Imagine that your three-year-old child is diagnosed with leukemia. Doctors recommend a three-year protocol of chemo therapy. Much as youd like to try a holistic protocol of nutrient-dense foods and detoxification techniques, you go along with the doctor recommendations because, after all, they are supposed to know best. Left unstated by the docs is an implied threat: If you dont go along with the chemo protocol, they may go to court, take your child, and force the protocol on your child.
So you begin the protocol, expecting the worst. The worst is based on what you see each month in the doctors officepale, unsmiling children, many having lost their hair and appetites, and in pain. The doctors insist that the cure rate is 85%, but you wonder, as you see the suffering children, whether the cure is worse than the disease, whether they are doomed to die from another cancer after surviving the leukemia.
After a year on the chemo, your son is doing remarkably well. Thats because you have been feeding him bone broths, pastured meats and eggs, and probiotics, and doing detox regimens following on the chemo. The doctors are amazed that your son not only seems free of many of the side effects gripping most of the other children on the same regimen, but is cancer free as well.
This in a nutshell is the story of Kicker Johnson, the three-year-old son of Season Johnson, a California nutritional therapist. Things were going well during a year of chemo therapy that began in late 2013. Her sons success prompted her to form an organization, KICKcancER, to spread the word to other families in the same situation about the potential healing power of good food for children on chemo. This was information the doctors werent telling people, and has been welcomed by a number of other parents.
Now, more than a year into the chemo, signs are appearing of the chemos poisoning effects on Kicker. Season Johnson feels a little like shes on a merry-go-round and wants to get off, but its moving too fast.
Just a couple days ago, she provided an update on Facebook on Kickers situation. After over 200 doses of chemotherapy, we are starting to see some wear on (Kickers) precious little body. You can imagine how hard it is for me to give him chemotherapy everyday…every damn day.
The problem for Season is she would like to discontinue the chemo, and see if Kicker can remain cancer free with only the diet-detox protocol she has developed. Knowing what I know yet having my hands tied. Knowing that each dose puts my son at greater risk for another type of cancer. Knowing that each dose poisons his little body. I KNOW he is cancer free. Not just intuition but his bone marrow results showing no cancer cells, his lab results showing exceptional health and his lack of symptoms. Yet that isn’t enough to convince the government that we, as educated and proactive parents, should be able to now make medical decisions for our child. Nope, in order for us to retain custody of our son, he must complete the next two years of chemotherapy and surgeries.
Season says she understands that trials and studies have shown that children have a more likely chance at achieving remission from leukemia when following the standardized three-year protocol.”
But there is another wrinkle that she has brought to the medical table: “Those trials and studies had NOTHING to do with diet, NOTHING to do with detox and NOTHING to do with actually healing the underlying cause of cancer. We are doing so much to keep him healthy, through diet, detox, immune support, etc. but it comes to a point when the poison begins to take precedence. I know my son has beat cancer, but now I want him to live long, healthy life. I don’t know if that is possible with the current treatment protocol.
Of course, demonstrating success after a year of chemo combined with holistic methods wouldnt be helpful to the pharmaceutical companies that provide the three-year regimen. So there arent any studies on shorter alternatives.
As Season puts it: When conventional cancer treatment is no longer a HUGE money maker, we may see change. But it is going to take you, and I and a whole hell of a lot more people to stand up and say enough is enough!
In the meantime, shell need to continue negotiating her way through the minefield that is a medical system that is not only under the control of the money interests, but committed to asserting control over its youngest patients to do as the money interests dictate.
I am so glad that Season and Kicker are getting some press time. I have been part of this story for several years and totally embrace what she has been doing. There is so much more to this story and those that know it work every day to protect Season and Kicker from government and protocol driven harassment. For example, I would feel pretty uncomfortable sharing all the great things that Season has done ( using some of our probiotics… hint hint ) in the Kickers diet to assure that his body is nourished as western medical chemo does its thing. I have heard the stories….one after another of kids in the waiting room being compared to little Kicker and how Kicker was the only one that looked and acted healthy when all the rest look like chemo itself. Season has my full and complete support and love. There is even a layer that goes deeper. Season’s husband is employed by the state of CA….and if she was to go off the reservation and against the “official treatment”, he could be subject to all sorts of legal, employment and compliance issues.
