Having a 'Miracle Mindset' - with JJ Virgin | The Empowering Neurologist EP. 37

Hello everyone, I'm Dr. David Perlmutter. Welcome to The Empowering Neurologist. I'm sure the name JJ Virgin is pretty familiar to most of you, and with good reason. She is a celebrity nutrition and fitness expert, and JJ teaches clients and people who read her books not only how to lose weight, but also how to master their mindset so they can lead bigger and better lives. JJ is the author of 4 New York Times bestselling books: The Virgin Diet, The Virgin Diet Cookbook, JJ Virgin's Sugar Impact Diet, and the cookbook that goes along with that as well. Her recent memoir, which is going to be the subject of our interview today, is called Miracle Mindset: A Mother, Her Son and Life's Hardest Lessons. And this explores the, the powerful lessons in strength and positivity and, as you'll see, resilience that she learned after her son Grant was the victim of a brutal hit-and-run accident. JJ Virgin hosts the popular JJ Virgin Lifestyle Show podcast. She regularly writes for things like the Huffington Post, Rodale Wellness, and other major blogs and magazines. She's also a frequent guest on television and radio and speaks at major events dealing with health and positivity. In addition to her work with nutrition and fitness, she is also a business coach and founded the premier health entrepreneur event and community, the Mindshare Summit, as well. She has articles, recipes, and a lot of online information at her site, which is jjvirgin.com. It'd be a good place to visit after the interview today to learn more about what's going on with her recently. So this is a very, very interesting topic that we're going to be exploring, so let's get right to it. Well, as I mentioned in the intro, we've been following your work for a long time, doing some great things. And, you know, to be sure, suddenly there's been a fairly dramatic shift in your focus, a big change in your life. Welcome, JJ. Why don't you tell us about what's going on with you right now?

All right. Thank you. Yes. Well, a lot of people know me for The Virgin Diet, but what they don't know is that a couple weeks before that book was ready to come out— and you know how crazy it is before a book is getting ready to come out, right? My son, who was then 16— I have 2 boys. My older son is 16. My younger son at the time, Bryce, was 15. My older son was crossing the street and was the victim of a hit-and-run. And literally left for dead in the street. He was airlifted to our local hospital out in the desert, and when we got there, they told us that due to his, his injuries— he had a torn aorta, that's going to kill 90% of the people on the scene. His was literally hanging on by an onion skin. They said it was going to rupture sometime in the next 24 hours, so it had to be repaired. But he had multiple brain bleeds, multiple diffuse axonal injuries. He was in deep coma and he had 13 fractures, which at the time seemed like, you know, relatively no big deal compared to everything else. But he had bones sticking through his skin, covered with road rash, glass sticking out of his skin. And the doctor said, we can't fix this here. We cannot fix his torn aorta because his brain will bleed out. We need to use a blood thinner and we can't get him to the hospital where they can do it because he'll never survive the airlift there. It was 2 hours away at Harbor-UCLA. And so we're listening to this and he goes, you know, and even if he were to survive that airlift, he wouldn't survive the surgery. And in the remote chance he was able to survive both those things, he'd be so brain damaged it wouldn't be worth it. And my 15-year-old son looks at this doctor and says, hmm, so a 0.25% chance maybe of him surviving? And the doctor said, that's about right, son. And my son Bryce says, well, we'll take those odds.

Wow.

Yeah, that is just who Bryce is too. We overruled him and we got this amazing doctor to accept the case at Harbor-UCLA, this incredible vascular surgeon who, in the middle of the night, had to assemble all the surgical teams, the neurosurgeon, the orthopedic, and the critical care, get a hold of a stent that was no longer available that wasn't supposed to be used in kids anyway. He said, I figured I'd ask for Forgiveness and put this all together. We drove to LA, not knowing if we were going to pick up a body or you know our son was still going to be alive. And yeah, it was, it was, it was. I still remember this drive and feeling. I've always been able to feel my son's energy, and I couldn't feel it. And I was calling friends, and they were having to like have the hope for me. But we get there. This doctor was amazing. He saved his life. He came in and told us. You know, it's great. I fixed it. No problem. He goes, now I'm just a plumber. I have no idea if he'll ever wake up. You got to talk to the neurosurgeons for that piece. And we go to talk to the neurosurgeons who were just, you know, as negative about the whole situation as they could be. They said they didn't think he'd ever wake up. And I went in to see him. He was in the ICU. You know, everything was in a cast or bandaged except for one hand. Machines everywhere, the tube out of his brain monitoring the pressure. I'm holding his hand. They said he's in a deep coma. He has no idea what's going on. I said, Grant, we all love you. No response. I said, Grant, your girlfriend loves you. Big hand squeeze. I'm like, he's in there.

