Cancer

On April 21, 2004, Samuel's second birthday, we made the decision to "save" his life by approving a chemo protocol just like countless parents do daily whether they wanted to or not. However, we never agreed to ruin his body, or his life, or our lives in this process. I remember asking our first Oncologist if the cure was worse than the cancer and he assured me it was not. He also assured me that "he" could "cure" Samuel. Oh, really? In our instance, I can assure you that the "cure" was worse than the disease and that same "cure" slowly and methodically tore his body apart assuring him a torturous death in the end. There was no cure for the "cure." I will never regret making the choice to save his life but I will always regret and hate the fact that making that choice ruined his body in ways we never could have imagined. I hate the fact that a protocol full of poisons was our only choice at the time.

While there is no doubt that chemo and other cancer treatments do lengthen lives and even "cure" people (remember "cure" in the cancer world means you live five years past your original diagnosis date), it is not without it's price. Oncologists like to boast about their "cure rates" but often neglect to mention the horrible tragic ways their patients die; those who were not lucky enough to be part of the good statistics. Samuel died a miserable horrible death; one in which even the elephant size doses of pain killers didn't help to ease. All because of the damage from one round of chemo.
When you take chemo, you are playing Russian Roulette with your life. Maybe you will win, maybe you won't. Only time will tell. And if you happen to be that unlucky one for whom chemo does unheard of things to your body, good luck finding any doctor who wants to help you. There are many poisons which can get you into that situation, and few medical things to reverse it. Did chemo "save" Samuel's life initially? Yes because his leukemia was so far advanced. But it also destroyed his body in less than 30 days. Would I do things differently if I could go back? Absolutely yes having the knowledge and hindsight I have today. Yes. The very first thing done for him in the ICU was to administer sodium bicarbonate which drastically reduced the number of blasts in Samuel's blood within 24 hours and BEFORE any chemo was administered. In his last 10 months here, I had good success with baking soda as a non-toxic cancer treatment. But unfortunately, to have had the options I know work today, I would have had to kidnap my own child and go to another country.

Adults with cancer are able to choose alternative options while parents of children with cancer can not until relapse or as was our case, significant unheard of consequences of chemo. Something is wrong with this picture. Obviously, after a person has gone through enough chemo to be considered last ditch, their body is destroyed and alternatives have very little chance to do much more than ease side effects. I recently read an article which points to an over 95% cure rate (and by cure, they really mean cure in the true sense) for the treatment which we chose to use for Samuel when it was used as the first and main course of cancer treatment. I am not shocked by this because we had so much success with it even when Samuel's body was falling apart without our knowledge.

For me, refusing chemotherapy was a morality issue and I could not continue to lie to myself and destroy my soul over it. Samuel trusted me as his mother to take care of him and the very first thing to happen to him is still one of the most vicious horrifying attacks from chemo any Onc has ever seen. Three months inpatient, 20 surgeries to attempt to undo the damage, and no guarantee of anything. After three months of being a victim to this torture, we knew we could not continue this treatment. Our protocol was then augmented to accommodate us until such time as Samuel's continued complications landed us in a place where we could flat out refuse any more chemo without fear of CPS intervention. In total, Samuel endured less than 7 months of the 3.5 year protocol and many of the poisons were dropped after the second round because he could not tolerate them. Samuel remained in remission for 3 years and 2 months before relapsing and we firmly believe the relapse was caused by the significant damage to his gut. I do not regret discontinuing treatment. I do regret that we did not discontinue sooner.

Most parents actually start out knowing poisoning their children is wrong, but allow themselves to be placated by physicians "who would never willingly poison their children if there was a better way." The MD's assure parents that there is no other way. Our Oncology Clinic watched us get Samuel's cancer into remission three times and I guarantee you, they haven't told anyone there are other options. They just say, "Well Samuel was different." Yes, Samuel was different in that he had very little anatomy left to sustain his life without tons of my personal intervention into his diet and he STILL went into remission 3x. They can believe what they want. Alternative Medicine is not for everyone and certainly most parents will always choose conventional treatments because of "cure rates" and "ease." I put those in quotes because most children who get cancer will eventually die from cancer even if it is years down the road because the underlying cause of the cancer is not usually treated. Also, many chemo treatments cause secondary cancers. There is no "easy" treatment for cancer whether you allow an MD to administer it or do it yourself. It all comes down to how much personal effort you want to put into it. I knew I was going to have to live with the outcome, whatever that outcome might be. I knew I would never forgive myself if I allowed them to continue to ruin my son's body to further their statistics. I also knew from experience that they were unwilling to go the extra mile for us. The MD's would suffer no heartbreak whatever the outcome and that drove me to find more humane treatments. In the end, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that "I" did everything possible. They dropped the ball right from the start.

