours after his dosage, and he sounded extremely groggy; however, he had not slept at all the night before (another side effect from the Methadone) and so I figured he needed a nap, and told him to go lay down and call me back later.  He never called.  I  came home from work around 5pm to an eerie silence.  I walked through the house to find my son slumped over in the floor of the hallway of our home. Dead.  My brain knew instantly that he was dead, but my heart could not begin to accept what I was seeing.  I laid his cold body down in the hallway and was shocked by what I was about to see.  His snow white handsome face was covered with grotesque purple splotches. I immediately called 911 and then went back to his body and tried to start CPR, wanting to breathe my life into him.  However, his mouth and jaw were locked and rigid -- he was in rigor mortis.  When the paramedics arrived, my heart was sure he could be revived, however, it took less than a minute to pronounce him dead. Due to the fact that Matthew was by himself when he died, the police were soon filing in, along with detectives, the coroner and family members.  I had to break it to everyone that Matthew was dead.  It wrenched my heart telling his father, his grandparents, best friends, etc.  Soon, our pastor arrived and he started advising me what to do, I was so helpless at that point.  But nothing could have prepared me for when they brought his body through the house in a black body bag! It was utterly shocking.  It felt like one of those nightmares when you try to scream, but nothing comes out. This thought and pain are second only to the absolutely unbearable thought that I will never, ever get to see my son again, hear his voice, feel his touch or his loving hug. 

A few weeks after Matt's death and before the autopsy results were available, his father and I visited the methadone clinic requesting a copy of his medical file. After much bickering, they finally conceded and said I could pick up a copy the following day. When I went to pick up the copy the next day, the clinic administrator, shoved them at me and told me she was sure that they would find "illegal drugs" in my dead son.  This is an example of the care and compassion (or lack there-of) the clinic provides their patients and families, even knowing that their patient, my precious son, was dead and I was in unbearable pain. I also found out later that they reported his death to CSAT before the toxicology report was even released, and told them that he was abusing other drugs.  However, when the toxicology results came back a few weeks later, there was only Methadone and the other prescriptions that the clinic doctor had approved in his system. The State Medical Examiner called his father and I each personally to explain that due to the fact that Matt had more than Methadone in his system (he was also prescribed Xanax and Phenergan), he legally had to list his cause of death as "poly drug overdose", he could not legally list Methadone as the sole cause of death.  However, he informed us that it was his professional belief and opinion that Methadone was solely responsible for Matt's death. I asked to be sure and confirm what he was saying "Do you mean the cure was the killer?" And he responded, "Yes Ma'am, that's what I am saying." When reading Matthew's file from the MMT clinic, it was obvious they had time to "fix" his records.  There was nothing there that resembled the truth.  They had only documented his side effects once, and had back-dated numerous comments, and the dates were not in chronological order.

  But the truth is methadone kills - even when administered in a controlled, licensed clinic setting, without taking anything "extra". The only thing Matt did wrong that week was follow the doctor's orders - and it killed him.  Most innocent victims are unaware of the dangerous and lethal side effects of Methadone. Most people do not realize the unpredictable half-life of this drug that makes it so dangerous; it is  generally 24-48 hrs, but varying as much from 4 hrs to 190 hrs.  This means that when you take the 2nd dose, at least half of the first dose is still in your system, and when you take the 3rd dose, some of the first and second dose are in your body, etc., and it all depends on how slow or fast your body metabolizes the drug.  Little do most people know if you are not opioid tolerant or if you have a low tolerance, it only takes one pill or one dose to kill you!!  Most clinic deaths occur within the first 5-10 days (the induction phase) when the risk of death is 98 times greater than any other time of dosage.  You would think with the clinic's knowledge of these facts, they would have paid more attention to Matthew when he complained of the multiple side effects that related directly to methadone toxicity.  They were the so-called experts, they should have known.

In order to improve the safety of methadone clinics, I first filed a complaint with the WV DHHR.  They performed an audit that found 19 major violations. The clinic tried to contest the violations, was allowed one hearing, and denied the second and the report was filed with all 19 violations.  The clinic has now had to implement corrective actions for each violation found.  One of the violations was lack of assessment during the induction phase; the clinic now has in place a document that the patient must list any side effects experienced and the clinic staff and dr have to sign off on it.  This corrective action alone would have saved my son's life had it been in place in August 2006.  Second, I tried spreading Matthew's story through all the federal agencies like SAMHSA, CSAT, DEA, governors, senators, etc. In 2007, I was one of only 51 people from around the country that was invited to attend the annual guideline review for Methadone Maintenance Treatment goverened by SAMHSA & CSAT, located in Rockville, MD, just across from DC.  I stood tall and told all of the officials Matthew' story and emphasized the need for stricter regulations, particulary in the induction phase, and put a new perspective of methadone clinics in all attendees that listened in awe.  I have been told in the next guidelines revision they will dedicate an entire section to the induction phase.  Third, I have tried to relay Matthew's story to every website where I could post it. I told his story from the heart of a mother. I have recently learned (August '09) that a woman was alerted to the dangers of methadone toxicity from a post I had made on a FL website; it made her realize her husband was suffering from methadone toxicity.  She left work, went home and found him unconscious and rushed him to the ER. The drs told her if she had waited until the end of her shift, he would have died.

I believe this means that Matthew's life and tragic story has saved at least one life that I know of, and I hope many more through the improvements forced upon the clinics. Matthew's death must be more than a sad tragic story, it must mean he made an impact in this unsafe world and spreads the word of Methadone dangers.

As hard as it is, we accept that it was Matthew's time to be with the Lord and resides in Heaven.  We lift up the 20 blessed years we had with such a wonderful child, grandchild, nephew, friend, cousin, etc.  We know that God catches our tears and gives us strength, after all he lost His only Son.

 
 

If you do a general search on the internet about Methadone, many pro-Methadone sites come up first.  These websites are visited by innocent people who are made to belive that Methadone is safe and effective.  The truth is their research is done by Dr. Stuart Leavitt, who is funded solely by Mallinckrodt, the manufacturer of Methadone!!  This is how we were blindly fooled at the cost of Matthew's life.

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