Julian

By Amanda DeNobregga

Julian was born on Wednesday, October 20th, 2010. The doctors didn't believe that he would make it to the weekend. Julian suffered from a brain injury. At some point during utero development, he didn't receive enough oxygen, which caused severe damage to his brain. Julian was able to come home after three weeks in the NICU and having a g-tube placed.

 

Throughout the first year of his life, he showed "seizure like" episodes but after numerous EEGs, none of them confirmed that anything he was experiencing was an actual seizure. In November of 2011, Julian had another EEG that confirmed and officially diagnosed him with Epilepsy. At this time the episodes had increased in frequency and intensity. From that day forward we continuously tried medication after medication in hopes of controlling the seizures.

 

By the time Julian was 3 years old, he had already tried 12 different medications, with no relief. When we heard about Cannabis and how it was helping those who suffer from Epilepsy, we felt like there was hope... finally! We knew we had to get to Colorado to give Julian this chance.

 

On April 15th, 2014, Julian took his first dose of Haleigh's Hope. Since starting Cannabis, Julian has become more vocal, more alert, more relaxed, and most importantly, his seizures have been reduced! Prior to Cannabis he would average around 30-40 seizures a day. Julian now has around 10 or fewer seizures a day. The seizures also tend to be shorter in time and less intense.

 

Over the summer of 2014 we were able to wean Julian off of Phenobarbital, one of his two seizure medications. Taking away the pharmaceuticals that did nothing good for him and adding a medication that is simply a plant... that works, has been the best decision we could have ever made!

 

We are so thankful for the Flowering H.O.P.E. Foundation and what this plant has done for our son. We will continue to strive for Julian to be seizure free, but in the meantime, we will enjoy all of the amazing side effects this medicine has to offer our Julian.  Next Story >