Advice on Cancer Treatment

I've recently "met" a family online whose two year old child was diagnosed with leukemia earlier this year.  After suffering some unpredicted side effects of chemo that led to numerous surgeries to correct the issue (that still remains an issue), the family has decided to discontinue chemo and pursue Chinese medicine as the primary cancer treatment for their child.  (Yeah!!!)   Thankfully, they live in a country that doesn't force poison treatments if the family refuses.  However, because chemotherapy is still considered the only "cure" for cancer, they have found they don't have much support for their decision so I'm grateful that they found me (and they are too) since refusing chemo, in the eyes of most, is regarded as choosing to voluntarily allow your child to die. 

Nothing could be farther from the truth.

"Just save his life.  Worry about the consequences later."  This was the advice given to me by my dad AFTER Samuel survived all the initial complications of chemo and we were agonizing over how to proceed "treating" his leukemia without killing him or doing more damage to his fragile body.   My dad's advice is the advice of the majority and we heard it often.   "Cure" the cancer and worry about the consequences of that cure down the road.  The thing was, the consequences for Samuel, unlike the majority of kids getting chemo, were already upon us and they were devastating.  They weren't saved for five to ten years down the road and on top of that, we had little help managing them because they were simply unheard of.    Yet, we were still asked by our "caregivers"  if it was fair to Samuel to go through all those miserable side effects that nearly killed him and then NOT treat his cancer leaving him a "ticking time bomb for relapse."  As if cancer was somehow worse than the horrible consequences of "the cure for cancer" he would have to live with the rest of his life.  (The consequences that consequently ended up costing him his life.)

These people absolutely refused to recognize what was right in front of them; chemo is poison and our child's body was having a normal reaction to poison. It was being destroyed. It was dying. Not being "cured." Maybe other children were doing okay (and I use "okay" here loosely) and perhaps other children will be "cured" *(meaning live five years beyond their diagnosis date 2-3.5 years of which would be "lived" undergoing chemo), but the fact remains that that child will suffer many long-term consequences from treatment, one of which is that they will be much more prone to cancer, until the day they die.

So our question back to these people was, was it fair to put him through the now known torture of chemo given the horrors he had already endured, and the far worse things that were sure to happen to him if we continued, with no guarantee of a life long cure?  Was living with cancer really so much worse than the supposed cure?  The answer to these questions was rhetorical at that time.  I continually battled doctors who were willing to ignore or play down every visible side effect from chemo Samuel suffered in order to justify continued poisoning.

Cancer, as well as any other devastating long term illness or physical handicap, does one thing especially well; it reveals the motivations that reside deepest, not only in your heart, but in the hearts of those who surround you.   In Luke 6:45, Jesus says, "The good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth what is good; and the evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth what is evil; for his mouth speaks from that which fills his heart."   Jesus warned us to speak carefully, Matthew 12:37, "For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned.” As more and more time elapses, I see the underlying motivations of the thinking and advice of all parties (us included) much clearer.   Considering that we live in a Biblically illiterate, self-fulfilling, godless world, it is no great revelation that the majority of advice we received was rooted in pride.  What has become of "do unto others" or "love your brother as yourself." (Luke 6:31 Luke 10:27)  The Golden Rule has become a foreign concept and one which sadly, the few who still cling to it, are scoffed at for.

"Cure his cancer," was spoken as if WE or THEY had the power to cure it. (we saw how well that worked out) As if chemo was Samuel's only hope for life. Please.....poison was his only hope? How do people still not see the err in this? I find all this sickening today for a variety of reasons that can all be summed up as follows; only God can cure cancer and only God controls who lives or dies.  We do not "own" and thus have little control over the destiny of our lives or our children's lives. God rules.  We do not.  It really doesn't get any more simple than that yet very few want to admit reality.  Ever wonder why that is? (Hint: Genesis 3:5)  I wonder if there'd be less cancer if we could just figure this out and live like it.

