MONROE, CT — Riley Reppenhagen had Covid before, but the teenager suffered lasting symptoms after coming down with the virus a second time in December of 2023. Then one month into her freshmen year at Masuk High School, numerous health ailments took a toll on her body.
“I was tired. My hands would cramp up while writing, so I’d fall behind in my work,” Riley recalled during a recent interview with her mother, Cori, in the Reppenhagens’ home in the Northbrook Condo complex. “Sometimes I had shortness of breath and other times my heart rate would race to 150-plus.”
After numerous doctors’ visits, she was diagnosed with postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), a condition with an increased heart rate upon standing or sitting up from a lying position.
Doctors also found Riley is suffering from a series of other disorders, so her mother bought, Marigold, an English Cream Golden retriever, and is now saving money so it can be trained as a service/medical alert dog.
Among her conditions, Riley was diagnosed with the trifecta of dysautonomia, a nervous system disorder that disrupts autonomic body processes — functions like blood pressure and heart rate.
Cori said the condition affects the nervous system and makes her daughter either feel too hot or too cold.
She said Riley also has Mast Cell Activation Syndrome (MCAS), which can be triggered by conditions such as environment, foods and medications, and can cause uncontrollable itching under the skin.
“My tongue can swell when I eat,” Riley said.
“She breaks out into rashes,” Cori added.
She said her daughter was diagnosed with Hypermobility Spectrum Disorder (HSD), a group of conditions characterized by excessive joint flexibility known as hypermobility.
To demonstrate, Riley lifted her left leg and easily wrapped her foot behind her head, while seated at her kitchen table.
“This morning my shoulder popped out and I popped it back in,” she said of the looseness of her joints. “My skin is naturally stretchy. My body doesn’t form collagen right. My teeth wiggle. I have aches and my muscles tighten around my loose ligaments, which can also cause pain.”
“She can sleep for two days at a time,” Cori said.
“Or I cannot sleep for days at a time,” Riley added.
“It can swing either way,” Cori said. “She doesn’t know what she’s going to wake up to.”
“That’s what makes school hard,” Riley said.
She is being treated by Dr. Irfan Warsy, of the Connecticut Children’s Medical Center in Hartford, and Dr. John Tsalapatanis and Dr. Marilyn Smith of Canterbury Pediatrics in Monroe.
“Masuk didn’t have the staffing for her to get a tutor,” Cori said, so she enrolled in the Acellus Academy, an accredited online school, rather than going to Masuk.
Dr. Tsalapatanis and Dr. Smith had recommended Riley enroll in the Acellus Academy, according to Cori, who said Dr. Tsalapatanis had a lot of patients who enrolled in the program for various reasons.
The Acellus Academy is popular with homeschooled or sick children in grades k-12, Cori said.
“I can miss a week and it won’t hurt me,” Riley said of the times she is too sick to go to school. “I just pick up where I left off.”
“She has a 4.0 gpa,” Cori said.
Pick of the litter
Cori Reppenhagen said she had a successful career as an executive assistant and business manager to CEOs of large corporations, including the Royal Bank of Scotland. “I was one of the only women on the trading floor,” she said.
But in 2012, she got sick with many of the conditions her daughter now suffers from.
The Reppenhagens bought Henry, a chocolate lab, and trained him as a professional service/alert dog.
One day last week, Cori said she fainted and hit her head on the kitchen floor and Henry barked for help. She was taken to a hospital for a three day stay.
When her daughter had started coping with a variety of disorders, Cori decided to get her a dog too. One day in January of 2025, the Reppenhagens went to Puppies from Daniel & Ruthie King in Lancaster, Pa., to pick one out.
“We drove five hours there and five hours back in the same day,” Cori recalled.
One day months earlier, after returning from Henry’s training, Cori said she told her daughter she was going to have a golden retriever named Marigold and the name clicked.
At the Pennsylvania breeder, all of the dogs in the litter had “R” names. “There was a ‘Riley,’ but it was a boy and Riley wanted a female dog,” Cori said.
She chose an English Cream Golden Retriever named Rayna and renamed her Marigold.
“Marigold and Henry get along real well and he helps her to follow commands,” Cori said.
Training Marigold
Once Marigold is trained, she will be able to tell when Riley’s heart rate is off with her sense of smell, detecting when the teenager’s body chemistry is off.
When that happens, the dog will alert Riley by touching her hands, barking or nudging her, among the ways Marigold could communicate.
“She will get her to sit or lay down to lower her heart rate,” Cori said. “She could also lay on her chest and stomach, which is called deep pressure therapy, to get her heart rate down. Marigold will bark to get help if Riley is not well.”
Cori said service/alert dogs can also help steady their owners when they are standing up.
Marigold had lessons in basic commands over the summer, but still needs the professional service/alert dog training.
Cori said it cost $60,000 to train Henry, but it would be significantly lower, $15,000 to $25,000, for Marigold because Riley will train her dog through guidance.
“She wants to go to college and study animal behavior,” Cori said.
“I want to be a service dog trainer,” Riley said of owning her own business one day. She is interested in a program at the University of Connecticut.
Fiscal constraints
Cori Reppenhagen is a single mother of two. Her other daughter, Raegan, 6, is a Stepney Elementary School second grader.
Cori is considered medically disabled by the Social Security Administration, recently lost both of her parents and no longer has a car, so she started a GoFundMe page entitled “Help Team Marigold Earn Money for Medical Alert Training,” to raise the needed funds.
“We’re just stuck in the house right now,” Cori said. “We’re not the kind of people who ask for help, but we have to. There are two of us with medical disabilities.”
“I need this,” Riley said.
“We have no choice,” Cori added.
“This will help me to enjoy life more,” Riley said.
In their daily lives, the Reppenhagens have felt blessed by their neighbors at Northbrook, who have often pitched in to help their family in times of need.
“That means a lot to me,” Cori said. “They’re a huge support system for us and I appreciate that, especially when I’m hospitalized. Whenever something gets in our way, we try to handle everything with a smile on our face, stick together and push forward. We don’t give up.”
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