In April 2005 my 3 year old son Bobby started limping and to cut a very long story short, he had Stage 4 Neuroblastoma which had spread to his bones and bone marrow. He was given only a 20% chance of living another five years. I asked the consultants “What can I do to improve his chances, could his diet make a difference?” “No,” they replied. Although the doctors said they believed in good nutrition they advised that Bobby be fed absolutely anything he wanted to reduce the “inevitable” weight loss caused by chemotherapy. His poor diet could be put right if he recovered. I had however, been selling hundreds of thousands of pounds in advertising to the NHS to promote the eating of five portions of fruit and vegetables a day. This was the first of many contradictions I would encounter.They went on to explain his treatment – chemo, surgery, a bone marrow transplant, radiation – and the short and long term side effects they would have such as weight loss, extreme mucositis, infections, hearing damage, possible heart and kidney damage, stunted growth and serious long term bowel disturbances.I then asked “what could have caused this?” “No one knows,” they said. I could not believe this. Surely with the technology available in the 21st Century we could at least make an educated guess? So I stopped work the day he was diagnosed and threw myself and my two office employees into research to find what I could do to give him the best possible chance of life and to mitigate the side effects.Nearly 5 years on we have a vibrantly healthy 7 year old – who recovered in record time and suffered no weight loss, no hearing damage, no mucositis, not a single infection or any long term side effects whatsoever - running around to motivate us. During this time we discovered many things. Here are some of them…….
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