"Worry about the consequences later." While I knew "cure his cancer" was wrong when I heard it spoken, the deeply-seeded error wasn't as obvious to me initially as the error in second part of this advice was.  This statement has got to be one of the most selfish things you could say in regard to someone elses body.  As someone who has been legally blind since birth, I've experienced first hand how easy it is for people to dismiss the reality, severity and complexity of my handicap because it does not directly affect them and it was nothing compared to what Samuel was facing.  It was this statement that not only deeply angered me, but also fully awakened me to how I needed to make decisions as well as participate in Samuel's care.  I know God overlooked many of my mistakes in Christianity (love covers a multitude of sins 1 Peter 4:8) during that time because I chose to listen and obey the still small voice in my heart that cried out for compassion, empathy and quality of life for Samuel vs. listening to the doctors who cried out for poison, poison and more poison. (and some even implied I was a bad mother for choosing quality of life vs. "cure" and boy do I have a scripture for them.  James 4:17, It is sin to know what you ought to do and still not do it.  In the end we all have to answer to God.  How many easily dismiss that truth?)  As we all know, pride goes before a fall and God did not disappoint. (Proverbs 16:18)  How many times did God allow our "caregivers" to remain confounded and useless while He led us to the solutions for Samuel's many problems. (1 Corinthians 1:20-27)  You know, little things like getting his leukemia in remission without any chemo...

I don't write these things to puff myself up with pride.  They are matter of fact.  They happened by God's hand.  There isn't a day I don't look back and marvel at some of the things He allowed us to accomplish - me to accomplish.   But even so, after all was said and done, and Samuel died anyway, I wondered what the point of it all was.  The things we accomplished, the things we learned about diet and cancer were meaningless and easily dismissed by anyone and everyone without Samuel as living proof.  Yet, sometime in the second year after Samuel's death, the importance of the knowledge we gained quickly paled in comparison to the continued revelation of Samuel's love.  The love that gave us all the strength, the will, and the endurance to never give up no matter how terrible and futile things looked, no matter what the world said or thought of us, until God made it clear that it was over.  The love led to miracles.  Surely 1 Corinthians 13:7-8 is proven.  Love knows no limit to its endurance, no end to its trust, no fading of its hope; it can outlast anything. It is, in fact, the one thing that still stands when all else has fallen. 

Our society assigns inordinate value to the things of this world which will be meaningless in eternity.  (Luke 16:15)  People live as if the accomplishments in this life are the be all end all and the only reward we get.   Thus, they live their lives as if this one life, is all we get.   Death is their ultimate enemy.  They are willing to do whatever it takes to stay alive as well as keep those who are in their control, alive as well.  No matter the cost.  This is what Jesus said will happen to people who love this one life, "He who loves his life will lose it." (John 12:25-26)  He goes on, "he who hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life.  If anyone serves Me, let him follow Me; and where I am, there My servant will be also. If anyone serves Me, him My Father will honor."  We are to love and serve God.  Not ourselves in this life.  (Mark 8:35-38)  It is the reality of Heaven and eternity that made the scare tactics of Samuel's "caregivers" who often said, "if he doesn't finish his chemo, he will die," a useless weapon to force us to do their will. Death, for the Child of God, is gain.  (Philippians 1:21)  Samuel gained eternal life and he lives in the fullness of love and joy. Very occasionally, he is somehow allowed to shower me with that love and joy so that I am reminded that I chose the only real life there is for him.  It is that love and the knowledge that every decision I made for Samuel was motivated by that love, that allows joy to overcome the sorrow of our separation.  That love reassures me that I always chose "life" for Samuel and that was all God asked of me.  This knowledge brings me much peace and joy today.

7.5 years have passed since "cancer" reared its ugly head in our lives.  In that time, way too many of the children I came to know have either relapsed or died.  Of the ones who are still living, every single one carries a physical reminder of cancer with them in the form of "long term side effects."  They and their families are continually haunted by the fear of relapse and so I question - who is better off?  The families who have lost children, the families who are still slaves to the cancer system, or the families who whose lives are crippled by the fear of relapse?  My answer to that question is that the ones who are better off are those who walked through the trial of "cancer" remaining faithful to that still small voice in their heart (Jesus), no matter what the advice of the world was, no matter how difficult the ordeal was and no matter what the outcome was. 

