CAPE CORAL, FL -

When medications fail, some people are turning to meditation for a cure. Eastern Medicine has changed the life of one boy and his Cape Coral family, one breath at a time.

Pulling one bottle after another, Brandi Lawrey counts the pills her 7-year-old takes. "He takes these all twice a day," she said.

Gavin Lawrey has a terminal illness called mitochondrial disease. In basic terms, his cells are not producing enough energy to sustain him. The pain is horrific, and the medication is extreme.

"He also has liquid morphine," Brandi said. But sometimes medication is not enough.

"When he's at a point where he can't have anymore morphine for another half hour, and we just got to get him through," she said.

She turns to a dose of meditation. "Take one more deep peaceful breath in through your nose," she instructed Gavin. "I worry about him constantly and have a hard time sleeping at night because I always think something's going to happen."

She says meditation cures her family's anxiety and helps ease little Gavin's pain.

"How does your heart feel? Is it going fast or slow?" she asked. "Slow," Gavin said.

"What meditation does is that it decreases stress," Dr. Jose Colon, a pediatric neurologist, said. "When it does that, it decreases inflammation." Reducing Gavin's pain.

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Some patients turn to meditation when medication fails