Season is a real hero. I do not just say this….seriously….she is a hero in my heart and in the hearts of so many. I spoke at a recent event that she hosted near LAX this last year. The room was filled with young parents with kids with cancer. It was heart breaking. It was also a wakeup call!! Why…what the hell is going on?? Are we ignoring our NIH Human Genomics discoveries on the roll of bacteria and the food that feeds them. Are we ignoring the profoundly disturbing studies of American newborns cord blood and the hundreds of toxic chemicals being found in their blood? ( See Ten Americans ) http://www.ewg.org/news/videos/10-americans
We must ask ourselves…what in the hell is going on? Is this getting better or is it getting worse. I can assure you that the situation is not getting better…include Autism, autoimmune disorders, diabetes, obesity and the signs are grim. Sure…we see miracles of modern medicine saving some lives after it nearly takes them. But…this is not a solution, this is part of the problem. We must be taking the longer term view and discovering the “why of it all”…not the “cut it out and kill it of it all”. Nearly all of the investment we are making in America is focused on curing the sick…little if any is focused on the why or addressing the reasons we have cancers to begin with in beautiful babies like Kicker.
Season is my hero!! Kicker is a super kid. Hugs to every child that suffers and can not get true information about nutrition and prevention. Our greatest sin….the crime of silence and criminalization of prevention in the face of losing our children to the state. That is truly ugly and very sad indeed.
Season has been able to find that reasonable medium of balance between western medicine and alternative and complimentary medicine, coupled with diet and probiotics.
God bless you and the health that you bring to all that have the good fortune to know you ….not just Kicker!
Apparently, when you are in the hospital for pediatric chemotherapy treatment, and your child is rosey-cheeked and not suffering any of the side effects of chemo, (no naseau, fatigue, constipation, mouth sores, low plate counts, etc) other parents tend to notice. They ask questions. This is what has happened to Season, and now through their foundation, they are providing information and support to families who want to improve the outcome of cancer treatment for their children. Its really amazing, and I also support her 100%
Its important to note that Season does not eschew the western medical approach to cancer treatment outright. She and many other parents would like to see a more nuanced approach rather than strict protocol, and to be afforded the freedom to adapt treatment based on multiple factors (eg, diet and nutritional support, supplemental therapies, etc.)
However, there is a darker side to this story. By sharing Seasons’ journey, I have learned that as a society, we are conflicted about who should be making medical decisions for children. I find this deeply disturbing, and personally challenging. Do we believe that parents ultimately should be making these decisions? Or, do we believe that they are better made by the medical establishment, or even by governemental agecies and judges? And if we are generally in favor of parental rights, where do we stand when we see families making choices that are in conflict with our personal values? Are we still willing to extend that freedom?
Mark, one of the things I find disturbing in this situation, aside from the questions you raise, is the apparent lack of curiosity by doctors as to how someone like Kicker could be avoiding the terrible side effects the docs see so often. Wouldn’t you think they would want to know more about what is happening to keep Kicker healthier….so they could come up with suggestions for other patients? Instead, it is up to Season to get the word out to other parents, and she’s even created a new organization to do that.
The doctors seem to be closed off to new ideas. Their general reaction in such instances where patients are doing much better than expected (either in healing from a disease or coping with treatment) is not to inquire further, but rather, at best, to brush it off: “Whatever you’re doing, keep doing it.” Yuk, yuk.
I’m not sure what that’s about, whether it’s because they don’t feel they have time to hear about strategies patients are incorporating, or reject it because the pharmaceutical companies didn’t tell them about options beyond the drugs, or whether the doctors feel threatened by the idea of patients taking good care of themselves, and possibly being less in need of the docs. Whatever it is, though, it’s not healthy.
Or is that just another advertising gimmick to fool us into thinking doctors and hospitals are actually on our side?
I feel so bad for the child and the Mom. That has to be a very stressful situation. It’s almost beyond comprehension how the medical industry works hand in hand with the State, but the schools do it, too. There has to be an ulterior motive to it all, and I can’t say I have much confidence in a profession with ulterior motives . . .
D, I’ve seen the advertisements for Cancer Treatment Centers of America, which say they work with non-pharma protocols. Their web site makes something of it as well. I don’t know anything about how it works in practice, though, but the thinking is definitely in the right direction.
These are indeed profound questions you raise, Shawna. It was these kinds of questions concerning the decisions parents have to make about their children that stimulated the title of the post (drawn from the 1998 Meryl Streep movie “Sophie’s Choice”). If you haven’t seen it, or read about it, worth checking out.
It’s tough enough to think about your child contracting leukemia….but then to think about the state taking your sick child….well, that is too much for most people to contemplate. So, I think most people just tune out, try to make believe none of this exists, move on.
Shawna, what other people decide to do is really no one else’s business. We may consider all kinds of things to be “wrong” with the way others do things in general, including rearing children, but it is not our place to tell what is right or wrong. It’s not the place of the medical industry, the DCF industry (and it IS an industry) nor is it the place of doctors (Gods??) to tell people how they MUST treat their children when they become ill. We’re either parents or we’re surrogates until children reach a certain age. If we’re going to have a society like that (the surrogate model) we better rethink.