That said, the above has been my main advice to this family who has contacted me.  In the grand scheme of things, the choice of their child's cancer treatment, the outcome of their child's cancer treatment and any knowledge they gain along the way, will not be of any comfort to them when all has been said and done if they did not listen to the still small voice in their heart that is trying to guide them toward decisions motivated by Agape.  I cannot make those choices for them nor will I violate their conscience.  The direction God asked us to walk may not be the direction He asks others to walk.  They must choose the path they will travel for themselves and they must live with those choices.   I can pray for them.  I can come alongside them in spirit and in prayer and I can ask you to do the same.  The little girl's name is Megan.  Will you pray for her and her family with me as they navigate this?

What I offer them and you is advice from my overall experience.  The heart's satisfaction and peace in this life is not gauged by whether we win or lose, live a long life or die young.   God alone decides these things and we do not.  What we can decide, what we can control, is how we live our life.  Will we obey or disobey Him?  Will we be faithful in the small things as well as the large things? Or will we cave to worldly pressure?   (Luke 16:10)   It is only by our faithfulness and obedience to Him that we gain satisfaction and peace in our hearts no matter the outcome of our circumstances. 
Psalm 34
I will praise the Lord at all times.
I will constantly speak his praises.
I will boast only in the Lord;
let all who are helpless take heart.
Come, let us tell of the Lord’s greatness;
let us exalt his name together.
I prayed to the Lord, and he answered me.
He freed me from all my fears.
Those who look to him for help will be radiant with joy;
no shadow of shame will darken their faces.
In my desperation I prayed, and the Lord listened;
he saved me from all my troubles.
For the angel of the Lord is a guard;
he surrounds and defends all who fear him.
Taste and see that the Lord is good.
Oh, the joys of those who take refuge in him!
Fear the Lord, you his godly people,
for those who fear him will have all they need.
Even strong young lions sometimes go hungry,
but those who trust in the Lord will lack no good thing.
Come, my children, and listen to me,
and I will teach you to fear the Lord.
Does anyone want to live a life
that is long and prosperous?
Then keep your tongue from speaking evil
and your lips from telling lies!
Turn away from evil and do good.
Search for peace, and work to maintain it.
The eyes of the Lord watch over those who do right;
his ears are open to their cries for help.
But the Lord turns his face against those who do evil;
he will erase their memory from the earth.
The Lord hears his people when they call to him for help.
He rescues them from all their troubles.
The Lord is close to the brokenhearted;
he rescues those whose spirits are crushed.
The righteous person faces many troubles,
but the Lord comes to the rescue each time.
For the Lord protects the bones of the righteous;
not one of them is broken!
Calamity will surely overtake the wicked,
and those who hate the righteous will be punished.
But the Lord will redeem those who serve him.
No one who takes refuge in him will be condemned.

Our Outlook on Cancer

One of the most popular pages on Samuel's Site now updated because you asked......

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Our Outlook on 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.

Patient's Rights Part 2: Manipulation

kare11.com Twin Cities, MN Doctors face dilemma if MN boy refuses chemo

"The medical community recognizes a person's right to refuse treatments -- but those rights don't extend to incompetent people or children."

First off, it is not just the child who is refusing care, it is also the parents. Funny how they are still being ignored here....or rather, they are being accused of "neglect." Interestingly, certain MD's accused us of the very same thing. It seems everyone knows better than the parents. Of course, I disagree. The parents don't want to poison their kid. That seems reasonable to me.

According to this article, the plan is to force Danny to get chemo and they are willing to tie him up, sedate him, and/or put him in foster care to do it. Are we talking about a human being or a dog? I cannot tell which.

Look what happens next. The mother flees with Danny and now there is an arrest warrant ordered.

kare11.com Twin Cities, MN Arrest ordered for mom of 13-year-old boy resisting chemo

This is not going to end well.

No matter your stance on whether he should or should not undergo conventional treatment, there are some startling facts coming to the surface. Children have NO rights especially in the medical system. I have talked to many an RN who chose pediatric over adult care for the simple reasoning that children cannot advocate for themselves and their wishes the way adults can. In short, they can force their agenda under the guise that the child is being unreasonable, is uneducated, or immature. We had one RN in the ICU who actually told us to leave so she could "do her job." Apparently we asked too many questions and objected to too many things. One RN (who I adored until I heard this) told Mark that she hated taking care of us because we made her job VERY difficult. You see, we advocated for Samuel's care which is what they "say" they want you to do when you arrive but they only want you to advocate for the things they want. God help you if you go against their advice........you might.....oh, I don't know, save your kid's life.....