Wow.

I know. Then I tested it. I tested it, David. I said someone he didn't care about loved him and no response. I said his brother loved him and he did it again. In fact, that time he lifted up my hand. I looked at him and I said, you are in there. You are a warrior. This is going to be the best thing that ever happened to you. We are all in here fighting. We are all together. No one is leaving and you will be 110%. I just decided at that moment that was going to be what I operated from more than anything else because I needed to have that belief and that hope in order to stay forward. It is interesting. I have always believed that you get what you expect. The hospital staff thought I was a little bit crazy at that point. They started treating the whole situation differently, you know, because I wasn't— Wow. Right? The orthopedic surgeons came in and he had this crushed heel with a pin sticking out of it and they're trying to figure out what to do and they looked at me and they go, we're just trying to get him to be able to walk again. And I go, I want you to tell me what you would do if Kobe Bryant were in this bed and that's what we're going to do here. I go, this is an athlete here. He's not going to walk again. He's going to run again. He's going to do sports again. They're like, all right. That was just how we operated from that point forward. One of the smartest things I did early on was I sent out an email to my entire community. My entire community has some amazingly brilliant people in it. I said, hey, I don't need your sympathy here. I need support. I need ideas. What are the latest things going on here that I should be doing for him? Doctors told me, you know, the brain has its own time schedule. We just wait. Time heals. I'm thinking, no way. I know that's not the case here, that time's critical and that we've got to reduce this inflammation. That is not what I'm going to do is just sit back and wait. We did a lot of things for Grant, and a lot of what we did, we did knowing that we were going to ask for forgiveness later.

I know what that's like. So you did some things that were really quite a bit out of the mainstream, out of the norm. And let's first talk about what those things were, and then after that, talk about how that was accepted or dealt with by the treating doctors.

Yes. So again, what I did was just put the information out there. I was lucky at the time. Dr. Daniel Amen had actually been his doctor prior to that. We were really close friends, so we actually even had pre-accident SPECT scans. I was getting information from a lot of my different doctor friends about fish oil. Grant had been on fish oil prior to the accident. In fact, I strongly believe that one of the reasons he made it through that first night was the fact he was on high-dose fish oil prior to the accident, and we had his brain protected. You know, and that's been one of the key things that I've been pushing, because you never know when you're going to hit your head, right?

That's right. You know, there's been a big move in professional sports, for example, to have people on— already on fish oil, specifically DHA, because it does offer a level of protection. Dr. Joseph Maroon is the coach for the Pittsburgh Steelers, a good friend of mine, and gosh, he's been involved in that for about the past 15 years. You know, that's always been my wish. I sort of look at fish oil as sort of like a bicycle helmet for children involved in sports, having that on their heads at all times. So you may very well be right, because, you know, based upon what you've described with the diffuse axonal injury and the other injuries, etc., you know, it paints a very, very bleak picture. Gosh, I've certainly been in that situation more times than I care to remember, but something special happened here, and that I think that may have had a lot to do with it. Again, a real major call-out here for people taking fish oil because you never know.

You never know. I'm on a crusade about that because when you get into a room and you ask how many people— sit down with a group of 100 people and say, who's hit their head? Find the person who hasn't. We hit our heads. It's not just the football players, and it's not just the military. It's all of us. I had been in an accident prior to Grant, and it took me a year to recover.

Yeah, and beyond humans, or maybe before humans, however you want to look at it, but the rodent studies are clearly demonstrative of a powerfully protective effect of fish oil in the concussion model of the rodent. These are standardized studies that look at either rodents with or without the fish oil on board, and you're right, it's a dramatic difference.

Yeah. That was the good news. I had him on it before. The frustration was they would not let me. At first, he was in a coma, feeding tube, and they said, okay, we'll give him 2 grams. I'm like, 2 grams? That's a thimble of water in a forest fire. We've got to get this up. I gave them all the research. Dr. Barry Sears handed me the research. I had Dr. Barry Sears and Dr. Michael Lewis helping me, the big guns, and I had all the research that they used when They'd done the other cases, and the hospital said that— refused to do it.

Yeah, one of the biggest pushbacks on the part of the hospital has to do with blood clotting, and I'm sure in his situation that's what their biggest concern was. It really doesn't need to be a concern. I'm sure that's what the literature showed that you presented to them.

