Patient Story: Matt Whalen

Transcript

Matt had been in the wheelchair for about six years. He's undergone amputations on both legs, and has prosthetics, but has never been able to use them. It's probably a frustrating situation for him, he's been bound to a wheelchair for six years, and all he really wants to do is walk. It's not an unfair thing to ask for. To get that kind of help, is definitely something we should be able to do. We brought him in here, and he had one goal, and that was to walk. Luckily, he had a great therapist in Brian, who knew the correct steps to take him through and was able to progress him accordingly. Over time, he got to the point where he was going from not being able to get out of his chair on his own, to then standing up on his prosthetics, and then balancing on his prosthetics. Ultimately, starting to walk across the clinc. Walking outside of the clinic. Now he's doing that out in the community.

Overall, working with Matt has been a rewarding experience for myself, as well as the clinic. We are able to emulate six hundred feet with the rolling walker. He's making some functional progress, we're progressing toward his long term goals.

I finally got my goal to walk. I haven't walked in about, six years, or seven years. I feels great. It feels real good to walk again. I'm glad they were able to help me.

He was coming in with a driver one day, and talking about how needed a new wheelchair, in terms of meeting his functional activity level, outside of the clinic, outside of the distances he can walk at this point because his old one was actually broken. So we decided to do a little bit of a fundraiser to try and offset some of those things. In some ways, it was our own version of having a star athlete in the clinic. The guy was just exceeding any kind of expectations that he probably had for himself, or that they had for him as well. You know, we'll always have a place in his heart, and more importantly, he's always going to have a place in ours.

It's been a pleasure coming here, having fun, day in and day out. Inspiration to motivation to keep going. Everyone made me feel like home. A home away from home.