I wonder if you have seen your own child in physical restraints. I have. See update from 8/26. SamuelsArchives2 I was intentionally kept out of his room while they "managed things" in which time they tied him up to keep him on a ventilator (that he did not need). He was fully awake writhing in pain, scared out of his mind and they left him like that until I was finally allowed in and had a complete fit. I don't recall ever being that angry. Ever. It took a long time to get over that one.

Children's hospitals are well prepared to do whatever they want to do in the name of providing "medical care" to your child. They give no thought to how that affects the child emotionally or physically. If you are not present 100% of the time while your child is in the hospital, be assured the staff will go to extreme measures to "treat" your child. That and they don't have to disclose what they did while you were gone either. I have shared rooms with children whose parents dumped them off and listened while they were manipulated by RN's and MD's.

If Danny is put into foster care, be assured this will happen to him. He will be dumped off, tied up or sedated, then manipulated. Because his mother was desperate enough to flee, things will be much worse for Danny when he is found. No one has stopped to ask how all this manipulation is going to affect him the rest of his life. Oh yeah, what life? He only has a 5% chance of survival without chemo. So who cares? And of course, let's not forget what an emergency "cancer" really is. If you listen to the media, you might be swayed into thinking he will die tomorrow. Scare tactics and cancer always go hand in hand.

When it came time for Samuel to have unpleasant things done to him while we were inpatient, Mark or I often did it. Or we asked for sedation. I was always always thinking of how "said" procedure was going to affect him emotionally. I did not let people hold him down. I waited until he let me or his dad do whatever needed done. I will never forget the day we needed his shunt tapped to check his CSF and the Resident was shocked that we were not having him sedated. There wasn't time in the OR that day and it had to be done. I wasn't happy about it either. He was about to call for help holding Samuel and I refused. I sat down in front of him, held his hands gently and started singing "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star." He was entranced it seemed. Something special happened.......God showed up. I nodded to the Resident to get it done. He hesitantly stuck the needle into Samuel's head and Samuel never flinched and wasn't scared at all. He never noticed. God honored my prayers and my heart. The Resident and I were both relieved and amazed at how well things went. In all things, honor your child. Treat them the way you would want to be treated especially in such pivotal moments that will imprint the rest of their lives. A little patience, love and prayer goes a long way. Samuel trusted me completely all the days of his life. He knew I would never intentionally hurt him, nor let anyone else intentionally hurt him. He, at two years old, laid in a bed and watched me fight for his care. He watched me throw people out of his room and tell them not to come back. He watched me take him to a procedure and then refuse it because it wasn't properly planned out in a way that wouldn't hurt him further. As the parents, we are not only to protect their physical bodies, we are also to protect their spirits. Sadly, the medical system has forgotten that.

I am sorry to say that there probably was a better way for Danny's family to handle this situation but it appears they are flying by the seat of their pants at this point. So FYI, it is very easy to "fall through the cracks" in the hospital system. They are so incredibly busy and they don't miss you when you are gone provided you go through the proper channels and don't say stupid things that provide red flags. Very simply, you "transfer" your care to another hospital. People do this all the time. You rarely have to give a reason but if you do there are many: you got a second opinion, you liked the clinic, MD or staff better, you moved and this place is closer, etc. When we transferred Samuel's care, Seattle never even bothered to send records. We left Seattle with the distinct intent of discontinuing treatment for Samuel but I didn't tell them that. We interviewed the Tacoma MD and laid out our true intentions for Samuel's care. When they agreed to help us by not imposing any further chemo on Samuel other than per our request, we left Children's of Seattle.

The sad thing then is that in the US there is going to be no one who can "legally" treat your child's cancer so you are still screwed. There are people who will help you but the road will be long, twisted and you will have to go underground for awhile. Of course, if you are prepared to leave the country, your options are wide open. Just another word for you........prevention. Okay three words. Prevention, prevention, prevention.

As I said, this is not going to end well. I pray for them. A couple years ago, I dreamed that we were forced to put Samuel back into the chemo protocol. Having chemo forced on him would have been worse than his death. We would have fled too. I am so thankful that in all things, God took care of us, Samuel always remained in my care and that his spirit was preserved. He knew we would have done anything for him and he went to Heaven knowing we did all we could do.