Yep, and there was not one thing that pointed to it being an issue. What I did because of that— I got him to 2 grams. And they're monitoring his bleed times and he— when he got out his feeding tube, he actually hacked up his feeding tube. So he extubated himself. But at that point, I knew it was like game on for me, right? So what I started to do was push up his fish oil. I was making smoothies and all sorts of stuff. So I'm giving him liquid fish oil in these smoothies and bringing his fish oil up and monitoring his bleed times. So whenever I know they're going to do a lab test, I gave him some fish oil. No change. There's no change at all. I didn't get him up to 20 grams until we shifted hospitals, and so I was getting him up to about 10 grams. At 20 grams is when I saw the big, significant difference, and it was pretty amazing. The next hospital we went to, I just said, oh, he's on 20 grams of fish oil. His medical records at that point were so ridiculously big, they went, oh, okay. We were in. They

were overwhelmed by the records, and they didn't pay attention to the 20 grams.

Yeah, but they were also way more integrative and open than the first hospital. That was Children's Hospital LA, so they were like, you know, they were looking at everything. And a couple days after that, he actually— he'd gone from really saying, let's go, let's go, let's go, that was his main vocabulary, to calling me in the middle of the night with his cell phone, dialing, and having a conversation.

Wow.

It was pretty dramatic. Now, you know, he's an N of 1, and I can't take it back. But what's— if there's no risk, you know, that's why I looked, I go, there's no risk here. Why aren't we doing this?

So let me, let me just pause for a moment for our viewers and just let you get your arms around what you've just heard. And that is that both the experimental and the human studies using fish oil in head trauma have demonstrated significant efficacy and that there remains a dramatic pushback from most mainstream hospitals and other care facilities with respect to doing that. And what you've heard JJ just say is that she believes with one— an N of 1, meaning one individual, happens to be her son, that this may in part be, or probably in large part, be responsible for His dramatic recovery from an incredibly extensive injury. Let's move on. Then he goes to, I guess, a child's rehab facility. That's what that next hospital was?

Yeah. When he was at UCLA, they're amazing for saving your life. Oh my gosh. What they were able to do, what this man was able to do for his torn aorta, and then he had a pseudoaneurysm after that. This guy kept saving his life, but they couldn't do anything beyond that. As he started to come out of the brain injury, and we all Also, very early, like after the first couple of days, I had another girlfriend who worked at Cedars-Sinai. She's a doc over there in their brain trauma unit. She came over and started doing essential oils, like within 3 days. It was very interesting because I started to see him responding immediately from those. So we would do essential oils. He would wiggle his nose. He would flutter his eyelids. He would wiggle his toes. So that was pretty interesting. We were doing some acupressure on him. We started doing progesterone therapy. I talked to Dr. Donald Stein. I mean, I was just like, who do I need to get to? And I was getting to these people. So we did progesterone therapy on him as well. We started that about a week in.

And again, for our viewers, there's been quite a bit of research looking at using progesterone in head trauma. Some of the results are very, very positive. Others of the study were not positive, but There was not any significant downside. So, you know, in a situation like this, the question is, why wouldn't you try it?

Exactly. And I don't know, I, you know, that's the thing. I don't know which of these things did it. Maybe it was all the prayer all over the world, you know, but there was no risk to anything. And I had someone who was in the deepest coma there was. I mean, when he started to come through it and he went to the next rehab center, He was a Glasgow 3. He was, you know, he a lot of times would look at me and have no idea who he— who I was. He couldn't remember anything. He had to start from— he didn't know who he was, how to eat, how to go to the bathroom. It was like having a newborn and starting from—

And again, for our viewers, to clarify, the Glasgow— what JJ just said, the Glasgow Coma Scale is a scale used by physicians and healthcare providers to rate the level of consciousness, basically. And having a Glasgow Coma Score of 3 indicates a profound depression of the level of consciousness. Was there any evaluation and involvement in terms of his vitamin D level?

Yes. So what I did, I actually, the minute that he spit up his own feeding tube, One of the first things that he said was disgusting when he looked at the hospital food. I actually had a sign up on the wall that said no food—

He said the word disgusting?

Disgusting.

Very good. I love that.

