Team Riga

Matt Riga update:

First of all I want to say thank everyone for all of the love, prayers, support, calls, messages, videos, meals etc. this entire week 😭 We truly couldn’t survive times like these without the incredible support system we have!

Matt has made a lot of progress since Monday 🙏🏻 His doctors thinks his difficulty breathing was caused by pneumonitis (from drug), cancer progression, or most likely a combo of both. The antibiotics and steroids have been working wonders. As of yesterday he was moved off of the high flow oxygen onto a regular nasal cannula which was a BIG step and he’s doing great. They are also in the process of moving him off the ICU floor today onto the progressive floor. This would be a step down from the ICU, which is also great news! He misses our kids (who can’t visit 😢), friends, and family and is just desperate to get home ASAP. We are praying it’s not too much longer.

Matt Riga was one of the very few ICU patients that the staff has ever seen take phone calls all week with his laptop out attempting to work. Which goes to show how tough he really is 💪🏻 We’ve been so grateful to have such great nurses and health heroes taking care of him all week. It’s heartbreaking to hear the stories that they have gone through this year and it really makes you so grateful for all of them. I think every single nurse got a laugh out of Matt’s sense of humor and jokes so really it has been mutually beneficial 😊

Thank you again for the love and continued prayers!! Fingers crossed he will be home soon 🤞🏻

Update: Matt had a lung biopsy Thursday in order to start the clinical trial at Mass General. As a result of the biopsy he has a small pneumothorax (collapsed lung) so we unfortunately couldn’t fly out to CA yesterday 😢 Praying it heals itself soon so he can fly 🙏🏻 His doctors are now more concerned about getting him out to Boston to start the trial.