Hi everyone here is my newest article.

[scuba diving Matt]

Just wanted to share with you all about the latest article about my quest.

Take care and safe diving all Matt.


Posted on Sat, Jun. 11, 2005

HIS DREAM IS AFLOAT

Matt Johnston, who has a degenerative disease, takes first dip in water in 10 years

BY NANCY YANG

Pioneer Press

Matt Johnston knew he'd have to clear a few hurdles if he wanted to make his dream of scuba diving a reality. Near the top of the list: Just getting back in the water. That's because Johnston has Duchenne muscular dystrophy and is on a ventilator.
Consider that item checked off.

On Thursday, the Woodbury resident took his first dip in more than 10 years, working with a water therapist and joined by two of his local diving buddies, to get reacclimated to the water and moving around in it.

Johnston hasn't been in a pool for the past decade because that's when he needed to use the ventilator more frequently. He was diagnosed as a child with Duchenne muscular dystrophy, a degenerative disease that eventually affects all voluntary muscles and the heart and breathing muscles.

According to the Muscular Dystrophy Association, most people with the disease do not live past their early 30s. Johnston is 28. He isn't letting the disease stop him from aiming for his dream, which he's had since he was 6.

Last year he started a campaign called Matthew Johnston: Diving a Dream to help pay for the design and creation of a ventilator that can be used underwater. He figures it could cost as much as $200,000.

He's also selling merchandise on , an online marketplace, and accepts donations through his project and personal Web sites. Things are going well, he said, noting support and attention from around the world. Johnston's campaign drew the attention of Laura Loppnow's first-grade students at Red Rock Elementary in Woodbury, and he and the students now correspond as pen pals.

On Thursday, his attention was focused on getting back into the water. He showed up for the half-hour session at the Courage St. Croix center in Stillwater already in his specially made dry suit, which has an opening in the front to allow him to connect ventilator tubes.
"I'm really excited," Johnston said before the session. "First time in 10 years."
Johnston had to keep his ventilator above water while he was in the pool. His friends helped him make do with 6-foot tubes linking him to a portable ventilator kept in a large plastic storage container. Drew Gerling, one of Johnston's diving buddies and a diver himself, carried the container in the pool above the water.

"We're just along for the ride," Gerling said of he and fiancé Marcie Stone, Johnston's other diving friend and an aquarist. "I think I'm more excited about this than he is."
Most of Johnston's time in the pool consisted of moving from place to place in nearly 4 feet deep water. Eventually, he's hoping to dive somewhere near 10 feet deep.
Johnston called the pool experience "awesome." "It's a different feeling," he said. "It was cool being weightless."

Johnston also said being in the water was a bit more comfortable than being out of it. "He said it was easier to breathe," his nurse, Sara Freking, said. "It was less work."
Johnston used to visit Courage Center regularly for water therapy, said his father, Charlee Dollens, but had to stop when he went on the ventilator full time. Dollens said they'll probably try to come at least twice a month now — especially because Thursday's swim was so successful.

"Part of what we wanted to do was see what obstacles might come across," Dollens said during the session. "So far, everything is tolerable."On his way out and back home — still in his dry suit — Johnston asked Frekin to turn his wheelchair slightly so he could do one thing. "I want to look at the pool," he said. Because, he said, he'll be back.

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