The story of how “our mom” got her power.
Dara has been passionately involved in health and nutrition for over 18 years. Her involvement started when Dara was stopped dead in her tracks at the age of 22 years old. She had been extremely healthy as a child almost never getting sick. Newly married, life was an exciting time for Dara until suddenly she was struck with a sever case of food poisoning. For over a year her body deteriorated and she was left with a 92 pound sick body. She spent over a year of her life begging doctors to figure out what was causing her to be so ill. She recalls that at every doctors appointment she hoped, “this time” they would have some answers to why and what was making her so sick but she would always leave disappointed. Throughout her sickness Dara always felt there was a “bigger picture to why she was sick. Although she didn’t know why, she felt as though she was supposed to be learning something from this experience. There was a point where Dara completely gave up on doctors figuring out what was wrong with her.
At the time of Dara’s illness she had not made the food/ body connections. Due to her being a considerably healthily child she never had any concerns as a young adult about the health of her body. Leaving home at the age of 19 she did what most young adults do when leaving home, she lived off of Top Ramon, mac & cheese, coffee and cigarettes. After a long hard battle and no answers from Western Medicine Dara started enlisting the help of the alternative heath field. She very quickly learned that she had Giardia.
Giardia, is an infection of the intestines caused by a parasite. Do to the length of the illness she also had developed 4 large ulcers and stage 3 pre-cervial cancer. As she started the healing process, she really starting learning about how important it is to know what you put in your body. Prior to this she had never made the connection before. You know that certain things are bad for you but being young you think you have time. It was a real eye-opening experience that her body was not happy with the way she was treating it.
She knew her body was speaking to her and she could decide to either ignore it and let more disease set in or she could listen and start her journey to health. She chose to listen. She always felt your body does not just have symptoms for no reason. It was important to find out “why” the symptoms are there and get to the cause. This would be the fire she needed 18 years later to help her daughter with her health crises. Dara went on to heal which took well over 4 years to really get back her health and gain her weight back. She went on to having children and had faced other health issues. After the birth of her first child she had a hypothyroidism which she was able to heal naturally with herbs and acupuncture.
Dara is always learning and keeping up with alternative medicine. She has adopted the philosophy that Osteopathic medicine brings, which is to heal and treat the body as a whole person and to help promote the body’s innate ability to heal itself. This philosophy played an important role in healing her 2nd child from a severe illness. The birth of Dara’s first-born son was extremely intense and nothing she imagined. After being in labor for 22+ hours and pushing for 3 she had an emergency c-section. This was the furthest thing from her drug free birth plan. Dara spent another 3 hours in recovery and was not reunited with her son until her hemorrhage was under control. By the time she was put in her room and able to see her son she was able to breastfed him and then asked the nurses to take him for a bit so she could sleep. During the night he was sent to the NICU and put on formula. He was in the hospital for the next 7 days. Dara did what she could to pump and give him what breast milk she could but could not keep up with the demand. Later with her daughter she thought she would no have a problem producing milk because the circumstances would be different. Unfortunately she still was not able to produce enough milk. She consulted lactation specialists and took all the herbs and supplements they recommended but again had to turn to the commercial formula for the main source of food.
By the time Ella was 5 weeks old she came down with a low-grade fever and was hospitalized. Dara can remember how powerless she felt sitting in the hospital day in and day out with no answers. One of the things she remembers so well about the experience is how “routine” things were. One example she gave is when they first admitted Ella to the hospital they wanted to give Ella a spinal tap. Dara was shocked that they would ask to perform such a risky procedure when the only symptom was a very low-grade fever. Dara declined to have the spinal tap she felt it was not worth the risk. She was very glad she made that decision because later that night a baby was transported from another hospital due to a failed spinal tap. As she sat in the hospital she often though how ridiculous it was that they were just sitting there. Dara knew her little girl more than likely had a virus that her big brother brought home from school. Dara would sneak in probiotics into her bottle and would give her homeopathic medicine. Ella was released 5 days later but continued to keep coming down with viruses and started developing eczema. By the time Ella was 6 months old her skin condition became increasingly worse. As a mom being in tune with her daughter’s body she knew something was still not right with her baby. One afternoon when Dara was feeding Ella her stage two foods (Ella had gone through stage ones with no issues) she noticed almost immediately Ella’s cheeks turned a bright deep red. Dara took the jar of Earth’s Best Organic baby food out of the trash and read the back of the label: Carrots, peas & CORN. At that point she knew Ella was allergic to the corn. She began looking at all her different cereals, teething biscuits and everything had CORN. Dara thought at that point she found all the problem foods and began reading every label. But Ella’s condition continued to get worse. Her entire body began breaking out from her head to her feet, so bad that the rash would ooze a puss like liquid. Dara was horrified as she watched Ella get worse in front of her eyes. She took Ella back to the doctors and the doctor thought it was from yeast. The doctor prescribed a topical yeast cream and directed to put it on all her rashes. Reluctantly, Dara put the ointment on Ella that evening.and when Ella woke up the next day she was twice as bad as the day before. She took Ella back to the doctor. At that point the doctor was not sure what was causing the rash but she felt that it was not “internal.” Dara had gone through every soap, laundry detergent, shampoo and felt as if she had address everything. Her doctor called in several other physicians from the office to look at Ella and see if they had any ideas of what she had. Not one of them had ever seen anything like it but felt she probably should be hospitalized. The doctor allowed her to go home under the agreement that Dara would bring her in daily to check her progress. Ella’s next appointment was on a Friday. At that time the doctor thought it would be a good idea to start feeding her a soy based formula. Dara explained that she is against all soy products because they contain highly processed GMO’s and are high in estrogen. She would not allow her daughter to have any soy, gmo and products that have hormones such as milk & meat. She believed in protecting her children’s bodies from chemical overload especially with her girl. To avoid any conflict, Dara agree to try the soy formula. Dara explained that she had the same feelings of disappointment of not knowing what was wrong with her little girl that she had when she was ill. She decided she was not going to just sit back wait for answers like she did with her own health. So she left the doctor’s office on a mission to find the cause of Ella’s illness. On the car ride home Dara had a thought that although she had tried several different formulas they must all have one common ingredient that could be the cause of Ella’s illness. When she got home from the doctor’s office she pulled every can of formula out of the cupboard and starting comparing labels. As she started reading the label her mouth dropped to the floor and it felt like someone kicked her in the stomach. The ingredients label read: vegetable oil, palm olein, SOY, coconut oil, SOY LECITHIN, CORN SYRUP SOLIDS. She couldn’t believe what she was reading. After reading the ingredients she knew actually why her baby was sick. Her little girl was being poisoned! She vowed to never feed her baby commercial formula again. She began researching how to make homemade baby formula and found a great recipe. She began making her own formula the very next day and explains how empowering it felt to know that every ingredients was pure and fresh and she knew what every one of them was for and most importantly could pronounce them all. Ella starting healing right away. By her next doctors appointment she was almost completely healed. The doctor could not believe her eyes at the progress made over the weekend. Of coarse Dara was nervous to tell the doctor she was making her own formula. The doctor looked at her and said “God gave you this for a reason. Other mom’s need you desperately”. Ella has thrived off of homemade baby formula and now is 2 1/2 years old and has far exceeded all developmental mile stones. Dara’s message to all mothers, fathers and caregivers is to not be the victim. To take a stand and be empowered. It’s your health and your freedom. She fully understands now why she got sick and that she needed to learn to fight and never give her or her families power to someone else.
