The most good where it is needed.
The letter you are about to read was written by our 2020 recipient, Robin Sloane. She and her son, Jeremy, are our first joint recipients and knew Matt Krchmar very well, as you will read below. We chose to post it as is, with no changes or edits, typos and all. We at Krchmar Classic feel this is one of the most powerful stories we have ever heard and did not feel the need to adjust it in any way.
Hello, my name is Robin Sloan. I live with son Jeremy Sloan a couple of houses down from where Kelly and Matt lived and Kelly still lives. I used to walk pushing my son in wheel chair daily and Matt would always talk to myself and Jeremy. He always remembered Jeremy by name and Jeremy would remember his name. If Matt was not out Jeremy would worry where Matt was. Matt was such a good caring person and we considered him friend.
Jeremy functions like a 5 year old in all ways. He was born premature in 1980. He had hydrocephalus and was shunted to drain the additional spinal fluid that would build in the brain. Although delayed he did really well until 2010. He contracted spinal meningitis with a very rare bacteria. They thought it was from his stomach area and it traveled up his shunt into his brain. He had approx. 9 brain surgeries in 2010 and finally I had to make the decision due to not being able to put the shunt back in his brain (the bacteria that lives in his body loves artificial devices and would re-colonize every time we thought we had the bacteria killed.) to allow for the brain surgeon to go through the frontal lobe and drill an additional hole in his brain to allow the spinal fluid to drain. With extreme difficulty and probably the wrong decision due to the amount of pain etc that Jeremy is 90% of the time still in today as well as the decline he made physically, I made the decision to go thru with the surgery and let God decide what happened. Even after he came home, I had to do 24 hour round the clock IVs every 4 hours. He still has to take antibiotics every other day. My life completely stopped to care for him as well as deal with the depression etc that sets in with long term care that is so extensive. I did not have a date at all for over 10 years.
Yet, through all of this I have been so grateful that Jeremy is such a loving, kind wanting to please young man. I am happy to know that I raised a boy that is truly a good man heart and soul.
A couple of years ago, we lost our home owners insurance due to not being able to pass wind litigation. Shortly thereafter, we had a tornado go through and do some extensive damage then the hurricane passed. I managed to borrow enough money to fix the roof and add on a bathroom to accommodate Jeremy. I hired someone that had worked on stuff at my house prior, trusting him. He ran off with over 30 k of my money and I had to have everything he had done torn down for an additional 3k. I have been trying to resave this money and in the mean time I am told that this house would probably be better to tear down now with all the holes in the roof and the structural damage that has occurred. It has been a rough few years and even though it hurts my pride as I have always tried to provide and never asked of others. I am much better at giving than receiving. I don’t feel it would be fair to Jeremy or others that might want to give because like I said I do understand the giving part much better than the opposite.
3 years ago, I was diagnosed with end stage non-alcoholic cirrhosis. This has a hereditary component. I went into a deep depression, because what happens to Jeremy when my time comes. I am not at the point where I am on a transplant list but I have been lucky enough to already be placed with the transplant team at TGH. So I have excellent Drs. Yet, due to me being on disability and being on the back to work program, Last year I was terminated due to earning too much money. This hopefully can be resolved within the appeals process (will take years) but in the meantime, we are terminated which means Jeremy lost his Medicare insurance and is only left with Medicaid, so there has been a huge surge in out of pocket expenses etc…… I am working all I can but it is not enough.
I realized this might have been meant to be when I saw no hope and then out of the blue this came up. I am sure there are people out there with less and many more issues than Jeremy and I. If there is I would of course want this to be for the most good where it is needed.
We are honored to be considered. Matt was a beautiful human being. It is so gracious of those that love him to honor him in this manner. I know his mom and dad (family) and Kelly are so honored.