That's my boy. I was bringing him everything. I had a NutriBullet in there. I brought in— I was doing liquid vitamin D, K, and NK. I was doing amino acids. I was doing extra glutamine. I was doing probiotics because he'd had so many antibiotics. Oh, yeah. It was crazy. We've done that now for a couple of years. A lot of fish oil. I was just full-court press to get everything back in him. He was very cachexic. He'd lost so much weight. He was down to about 140 pounds. He looked skeletal. He's a very husky kid. He was 200 pounds going in and losing weight, no appetite. I was making him Loads of smoothies with vitamin D was one of the first things that I started adding back in for him because I was so concerned about his bone remodeling, his healing. We put that in along with a lot of other stuff in these smoothies. It was funny because they wanted to give him Ensure. Oh, geez. There were 2 things they were hard-pressed to give him, and I'm like, I don't get this. At the first hospital, UCLA, it was like we were just going to give him Ensure. I had to put a big sign on the wall that said, no Ensure. Right. And then when I get to the next hospital, this will blow your mind. We're working on what they have to eat. Now, I was going next door and getting him sushi because he was like craving sushi. I was bringing him wild salmon. Our buddy Randy over at Vital Choice was shipping us salmon patties, but he just wanted fish. And I'm like, excellent, he knows what he needs here. And they wanted to— they go, well, we've got to figure out what he's going to drink. And I go, all right, well, how about water? Right? I was giving him water and coconut water, and they wanted to give him Crystal Light. They actually had it in the hospital.

Wow.

Children's Hospital. The Children's Hospital has a McDonald's in the Children's Hospital, and on the menu they have diet sodas and Crystal Light. I'm looking at this going, he can't have Crystal Light. He's got a brain injury. His brain is unstable. Can you imagine this?

Oh, I don't need to imagine. I mean, as you may well know, been there, done that.

Yeah.

So let me just get back to the vitamin D story for just a moment. We're going to interview in the next couple weeks Dr. Leslie Matthews, who's a trauma surgeon up in Atlanta, and we actually had him a couple of years ago at our brain injury symposium. So we're going to learn more about that whole notion of vitamin D being brain protective if it's on board up front. Front, like fish oil, but also interventionally using vitamin D, high dosage, in an intensive care unit, much as you did with respect to using the fish oil. He's made what kind of recovery?

My goal is 110%.

JJ Virgin's goals are always 110%, just so everybody knows.

Better than before he was in the accident, because here's the thing. The reason that we'd been working with, with Dr. Amen was Grant's bipolar. So things weren't great before the accident. He'd actually kind of, kind of finally gotten to a point where life was pretty good, but it was challenging. So I looked at this whole thing and I went, I'm getting a do-over here and he's going to be 110%. The frightening thing when he was waking up and I told the psychiatrist, I go, I have no idea who's waking up here. And you know, when someone's coming out of a brain injury, You want to let their brain wake up, but then they're so—he was so violent. We actually had to have a 24-hour security guard. We had to have him in a posy bed zipped up, and we had to have this cocktail of Haldol, Ativan, and Benadryl to hit him when the Incredible Hulk came out, which was often. When we brought him home, we actually came out of the rehab hospital early because I became convinced that if he was around familiarity, we could create our own rehab center at home and he'd do better. But what I hadn't taken into account was how suicidal he'd be. It has been a rough 4 years, but I have clung to the— he's going to be 110%. He got home. We started him in hyperbaric oxygen treatment, and we started neurofeedback. Now, there was, of course, a ton of things I wanted to do, and he was like— he also has to go along with them, so that was part of the challenge was We could only do so much at any one time. We started him on CBD. I've been working with Michael Lewis on CBD. The things that I've really seen that have made a big difference for him— when we first got home, we did IV stem cell therapy. We harvested his stem cells and just right away did IV therapy. It's hard to know what was doing anything, but then I started to hear about that we could do it right into his spine. And so one of my friends started a whole stem cell company nationwide. So we harvested his stem cells and we sent them off to be grown, but we took the first batch and we did the injections right in his spine. And about 72 hours into these— this injection, Grant went back to how he was in the hospital as his brain started coming online. And it was frightening, but I figured it was a good thing, right, that we were waking up more neurons. And I didn't understand at the time that quite often, as you're starting to go back and remember things, your memories will be negative. They'll be the scary things that happen, you know, because your amygdala is trying to protect you. So we went down a really negative path, and then he came through it. Now, we just about 6 weeks ago injected him again with 10 times the stem cells because they've been grown and concentrated. He is now better than before the surgery, better than before the accident. In fact, I asked him, if you could go back and do it all over again, he goes, I'd have all of this happen. I'm better because of it. He's doing amazing art. He has taken over the entire backyard of one of my houses and designed this whole hydroponic garden.

