A Breakthrough Therapy

When it seemed that all alternatives were exhausted, Dr. Jeff Bradstreet told me about a new therapy in Newport Beach, California, called MeRT,  which consisted of repetitive brain stimulation through magnetic waves. There was already strong empirical evidence that they help to regulate brain functioning quickly, safely, effectively and permanently.

 Dr. Bradstreet explained that there were 20% of people who, for some unknown reason, did not respond to treatment, but an 80% chance of improvement was definitely an opportunity that I was not willing to let go, especially if it had to do with the well-being of my girl.

I traveled to California and they explained what the treatment consisted of. Rachel was going to do an EEG (Electroencephalogram) to determine exactly what was happening in her brain so that they could design a treatment tailored to her needs.

The study confirmed that the front of her brain did not work properly so Rachel did not process the information like the other children. With the clearest panorama, and high optimism, I agreed to start treatment immediately. I could not wait to start.

On the first day of therapy I thought my daughter wouldn’t cooperate. To my surprise she seemed to enjoy the procedure. Obviously at the end of the day I saw no changes in her behavior, but I did not expect to see results so fast. The story takes a really unexpected turn for all of us at the end of the second day of therapy.

We went back to the house of some relatives, where we were spending the night, and Raquel approached me, with a glass between her little hands asking me to give her some “Juz”. There are no words that can express the emotions that I felt at that moment. All the people who know me ask me if I shed tears of joy in that moment. It was the first time I could say that I had heard the voice of my 4 year old daughter. Incredibly this was not all. A few minutes later my daughter went out to the garden of the house, approached a lemon tree, took one and brought it to her face to smell it. For a little girl who practically lived in the corner of the room, interacting with her shadow, this was a revelation, to the point that a few moments later, when her sister took the lemon from her hands, Raquel demanded loudly “My, Lemon?” Only two days of therapy had passed and we suddenly had what seemed, for the first time in her short life, a normal child.

At the end of the second week of treatment, we arrived at the Clinic excited and very eager to share with the medical staff the great advances that we had seen after the second therapy. The Director of Center approached me and asked me to accompany him to the game room where Raquel was. I will never forget that moment. He said, “Look at your daughter.” Raquel was there, sitting by a window. She was pointing to the passing cars and asking out loud: “Blue Car?”, “Green Car?”, also an airplane “Blue Plane with White?”

Most incredible of all was that not only had she improved her ability to communicate, but her emotional projection also took a 180-degree turn. My daughter now asked me to pick her up and carry her in my arms. She hugged me for the first time voluntarily and repeatedly for more than 15 minutes. Aside from improving in language, she also improved her emotional connection. They were the most beautiful 15 minutes of my life. My daughter recognized me and expressed it openly and freely for the first time.
Since that day she did not let me go, everything she wanted to do, was with me. When I realized these great changes I began to carry out other activities with my daughter. What I can not forget to mention is that Raquel’s anxiety did not allow us to take her anywhere. When we went to a mall, the screams were so loud that a man even asked if she needed an ambulance. To take her to the U.S. was horrible too, because customs officers could not understand how this girl could not calm down with her mother. After 3 weeks of therapy Raquel even tolerated going to Disney. That frightful part of our lives was over. Now I was free to walk with my daughter and she was for the first time able to enjoy the rides. I meditated about why God sent this miracle to me. I came to the conclusion that if Raquel did so well, it had to be for something greater than us. At the end of the Treatment and seeing the progress, I decided to meet with the key people of the company and asked them to send a MeRT machine to Panama. When I got to the office I sat down with them and explained that I would not be able to live without the machine that brought me so many miracles. It took a year, but we finally managed to open the doors of Brain Treatment Center in Panama, and provide thousands of people with a treatment that could be the change they sought in their lives, closer, more accessible and comfortable.

Raquel’s Mother