Interesting thought. If Danny had killed someone, if he was a murderer, that same court would move to try him as an adult even though he is 13. So, if he is refusing medical care, he is a child, but if he murders someone he is now an adult. Which is it? It is all manipulation. God help us all.

Patient's Rights? What a joke.

This annoys me no end.

Judge rules a 13-year-old Minnesota boy must see oncologist for cancer treatment - WGHP

On April 21, 2004, I sat in a pediatric ICU and listened to my Oncologist tell me this....

"I can cure him."

Seriously. That is what he told me. And 40 days later Samuel lost his colon because of one round of chemo. 50 days later, he required 8 brain surgeries to control his CSF which was crushing his brain rendering him unable to move or communicate for three months. 4 years later, he died a torturous death because of this damage.

When we "walked away" from chemotherapy, the only reason you did not see us on the news is that all our MD's knew they didn't have a leg to stand on. They weree perfectly fine with us doing "whatever treatment we wanted" after they've had their chance at it and left us to pick up the pieces of the disaster they created. The reason you are seeing Danny Hauser's case on TV is because his body hasn't been ruined yet. You are also seeing it because his family is citing "religious" beliefs as part of their reasoning to say no to chemo. God knows we "religious freaks" have no common sense and need the "system" to help us out. This family is trying to spare their child the consequences of chemo and looking into other alternatives for "cure." They are being quoted a 90% cure rate for his cancer with chemo. Hey, I was told point blank that my Oncologist could "cure" my son. Famous last words. We were quoted a 70% cure rate right up until Samuel started losing body parts and after that, no one would quote us anything...but they still wanted to "try." Perhaps if we had stopped after that first round things might still be different but I didn't know then what I know now so I let them talk me into it again. What happened to Samuel was inhumane. I still have to stop myself and try to wrap my mind around all that went wrong because it really did happen. It is still unbelievable.

If I had known then what I know now, I don't doubt that Samuel would still be here. If the first order of business would have been to look for the "cause of the cancer" rather than poison my child to a slow miserable death, he would still be here today. If more people took a stand against chemo and their right to choose a humane cancer treatment over poison, we would not see news stories like this. Alternative treatments DO work. Samuel lived long enough to prove they work. He just couldn't overcome the damage from chemo. It only takes one round to do irreversible damage. It is Russian Roulette. You are kidding yourself if you think it is not.

Cancer is big business plain and simple. What would happen if multitudes started refusing this "treatment?" MD's cannot take multitudes to court. Of course this would require people to educate themselves about cancer before it strikes them. Most people like to pretend it won't happen to them so therein lies the problem. If you, the lay person, poison someone to death, it is murder. Yet, we have doctors who go to school to learn to poison people to the point of death to try to save their lives. How does that make sense? Our Onc in Seattle told me that when people ask him what he does for a living, he says he poisons children. Another Onc told me that the "art" of chemotherapy is knowing how far you can go without killing the patient.

In 2005, I told my Oncologist to "take the first round and let me know how that worked for him before I give it to Samuel." His answer, "There are a number of reasons why I would not want to take it." Really? There were a number of reasons why we were going to never give it to Samuel either.

One of the things I appreciate most about herbal medicine is that you are encouraged to try ALL the herbs on yourself to see how they work. Anyone demanding any person undergo poison therapy should be willing to take the same poison themselves. I bet they will run from the room screaming. Need a scripture reference for that? Do unto others.....

I love how they end this article by stating that Minnesota Children's offers "alternative" therapies such as herbs and acupuncture. I cannot speak for Minnesota, but I can speak for Seattle who has the same thing. The ND at Seattle Children's is the very same one who I consulted with in 2004. Once he was hired at Children's his hands were tied by them. I consulted with another family here in WA who wanted to use the cesium protocol I was using. I had informed the ND of Samuel's remission on this protocol. Within the same week, the same ND told this family that cesium would never work and they were wasting their money. Hmm. Doesn't sound supportive to the patient does it? Did they listen? Thankfully not. The mother in this family was an RN already familiar with hospital politics. Unfortunately, this is not the case for many who still trust that their "caregivers" actually care.

