SOUTH BURLINGTON, Vt. -
Her mom calls her Wonder Girl, paving the way for other kids like her. Maitri Galloway-Melichar, 10, has intractable epilepsy and medications can't control her seizures. The South Burlington child tried more than a dozen prescription drugs with limited success.
Seizures make her chin quiver and her limbs hard to control. Maitri calls this "the wobbles." It's something that happens 15-20 times a day. Her mom, Annie Galloway, was losing hope when she met Paige Figi. The two bonded over their kids' conditions.
"I was wishing for no more suffering because we had nothing else to try," Paige said.
Paige's daughter, Charlotte, was diagnosed with Dravet syndrome, a rare, debilitating form of epilepsy. By 5, Charlotte regressed to a newborn; she couldn't walk, talk or eat on her own. That is until Charlotte's parents traded her traditional seizure meds for a cannabis oil extracted from pot plants in Colorado.
"She looked me in the eye and she was there again. And she started talking and then she started walking," Paige said.
A few months on the oral solution and Charlotte's seizures virtually disappeared. She went from 300 a week to just two. Charlotte's remarkable recovery sent Maitri's mom on a mission.
"It's a life-changer," Annie said. "When this kind of illness affects your family, it's like nothing you can imagine."
Annie updated us via Skype. Nearly 2,000 miles from home, she says her daughter is healing, thanks to a strain of pot plants growing in Colorado Springs.
"The scientific and medical communities need to understand more about this," Joel Stanley said.
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Medicine for Maitri