But that’s just me . . .
thousands of anecdotes prove that one of the few practical solution for people caught up in this kind of horrorstory, is to move to another state.
what it comes down to sooner than later, is : “choose you this day whom you will serve” … the God who created that child, and gave him to you? Or the gods of the Cult of the White Robe?
This latest from Season Johnson on FB: “Prayers please! Little man isn’t feeling so hot. Fighting a fever and very lethargic. This always causes all kinds of anxiety in my heart thinking the worst and anticipating a hospital stay. He is drinking his green juice and broth and am covering him in essential oils as I type this. Will you please cover him in prayer for a quick recovery and no hospitals!!??????”
I have long since lost track of the number of people who’ve told me they healed this or that malady using diet or natural/alternative medicine and that upon telling the doctor this good news he absolutely refused to believe it.
There are many good people in the medical system but they are slaves to their paradigm and by and large at the end of the day they are little more than drug pushers. First do no harm has long since gone by the wayside.
We need to remember that education is little more than indoctrination and the entire medical system is one perverse disincentive against real healing and for drugs.
Here’s another awful example http://www.policestateusa.com/2015/cassandra-forced-chemotherapy/
the gods of the Cult of the White Robe, prove nothing better than that they are powerless … but our God, namely Jesus Christ, is the One who has healing in his wings. Have you spoken to Him lately?
That’s interesting, or maybe another word I can’t think of at the moment. My sister actually got a doctor to ADMIT this is what they are. She kept asking questions, and wouldn’t let up until this doctor caved. She has an injury from an accident, and got tired of conventional treatments that never really help with the pain. The injury is severe enough to where there are times she can’t use her arm, and her hand goes numb.
I’d rather not be categorized, thank you.
the experience of the Caucasians over the last 3700 years, proves that there is one name under Heaven whereby we may be saved. Such “salvation” includes healing in the here and now. Thus prayers to all your generic gods are worse than worthless
I admit am worse than worthless, are you happy now? I’ll keep trying though.
In the meantime, please respect that Season needs all the support we can provide from afar.
Wouldn’t it be wonderful if studies were performed on babies that were being fed raw milk formulas…not just commercial fake replications of imitation breast milk formulas verses raw breast milk!!
I guarantee, that many of the breast milk findings and values would be found in the raw milk fed babies. Instead…industry spends a fortune to try and take the best out of raw milk and place it back into fake imitation formulas to try and create a value added and PATENTED product.
Hint…nature holds the patent. It was designed by the generational forces of 100 million years of mammalian evolution…or in the hands of our creator if you would prefer.
From the signs we see here in CA, other raw producer just arrived in the market, San Martin Milk Company. That makes five that are state approved for sale to the public. Three years ago….it was only two. Raw markets are growing. All the while, pasteurized milk dairies continue to decrease in their numbers.
We get a taste of what an up-and-down situation this is, how much is trial and error. An update from Season Johnson: “Annnnnnnddddddd we’re back!! Fever is gone and he is on the mend. Lots of prayers, essential oils and homeopathy kept this boy out of the hospital and away from meds. Thank you all soooo much for your diligence in standing behind us!”
So begins Warren Meyer at coyoteblog.com on “Naomi Oreskes on Post-Modern Science”
Also Meyer writes: “…it is more important for them to support the narrative (catastrophic global warming and, tied with this, an increasing strain of anti-capitalism ala Naomi Klein) than to be true to the facts all the time. …”
‘There is something more important than to be true to the facts all the time.’ That’s not science, folks.
And that’s part of what we’re up against. In addition to the law being corrupted to be a mere commercial bludgeon, wielded by those in the cat-bird seat of today. In addition to matters of Liberty and Freedom, i.e. whether a people can be self-governing.
Because we are, or are made to be, accustomed to all three of these elements, it can be difficult (but not impossible!) to track the pea as the nutshells are swiftly moved.
Happy New Year!
Mr. J. Ingvar Odegaard
News (to me) From: http://freebeacon.com/issues/new-lets-move-executive-director-is-a-food-justice-activist/
“First Lady Michelle Obama named the new Executive Director of Lets Move on Thursday, Debra Eschmeyer, a self-described food justice activist who believes that all aspects of food production and consumption should be shared fairly.
Eschmeyer, who grew up on a dairy farm in Ohio and is now an organic vegetable farmer, previously campaigned for school lunch reform and has been involved in anti-obesity and school gardening initiatives.”