Oh my gosh.

He's studying like crazy. He is obsessed with how to heal your brain. He ordered these Tesla coils. He's wearing this brainwave sensing headband with these Tesla coils, getting the Tesla energy and learning how to change his brainwaves. He's designing this stuff. I'm like, you realize you're going to be able to teach people how to heal the brain, Grant. He goes, yep. Doing incredible art. This is part of my documentary. This is the art he did.

Oh my gosh.

Isn't that great?

One step back and 3 steps forward.

Yeah, he was not an artist before, so—

You mentioned hyperbaric oxygen, and again, for our viewers, you know, that's a technology that's been around for about half a century. It was originally developed— actually longer than that— for the treatment of diving-related injuries. But as many of you know, we've been incorporating that into various brain protocols for a number of years, and you're basically flooding the entire body with oxygen under pressure. There's always been the concern that, well, oxygen might increase the production of free radicals, and indeed that's a possibility. But what we've learned is that in the presence of oxygen, your body actually enhances the gene pathways that go ahead and create your body's endogenous antioxidants. So at the end of the day, you're in a better place in terms of having higher levels of antioxidants present. The, the powering of cells throughout your body requires oxygen, and this is really a great way to get what are called the mitochondria back on board, especially in conjunction with, with fish oil. So this has been, you know, an amazing story, and it's really kind of a great testament to your tenacity, which everybody knew about ahead of time, but you applied it in this situation. So moving forward, you've kind of changed courses in terms of What's the future look like for you?

Here's what was really interesting about all of this. When I first was going through it, and okay, so here I am, I have to launch— I launched The Virgin Diet sitting next to my son in a coma in the ICU. What was super cool about this is I just knew he could hear me. I'm literally talking to him about the book launch and doing interviews next to him. He said later, he said, The gray man came down and asked me if I wanted to live or die. And you know, I was talking to Grandpa. Grandpa's on the other side, and it was really nice over there. And he goes, "I actually really wanted to be there, but I kept hearing your voice," and so I told him I would stay. And I'm like, "Phew!" But I was looking at the whole situation. I'm thinking, you know, the first place I went, David, was health. I'm like, "Wow! Thank God I was as healthy as I was. If I hadn't have been, I would never have been able to be in the ICU and pull this off." So I really thought the whole message at first was, you know. You can't— don't put your health on hold. But I realized that that wasn't what saved my son. That in reality, what saved my son and what will make my son 110% was that, you know, Bryce exemplified it with the doctor, telling the doctor, we'll take those odds, and us deciding he was going to be 110%. It's really that mindset. I queried my community last year and I said, you know, if you're not where you want to be with your health, why not? I really expected to hear, well, I can't give up the sugar, or, you know, I love my bread, or one of those things, right, that I'm about. The reason people told me they weren't where they wanted to be with their health was because they didn't feel good enough. I have now been taking people through. My concept was mindset's a muscle. It impacts every area of your life and you can build it, but you— just like a muscle, if you don't, it will atrophy. So you must be building it. And I just created a program and brought a bunch of people through it, and people who'd been in my programs for years now are getting to the next level in their health and every other area of their life because they've up-leveled their mindset. And so while I'm on a campaign now to help people realize that You know, you can recover from a brain injury and time does matter and you need to be super proactive. And I'm going to get, you know, I'm assembling all of the best of the best to get this message out there and using my platform, my book, my documentary, and my son. I said, this is your big purpose, because he said, I don't know what my purpose is. I said, I know what your purpose is. You're about to show people what's possible, that you can be better than before with a brain injury. But it has to start first with that belief, right? You get what you expect.

So tell us about the documentary.

Well, I've always done public television shows for my books, and I looked at this, I go, this doesn't really fit that model. And I really wanted to get this out there in a bigger way. So I worked with our buddy Eliane, and we created— and talk about a lot of work— we had to create this. And we had a couple pictures. She— we've interviewed all the doctors. We created a documentary about this story that really is to show people what's possible and to show people that when you, you know, when you again uplevel this mindset, work from that place of possibility and resilience, that you are stronger than you think. So the documentary is called You Are Stronger Than You Think, and it goes along with the book, and it really is to just get this out there. And again, I'm focusing on my specific story of brain injury, but really the lessons that I learned going through all of this of resilience and taking action and being courageous and being able to forgive. You know, everyone wanted to go after that other driver. I'm like, I don't have time. Like, this isn't about her. Like, we've got to get my son healthier. That's what the documentary really takes people through. So, you know, whatever you're going through in your life, whether you're just in a rut Right, or you're facing a big challenge, it will help you.

