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Gwenevere’s Miracle

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[dropcap class=”kp-dropcap radius”]T[/dropcap]he first three months of baby Gwenevere’s life were smooth sailing until she had her first seizure in September 2012. Gwenevere’s seizures continued to get worse, causing her parents, Alexander and Reagan-Leigh Repetski, to make frequent trips to the doctor every week.

Gwenevere was put on heavy medication right away, and her initial diagnosis of infantile spasms was eventually determined as intractable epilepsy. While certain pharmaceutical treatments Gwenevere received lowered the amount of observable seizures she had, she was still experiencing constant subclinical seizures.

Alexander explained, “[Pharmaceutical medications were] a small step in the right direction, but it would remain that every time we took her for an EEG, where they read her brain waves, she was having constant epileptic activity, whether she was having a visible seizure or not.”

The constant interruption of Gwenevere’s brain waves meant at not even four months old, she stopped developing entirely, keeping her from hitting milestones like crawling, walking or talking.

Over the next two years, Gwenevere’s doctors would prescribe her nine different medications to try and stop her seizures. However the medications were still failing to improve Gwenevere’s condition, and Alexander took it upon himself to find other options to improve his daughter’s quality of life.

He shared, “I started researching neuroscience, and along the away I came across all of these powerful neuroprotective elements of cannabis and some other stories about adults as well as children using it for seizure activity. And I said, ‘This has got to be looked at here.’”

Alexander continued his research and even considered moving to the U.S. many times before realizing he could soon gain legal access to cannabis through Canada’s federal medical cannabis program.

It was during this time Gwenevere’s doctors recommended putting her on other medications as well as a Ketogenic diet, which would require her to eat a restrictive diet using a G-tube. Alexander knew eating was the only thing his daughter truly enjoyed, and he found himself at a crossroads.

Family

“The only thing I can say is I’ve seen [cannabis oil] literally transform Gwenevere from a two-year-old who was almost in a vegetative state most of her life to a three-and-a-half-year-old who is off almost all pharmaceuticals at this point and pretty happy.”

“So I literally felt I had two options,” Alex said, “The first being breakdown, go completely crazy, just turn into a bubbling crying lunatic, or I could spend some time and do as much research as I could find time to do.”  Alexander would put in about 5,000 hours of reading through data to learn everything he could about making oil, titration, dosages, safety and more.

With the support of his wife and family, Alexander decided to start Gwenevere’s cannabis oil treatment. He was able to convince one of his daughter’s doctors to write her a script by presenting logical arguments and scholarly articles.

The family moved forward, and Gwenevere started the oil. Miraculously, she did not experience a seizure for two days following. And although she had a seizure on the third day, she has not had a seizure since then.

 

Five weeks into her cannabis oil treatment, Gwenevere went in for another EEG reading. Doctors were blown away by what they saw—her reading showed no epileptic activity. A few months earlier Gwenevere’s EEG showed constant subclinical seizure activity, and now it was gone. Doctors even admitted they never thought they would see Gwenevere do so well and continue on to hit her milestones.

Alexander shared, “The only thing I can say is I’ve seen [cannabis oil] literally transform Gwenevere from a two-year-old who was almost in a vegetative state most of her life to a three-and-a-half-year-old who is off almost all pharmaceuticals at this point and pretty happy. While she has a lot of hurdles to cross and jump over still, she’s developing, she’s having fun, she’s walking around. She’s doing kid stuff that we feared for very long that we’d never see her do.”

At this point, many of Gwenevere’s neurologists have verbally admitted cannabis must be what is working in her treatment. Cannabis oil has also been added to Gwenevere’s medical charts, which felt like a win to Alexander, “. . . I felt like it was a substantiated step to legitimize it and recognize this is working and to put it in writing. And as before they would not want to talk about it.”

Grateful for his ability to find out what was best for his daughter, Alexander shared his hope for the forward path, “There are many humans in the world, both health care professionals and private citizens who are as educated as myself (many considerably more so) on the topic of cannabis science. We need to open the discussions about the science and remove the interests of politics and business greed. This will provide a platform for all humans to move forward into the further discovery of the potential of cannabis as a therapeutic and healing agent. “

 

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