Bringing Matthew Home

When Ryan Fischer, an employee of Creative Door Calgary, heard that a family he knew was in need of assistance, he was quick to enlist the help of his management team.

Matthew Vargo, of Calgary Alberta, started his life with an uphill battle. Born with a congenital heart defect, Matthew began undergoing surgeries when he was an infant. Since then, his long journey has continued and, many years later, Matthew is now 22-years-old and his family has faced their biggest challenge to date.

Matthew’s parents, Brent and Leanne Vargo, recently had to reach out for help to all able and willing local friends, families, organizations and businesses just to be able to bring their son home from the hospital.

Two years ago the Vargo family was told that Matthew would need to have a defibrillator added to his existing pacemaker. The news, although disappointing, was something the family was able to deal with and looked forward to seeing Matthew come out of the procedure stronger and able to continue to live his relatively normal life. Unfortunately, this is where things took a turn for the worse.

Due to many complications the surgery was not successful. As a result, Matthew went into severe heart failure for three months after the surgery. It was decided by Matthew’s medical team that he was not a good candidate for a heart transplant, and the choice was made to try to fix his heart, which is an extremely risky procedure.

Matthew’s heart surgery went well, but upon his waking, Matthew had sustained astronomical complications: a brain injury and waist down paralysis. Shocked and devastated, the Vargo’s had to now plan for how they would be able to accommodate Matthew’s new needs.

The positive news was that his brain had almost returned to full functioning, with limitations in only a few areas. The unfortunate news was that Matthew's legs would most likely never work again.

Being paralyzed from the waist down has created challenges for both Matthew and his family. While Matthew was learning a completely new lifestyle, his parents had the daunting challenge of funding the build of an addition onto their home for Matthew.

The family decided the suite needed to be a fully-contained unit offering Matthew the independence of living on his own with the support of his parents close at hand. With only $5,000 of available assistance provided by the government, Matthew’s parents had to look for help elsewhere.

The suite is approximately 600 square feet in size and required literally everything and the kitchen sink to fill it. Matthew’s dad, Brent Vargo, reached out to a family friend, Ryan Fischer of Creative Door in Calgary for help with the project. The family was thrilled to hear that Creative Door would donate all of the labour to install two specialized garage doors they required to accommodate the van and the ambulance that brings Matthew to and from their house.

Creative Door also rallied a team of vendors that were able to provide a large portion of the other work and supplies that were needed to complete the addition.

Creative Door is thrilled to support the Vargo family, with hopefully, their last major life challenge. Bringing Matthew home was a dream come true for the Vargo’s and it was all made possible through local support and donations. We wish them all the best and hope Matthew is enjoying his new suite.