Using alternatives means you are going it on your own for the most part. All the research, choices and treatments are dependent on you to obtain and administer. Unfortunately, there are no doctors who can legally practice alternative medicine in the US for newly diagnosed pediatric cancer treatment. CAM medicine, yes, total cancer treatment, no. So if you decide to do alternative cancer treatment with your child, you are out on a limb. Be wary of alternative providers who are employed by hospitals as they are limited to do only what the hospital approves (basically managing side effects) making them worthless to you for mainline treatment. Also beware of caregivers who will prey on your fears, and I mean both mainstream and alternative because cancer is BIG business for both. Make no mistake about that. Most insurances do not cover these type of treatments so financially, this ball is also in your court.


Research is all over the place as far as alternatives go which means you have your work cut out for you. Cancer Tutor is always up to date with current research and I always checked here often because options change quickly. Plus more and more people are choosing alternative treatments thus more info about their pros and cons becomes more available by the day. Every "body" is different and using alternatives requires that you learn the idiosyncrasies of the person in your care. The biggest most useful theory of alternatives is to put as many non-contradicting non-toxic treatments together as possible and monitor progress closely. The nice thing is that you can change up treatments at any given time as well as minimize side effects in the process. Our experience with alternatives was that when we found something that worked, it worked immediately; like within hours or days. If it didn't work immediately, it usually did not work long term either.
When we were dealing with relapse, we were in a position to freely choose alternative treatment for Samuel. We chose to treat his cancer with diet, herbs and high ph therapy rather than poison. We were able to get Samuel into remission not once but three times with mainly diet and alternative treatments. At the end we also used very minuscule doses of chemo or steroids in which we had total control over dosing. Samuel lost each remission due to the damage to his GI tract from chemo that we slowly and painfully learned was irreversible and insurmountable. In the end, Samuel's gut died and allowed his leukemia to get the upper hand. You cannot live without a gut regardless of whether cancer is involved. His cancer was still dying off even in his last days but we were helpless to do anything because of the GI damage.
Through it all, we came to the conclusion that the cancer was the easy part and a symptom of an underlying even more vicious problem. In Samuel's case, it happened to be gut dysfunction and improper digestion. When his gut was functioning properly, the cancer went into remission. When it wasn't, the cancer came back with a vengeance. The bigger picture of this is that cancer may be a symptom of garbage build-up in the body. The immune system doesn't know what to do with the immense load of toxins so it just dumps it somewhere; either as a tumor, or spread out in the blood where it can disperse virtually anywhere. Cleaning out the "garbage systems" in the body is a good place to start. Gut, liver, gallbladder, spleen, lymphatic system and do not forget the kidneys which regulate fluids for the entire body. A rapid change in diet causes a rapid change in the body's ecosystem and often times, this alone causes cancers to stop progressing and even begin regressing. Do not forget to ask God to help because with His help, you are not alone. Learn to hear His voice and allow Him to guide you even if that means you go AMA. God's way is always the right way and I'll take His word over man's theories anytime. The Lord led me to things that helped Samuel's body fight the fight, even when I had no concept of what his body was really doing inside. God helped me improve Samuel's quality of life and to extend his days on earth when no MD could and Samuel always knew that his Mama and Jesus helped him. Until the day I die, I live with the pride of knowing I was allowed to do something no one else could do for Samuel and that his glorious spirit and intense love for us did the rest. For over four years, he fought to live, suffered enormously for it yet savored every moment he could. He always knew we were trying to help him. Near the end, he thanked me all the time for helping him. He was always smiling, always planning to live, never wanting to die. He's more alive in Heaven than he ever was here. He got his wish, just not quite the way we planned. There are some things that are WORSE than death and the suffering he endured because of chemotherapy is certainly one of them. I never wanted him to have to die, but I would not want him to still be here today trying to live in that ravaged body of torment either. I was firm on my stance on that from the beginning.