All the best,
Ingvar
This is all well and good, however whats missing in the article and her food justice initiative is transparency (accurate labeling), and the freedom to choose what food we eat.
My question to her is, are the foods provided for children in schools going to be free of GMO ingredients and if not are these ingredients going to be shared equally as well? What about pasteurized and raw milk, are they going to be shared equally?
And how much input are the parents of the school children going to have with respect to the menu, or is a government dietitian going to call the shots.
Ken
I do know her, and she has been very serious about countering corporate efforts to push their sugary and processed foods on children. She has always struck me as someone very sincere, committed, and willing to speak her mind. I don’t know what her views are on raw milk, except that she’s always seemed open to what I write about. Will be interesting to see how much the First Lady listens to her.
https://video.search.yahoo.com/video/play;_ylt=A0LEV7lx7LBU0R0AJ6QPxQt.;_ylu=X3oDMTBsa3ZzMnBvBHNlYwNzYwRjb2xvA2JmMQR2dGlkAw–?p=nobody+but+me+human+beinz&tnr=21&vid=4C8075FA40E96AAA8DAD4C8075FA40E96AAA8DAD&l=143&turl=http%3A%2F%2Fts4.mm.bing.net%2Fth%3Fid%3DUN.608029329284465755%26pid%3D15.1&rurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.youtube.com%2Fwatch%3Fv%3DYYBBn0JyKDg&sigr=11b96riqu&tt=b&tit=HUMAN+BEINZ-NOBODY+BUT+ME.wmv&sigt=10t6uviqo&back=https%3A%2F%2Fsearch.yahoo.com%2Fyhs%2Fsearch%3Fp%3Dnobody%2Bbut%2Bme%2Bhuman%2Bbeinz%26ei%3DUTF-8%26hsimp%3Dyhs-001%26hspart%3Dmozilla&sigb=135bkd222&hspart=mozilla&hsimp=yhs-001
Where have I heard that before? Pardon my cynic, I reallly do want to believe but in the end it’s all cheese and politics. And whoremones pesticides ammonia and money. On a brighter note, cows don’t even know that they’re happy, but they know bull when they see it. Is it April 1st yet? Please don’t be offended I’m off to confession now and vote.
If they did that, they could loose their license and/or be labeled a quack. Bucking the system sadly, usually is not safe for your career.
Parents also have to be careful, as they can and do take the children away and force them to under go treatments. There was a recent story, I think it was in Connecticut, a 17 yr old had gone through some chemo treatments and decided she no longer wanted to be tortured, her mother backed her up and the state took her away and is forcing her to be poisoned. At 17 she has the maturity to know what she wants and can figure out what odds she wishes to take.
I was involved in an accident in 2000, when a man ran a stop sign and struck me at 45 mph. I had a fractured radius and whiplash and bulging lumber disc. The fracture was misdiagnosed and the only thing the docs wanted to do was toss pills at me. Eons ago I was an orthopedic nurse and saw way too many people become addicted to pain meds and ride that horrid roller coaster, it was not for me. I went through7 different PTs before I found one that knew what she was doing and her instructions helped greatly, she referred me to a message therapist for deep tissue work and that was a long painful workout too. The upper back, neck and chest wall muscles were so tight, they were rock hard, it would cause my hands to go numb (and yes the idiots doctors tried to tell me I had carpel tunnel syndrome UGH) The numbness and a lot of the pain was because the muscles were in a chronic state of spasm and inflammation, from the whiplash and they were constantly compressing nerves. The PT, massage, and yoga got me back to close to normal. I believe the yoga helped the disc issues as I rarely have trouble with my lower back and I’ve lifted and turned some obese post-op patients before retiring. I sill have issues at times with upper back spasms and have to restart the yoga stretches. I don’t know if this would help your sister, she may have tried already. Hopefully she won’t give up trying to find resolution of her problems.
I don’t have a decent place in my house to do yoga right now, and am really stiff in my spine. I told my sister how it helped to keep me flexible years ago, and wish I had a good spot to resume it, because it really did help me. There are plenty of people who like to dismiss it, but they shouldn’t knock it until they try it. There is only one book I have used, and my sister even bought a copy for herself, but then sent it to me (my original fell apart, and I don’t like the little one I bought some years later). She wouldn’t even try using it, and decided to go with some video she has. Whatever.
My problem was finding people who knew what they were doing and really cared to help. Most did not exhibit that.
All I know is, when I continued it every day (says not to skip more than a day in between), I could grab my feet sitting on the floor, or my ankles standing up, and touch my head to my knees. I can’t even get a hold of my calves now, let alone, touch the floor.