This drink saved a young girls life.

A couple of weeks ago I reconnected with David Ball, an amazing life mentor for men and devoted father whom I had the pleasure of meeting 5 years ago at The Golden Door Health Retreat. We chatted about what we've been doing over the last 5 years, me dedicated to embarking on a new career in nutrition and David dedicated to saving the life of his daughter using nutrition. David's daughter was diagnosed with an aggressive auto-immune condition at the ripe age of 8 years old. Seven years on, her condition is completely stabilised and she's enjoying a healthy life as a fully functioning 15 year old girl, and David attributes much of this to this one drink he has made her every day for the last year.

Viewing food as medicine or poison is nothing new to me and something I see validated every single day in my practice. However even I can underestimate just how powerful food can be and it's ability to treat diseases.

I was so moved and inspired by David's story that I asked if I could share it on my blog in the hope that it would move and inspire you too. Furthermore, this powerful healing drink that he made for his daughter everday using ingredients that could be sitting in your kitchen right now could potentially be a cure for you too. 

This is David's story.

Seven years ago my youngest daughter's neurologist diagnosed her with a "devastating, degenerative auto-immune disease", at the time my daughter was 8 years of age. The doctors painted a devastating picture of her future, my wife and I were told that only 1 in a 1,000,000 children have this condition, my wife and I dropped everything and focused on what mattered most. During the next year in an effort to leave no stone unturned in affording our child the best quality of life possible, my wife and I read so much research it felt like we did a graduate diploma in holistic medicine/ immunology. Before the diagnosis my daughter lived an holistically healthy life, but since the diagnosis my daughter has been living a very, very holistically healthy life. Whilst my wife and I follow all the mainstream medical advice for our daughter from specialists re pharmacological treatment, at the same time we have provided our daughter with an holistic wellness regime. Based on our research into our daughters condition and my working life experience, this ongoing holistic wellness regime was designed to significantly impact our daughter’s diet and her capacity to face fear, reframe stressful events, build positive emotions (the hallmarks of resilience), come what may during her journey. Seven years on I’m very glad to say that our daughter’s condition has stabilised, and she is a fully functioning 15 year old.

What have I learnt thus far from my greatest challenge?

DIET:

Our daughter’s holistic wellness regime has been implemented by my wife and I. With respect to diet, my wife has been incredible during the past seven years catering for our daughters dietary needs, which include sugar free (including artificial sweeteners) and gluten free. Whilst pretty much everyday during this period I have made my daughter a Turmeric juice made from organic Turmeric. Turmeric is everywhere now, but 7 years ago you never saw it, it wasn’t heard of unless you were cooking a curry. The research we came across 7 years ago was pharmaceutical companies conducting clinical trials to treat a range of cancers using the powerful anti-inflammatory organic compound in Turmeric called curcuminoids. Curcumin is hard to absorb, i.e. its hydrophobic so we came across some research where its properties were changed to make it 12 times more bioavailable to the body (by heating it), so we thought we don't have time to wait for curcumin to go mainstream re a pharmaceutical so we started making the Turmeric juice using the recipe from the scientific journals. Of course we asked our daughter's specialist's opinion about the Turmeric juice and given a doctors training the response was to be expected; "there is no empirically validated support to encourage the use of such a regime for your daughter's condition". Re diet what I've learnt through my daughter's journey is that food in our culture is very much medicine or poison. Last year as my daughter was travelling so well my wife and I decided to decrease the Turmeric juice frequency from daily to 1/week. 3 months later after being stable for some years our daughter's condition spiralled out of control, so we immediately decided to go back to the regime of daily Turmeric juice, 1 month later our daughter's condition stabilised again and has remained this way for the past year, suffice to say that I've made her Turmeric juice daily for the past year. I don't have quantitative data, but my qualitative/ anecdotal gut feel is that the Turmeric juice is the chief catalyst behind our daughter's condition remaining stable.

HEAT-MEDIATED HEALING TURMERIC DRINK:

1. Peel 2 fingers of organic turmeric and juice or blend in a food processer with some water
2. Add to a saucepan of boiling water about 1.5 inches high
3. Boil for 10 minutes
4. Remove from heat and stir in 1 tbsp of coconut oil (fats are needed to help absorb the turmeric)
5. Allow to cool and drink

RESILIANCE:

My work is 1:1 mentoring with men based all over Australia, NZ. If you'd like to learn more go to my website;  http://www.davidballlifementor.com.au/

I navigate a range of journeys with men such as;

- they're travelling well in life but want to use the objectivity distilled from the 7000 mens' life experiences I've mentored to make sure they're ticking all the boxes; 

• They want a sustainable whole of life balance across the 3 domains of self, relationships, work; 
• They want to be the best father that they can be; 
• They want to thrive in their loving relationships;
• They want to feel more purpose and meaning; 
• For some men it's about addressing all of the above.
• The mentoring is very bespoke to the client’s needs. 

Doing this work for the past 20 years enabled me to see that my daughter needed to be mentored in how to face fear, reframe stressful events, build positive emotions (the hallmarks of resilience), come what may during her journey. So for the past 7 years I have mentored my daughter in some of the tools that I mentor my clients in to enable her to be "ok" come what may. My qualitative/ anecdotal take is that these tools have enabled my daughter more often than not to feel calm, still and peaceful despite the many days/ nights she spent in hospital, the many times the medical staff had trouble getting the catheter in on the first go, the many times children at school made fun of her because of her seizures, etc. 

My wife and I look forward to many years ahead of having our inspirational daughter in our lives.