My only regret in all this is allowing chemo at all. Chemo is NOT God's medicine. Chemo is MAN'S medicine for a disease man brought upon himself. God did not make cancer, Satan did. And if chemo is not a tool of Satan, I don't know what is. Never has the thought of anything else brought such terror in to my heart. Never has anything scared me, sickened me, or deceived me. Chemo fools you into thinking it is working, all is well, and then the after effects sneak up on you when you least expect it. Or worse, you kid relapses on a protocol that is supposed to be very effective. In our case, we just did not know what hit us. It attacked from all angles at once.
Chemo is not from God. I wonder how many other things we will get to heaven and have God say "How on earth did you ever think I created that?" Samuel made it through that ordeal through God's grace and mercy and by those who kept praying and keeping Samuel's name in front of God's eyes. A friend sent me a note that really hits the nail on the head, "I think that after going through the medical crap that most people either come to the realization that they need to change to live or they will die under the care of the Dr's. " Until we are willing to look at ourselves and the ways we damage our bodies every day with chemicals, crappy foods, and toxins all around us, there will always be cancer.

Chemo does not effectively kill cancer; many of the chemo drugs actually cause it. Cancer cells eventually become resistant to chemo and find ways to hide, mutate and spread. It's effectiveness is further limited over time because of the damage it does to the vital organs in the body thus affecting the body's ability to recover from each assault. It is a vicious cycle that many do not know how to break free from until death parts them from it permanently. As my friend Sandy said, "Samuel did not get leukemia from a chemo deficiency." How many are willing to change or look seriously into other options to spare themselves this misery? Would you like to have your child trade places with Samuel or any of these other poor kids enduring this misery? I don't see any hands waving. I once told my Onc that Samuel wasn't taking any more of a certain chemo until he was willing to take the first dose himself. He said he wasn't willing "for a variety of reasons." Why am I not surprised? God forgive us for what we do to ourselves and our children. I pray forgiveness for any part I might have had in Samuel's cancer.
That being said, we do not as a family fund raise or advocate fundraising for cancer research which is mainstream. If I find a cause for alternative treatments, I will support it. I continue to pay for Samuel's Site to be available so that anyone searching for an example of what worked may find one. God knows I had no example to follow and many think that because their child died, the treatment must have failed. NOT SO. Understand that I learned what I believe about cancer being a symptom of something worse because Samuel relapsed several times and I was able to see how his gut function directly affected his cancer. This knowledge is not visible when a person follows a standard protocol and thus Oncologists can give no reason for relapse. In our case, I knew why he relapsed for the second and the third and the final time.
I put my money, info and efforts into helping other families who are living this nightmare. I know first hand what living in a hospital is like. I know what living with life threatening complications of chemo is like. I know what it is like to watch your child lie lifeless in a bed for months and have no one be able to tell you why or when or if they will recover. I know what it is like to have everyone around you thinking your child cannot possibly survive everything they are afflicted with. I know what it is like to hear your child has cancer and I know what it is like to come to the realization that your child has no conventional medical options should they relapse. I know what it's like to watch them die. Having been through so much, I just want to help other families, not drug companies who put us in these predicaments and oncologists who lose interest in your case when it becomes "too complicated." I do not turn away from someone else's tragedy, I read, I pray, I hope and I do what I can to help them.

An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. This experience has made me more determined than ever to reduce the risks for cancer of my family. If you believe "Everything causes cancer so why bother changing..." as I hear too often, then you might as well plan on having cancer hit close to home at some point in your life. To those who believe that nutrition makes no difference in whether you get cancer or any other life threatening disease, you are fooling yourself. I have taken the time to document most of the things we have done for Samuel both on chemo and off to keep him healthy and keep him in remission or get him back into remission. You can find that info here and throughout all the journals. And I am not just making recommendations for the fun of it. I have rock solid lab work on Samuel to back up what good solid nutrition can do even in the midst of a GI tract which was almost completely destroyed.

The bottom line today is that Samuel is a child of God and he belongs to God. He is now free of all this life has taken from him, he is in heaven and will never want to come back here. He knows where I am and I know where he is. He no longer suffer earthly torment and his body is whole. He will never cry another tear or ask me to fix his butt. He is surrounded by even more love there than we can fathom here. He has the best surrogate mother I could ask for, my grandma, Delma. I know he will be loved more than gold in her arms. In all these things, I rejoice. I did my job; I took care of him from birth to death and he's with God. Ultimately, that is the most important thing.
If we ever have to deal with cancer again as a family, we will say NO to chemo. We proved that other things work. How much better would they have worked if Samuel's body hadn't been mutilated by chemo beforehand? We will never know for sure but my guess is that he would still be here today had I had that knowledge and option. If you take anything away from this website, I hope it is the knowledge that as Samuel's GI told all her interns who asked why we were not being forced to do chemo, "Other things work." Not only that, but no one should force toxic treatments on those who don't want them, most especially children. My response to these "professionals" will always be, "Take the first dose and let me know how it works out for you." I know better.