So if our viewers want to follow this story and, and, and be aware of when the program, the documentary can be seen, and the book, etc., where can they go right now to start following you?

Well, I'll put everything— everything's always up on jjvirgin.com.

Okay, good. So we'll put a graphic for that.

Yes, thank you.

Great. You know, I want to just get back before we close to the notion of the various things along the way that you decided to implement. And you didn't know which it was. Was it the DHA? Was it the various vitamins and nutrients? Was it the essential oils? Who knows? But, you know, I've been— I spent actually this past couple days with Dr. Dale Bredesen in California. And he has reversed Alzheimer's in a small cohort of individuals, 9 out of the 10 patients who underwent his program And the program, unlike the kind of central theme of modern medicine that uses one drug that can be monetized, Dr. Bredesen's program has 36 different ways, 36 different channels that are involved, all need to be paid attention to in order to really stabilize multiple areas of abnormality that then can realize brain health. And it's interesting that he is under such heavy Criticism. One recent really negative blog by an oncologist said, oh, you might as well throw the kitchen sink at everybody and hope for the best. Well, as a matter of fact, yeah. And you talked about an N of 1, meaning your son. And I look upon everybody as an N of 1. And if you throw the kitchen sink at somebody and they're getting better, why do we argue with that? Why do we complain?

We win! And isn't it ridiculous to think that it would only be one thing? Like, maybe it was all of the people who were there with him, holding him, touching him, right? You know, I mean, like, it's everything. And that's, I think, the key piece of this is it wasn't hurting. Why not do every single possible thing that you can?

Well, you know, in our world, it all comes down to being able to monetize One proprietary intervention. For example, in Alzheimer's, you know, the billions of dollars being spent to develop the Alzheimer's drug, which to this date has completely failed. And yet we know when you pay attention to multiple factors, because Alzheimer's, for example, is a multifactorial event, you can see improvements. So you're right. And— But— Our world should be nothing more than a bunch of Ns of 1 as opposed to You know, trying to find the magic bullet. As Dr. Bredesen said a couple days ago to me, he said, it's not the magic bullet we're looking for, it's the magic buckshot. And I like that. We said that at lunch. But anyhow, let me thank you for sharing this incredible story with us, and we will absolutely direct people to the upcoming events that you're going to be involved in, because I think they're going to be really, really impactful and help a heck of a lot of people. Thank you.

That's my goal. I just— I, I think back, David, to that first night when the doctor told us to let him go, and he was adamant. And I just have to get this out there because it scares me to death to think of the people that would go along with that.

Yeah. Well, you know, I would say I've, I've said those words before. You know, I would say probably in a situation, believe it or not, that was worse than the one you were in. When I felt in my heart that there was zero chance, not 0.25, but a zero chance of recoverability, and I knew that it was best. I mean, you know, I've been involved in making that, helping make that decision for people and then moving ahead with Organ harvesting, etc. I mean, there is a time— Yeah. It really is something you feel in your heart.

It would have been a different story, but he wasn't brain dead, so there was still that brain activity in there. That was the difference that the neurosurgeon at the first hospital said, there's brain activity, and that was the difference. Yeah. Had no brain activity, it would have been a different story.

Sure. Well, listen, thank you for sharing this really powerful story, and for our viewers, there are a lot of important Yeah. There's some important lessons here about not giving up and about tenacity and about prayer and about mainstream medicine and how effective it can be in trauma. And then, you know, areas that still need to be incorporated, like the fish oil story and the vitamin D story. All these things are really important tools for us that we need, dare I say, a much more comprehensive holistic approach. And, you know, JJ, you set the bar pretty high with, with what you, what you went through, and then we all appreciate that.

Thank you. If it can support everybody, I'm gonna go out there and be a crusader.

Okay, thanks for joining us, JJ. Hope to talk to you soon.

Thank you.

Okay, bye-bye. Well, I think you'll all agree that is a very, very powerful story. I mean, JJ Virgin herself was kind of in position for her response to this very tragic event, you know, recognizing how important positivity and tenacity is for success in life. And indeed, she brought those skills to bear that certainly fostered the recovery of her son. So again, visit her website, jjvirgin.com. There'll be more information very soon with reference to this event and how they got through it. With a movie, rather a public television documentary, as well as a book. So really terrific information. Thanks for joining us today. I'm Dr. David Perlmutter on The Empowered Neurologist. Talk to you soon. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.