Former pop star Hazel Kaneswaran revealed it’s a “conundrum” to doctors that her “miracle” son is still alive.
The Dublin mum-of-four said traditional medicine saved him, but reiki healing has helped her boy thrive. Pierce Grogan, now 14, was born with the rare condition, PERCC1.
This means he cannot eat carbohydrates or fats, as his body does not absorb the nutrients from the food groups. When her child was born with this exceptional rarity, Hazel got down on her hands and knees and prayed.
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To her mind “energetically healing” Pierce as well as medical science would give him the best chance to survive. Famed for her time in hit Irish band Dove in the mid 1990s, the singer turned holistic therapist said doctors had never seen a child so rare.
Opening up to Irish Sunday Mirror, Hazel, 45, said: “No doctor knew what he had, no medicine could fix him. Nobody had seen a child like him, he’s so rare. Physically Pierce’s body was being fixed by a machine in the hospital, energetically he was being fixed by me.”
East meeting West is Hazel’s philosophy to achieve balance. She added: “I said to the doctor in the Mater Hospital, ‘Maybe Pierce’s issue is energetic’, he looked at me weirdly.
“But my son is an ‘absolute conundrum’, they say – calling him a miracle child. They don’t know how he is still alive because you cannot survive without carbohydrates and fats.
“The doctors believe that there’s more to his story, they say it’s not just medicine.”
Hazel, a reiki master for 20 years, added: “Maybe some doctors reading this might pick up a book on energetic healing.
“But I know too that without the machine we wouldn’t have been able to get the carbohydrates into him. It’s all about working in balance.”
Hazel maintains this ancient Japanese form of hands on healing, releases trapped energy, whilst scientific medicine heals the physical form. She added: “The energetic body gets disturbed first. If it’s not in balance the physical manifestation of a disease presents itself in the body.”
From popstar to healer, Hazel said her new life is all about helping others. She revealed: “I’m on my spiritual journey since 2002, I started reading books all about angels, the spirit side, about guides, all about not from earth.
“I went down the road of angel reading first, then guides, then what happens when you cross over. I then had my son Fionn in 2004, had my break up with my first partner Brian [Fallon] in the midst of that, and did my inner work.
“I’ve no resentment towards Brian at all. He had his journey, I had mine, we were meant to come together to have two children, I understand that now. It’s the biggest human experience where you can have loss of love and the heart.” In 2005 Hazel met her hubby- to-be Martin Grogan at the Wright Venue Swords, Dublin.
She said: “My guides were telling me in my cards that the soulmate was coming, but as I was just out of a relationship. I was a bit vulnerable, it wasn’t the right time.”
But love has a funny way of finding you and Hazel and Martin were meant to be. Always a hard grafter, Hazel rose to dizzy heights in her popstar role and worked making fridges by day.
A year after her dad died of a heart attack at 44, Hazel joined Dove and held down her day job to help her mam Lily, make ends meet. The second born into a family of eight children, fame is in the genes.
Gail, her eldest sister, was a top model and brother Siva, who was in boyband The Wanted, will soon appear on ITV’s Dancing on Ice. Hazel said: ”After dad died, I wanted to support and be around my mam to help with the eight children. That gave me the experience of stepping into the father role, at 17.
“I had to get a proper big job, a good paying job. Gail was working and living away and popped in and out to help us. I did Dove as well as working in Thermal King where I was making fridges for lorries at the time.”
Dove was going well, but Louis Walsh was planting seeds for Hazel to hit the big time with his new girl band. She explained: “The TV show Popstars: the Rivals was coming up, I knew Louis for a long time, he said, ‘why don’t I audition’.”
The band Hazel narrowly missed a shot at being in was Girls Aloud. She said: “I was pregnant and Louis said it didn’t make a difference, I got into the last 10. I was supposed to go into the house, I was due to have my baby, I wouldn’t have been good for the production.
“They used the excuse that I was out because I was 10 days too old.
“But I know now it was the best choice for me because I wanted to be that mother and in a house with nine other girls, it would not have worked. I know it now looking back 20 years later but I knew it then too.
“I knew I was meant to go on my own journey. It has a Sliding Doors [1998 film] effect. I went the mother road.”
Hazel who presented RTE’s You’re a Star knows how telly works. She said: “I know from being on TV when I worked on You’re a Star, if you have a situation where nobody knows when that child is coming, it’s very hard to work around that.
“I have no resentment towards Girls Aloud, I’m delighted they went on to have 20 years of success. I did my own songs in my own time, I would have been manufactured in Girls Aloud. I was a mother figure to them as it was. 24 is old for the pop business, they want teeny pops. I was more mature.” Now through her healing work at her premises Halo Therapies in Swords, Dublin, she no longer wears a “mask”.
She added: “Nobody knows what happens behind closed doors, you put this mask on as a performer, you’re not truly being you.
“I don’t care what you think about me, if you think I’m nuts or think, Oh she’s from Dublin with a full Dublin accent. I’ve always been the same person from Corduff, Dublin 15.
“What you see is what you get, I never tried to change Hazel even when I was performing. But I definitely had a mask up.
“I’ve gone from one end of the spectrum in my performing life to doing this work of healing.”
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