All this family is asking for is the right to choose alternative treatments which are humane and with the right protocol, definitely work. If they are willing to take responsibility for their son's care, what treatment they choose is none of anyone's business. I wonder though.... What are their MD"s so afraid of? Perhaps the same thing our Onc was afraid of? That they might actually succeed? Especially if they don't ruin his body with chemo first..... God forbid.

God's Hands and Feet

"God's hands and feet." This phrase has been echoing in my head for awhile now. It started the moment I began to thank God for allowing "me" to take care of Samuel and to be the one who found the things that helped him. Previously, I looked back at the incredible struggles feeling annoyed that God allowed certain instances go on for so long. In 2004 when it all began, I prayed for God to lead us to MD's who could help and would truly care for Samuel. As you know, they were few and far between. In four years of medical saga, I found that much of this establishment is riddled with corruption and it is much more about business than "healthcare.." It still shocks me to think of the many MD's, not to mention bureaucracy with whom we pleaded for compassion, yet they could have cared less about whether Samuel lived or died. When it became obvious that people were continually failing us or simply ignoring us, my prayer changed to ask God to show me how to help Samuel. That is when my prayers started getting somewhere. In looking back at it all, I see clearly how God honored my heart and my compassion for my own son. I see now that He did not allow the many MD's whose motives toward us were not pure to help. These people share none of the Glory of any of Samuel's miracles. They have no part in the moments of unspeakable joy that we had when Samuel was doing well as a result of my efforts. Those were my moments. Those were God honoring me.

There were so many moments in Samuel's sufferings that felt "third world" and from the end of March onward, I certainly relived many of them. I say "third world" because there was no one else who knew how to help so it was all on me. Many times where his pain or amount of physical problems were so unbelievable to even us who looked at them daily. How could things get so out of control when we supposedly have such good medical care here in the US?

I often felt deceived by modern medicine because what happened to Samuel's body seemed like it should have NEVER happened in such an advanced nation and often times the "fix" was so simple. Simple, yet no MD thought of it. Of course December of 2007 stands out because Samuel was dying, literally at death's door, and then a few simple herbs reversed it all. Every day he woke up miserable, I told him first thing in the morning for a week or more that "Mama is going to do everything God shows me to do to make you better. I promise, baby. You will feel better." Then I hit my knees and begged God to just heal him because I was out of options. I didn't have a clue what to do and felt I had already tried everything. What was wrong with Samuel at that point was beyond anything I had encountered and I had been trying things for weeks to no avail. He was in worse physical shape in December than he was in April and May of 2008, and that is saying something considering he died in May. In the eight days of May, he got stronger, not weaker. I just realized that this morning when I was thinking back. And yet several of the worst days passed where I promised Samuel he would get better and it never came to pass. It was horrible and my insides were literally screaming in dismay that I was lying to Samuel telling him I could help him yet he was dying. He should have died. Of course, everyone else had written him off at that point. But then came a breakthrough all by seemingly co-incidence. Samuel improved immediately with the simple herbs and he then knew his Mama kept her promise. That moment was a gift. God gave me that gift; a gift which no man can give and no man can take away. All those prayers I offered up to Him were answered but not in the way I expected. I expected Him to just DO what I asked and fix whatever was wrong with Samuel Himself but instead, He allowed me to be His hands and feet. He allowed me to keep that promise. Because that promise was kept, Samuel got better. Amazingly better. Better enough to have three glorious months of joy. Because that promise was kept, Samuel drew me this picture "to thank me for helping him get better." I now wear the evidence that that promise was kept around my neck.

Having the Lord reveal so many of these awful moments in His perspective makes me all the more thankful to Him for the role I played in it. On a spiritual level, I have nothing but joy, awe and gratitude in retrospect. I am certain that once I am with Samuel again, all we will remember is the amazing parts of his life here and how God knit it all together in such miraculous ways. But since I am still living on earth, I cannot forget the suffering. Mark and I agree, the worst thing was starvation; especially in December 2007. It didn't matter that his gut wasn't working. It didn't matter that leukemia was in the picture. What mattered was that even though we were feeding him, his body was starving. I dug and dug and dug for information on how to feed a child who has starved for a long period of time. I found a very helpful medical site that was part of a text specifically prepared for Africa. It gave a very detailed protocol for tube feeding children who have starved for so long that they no longer even feel hungry. It outlined all the physical issues and treatments associated with digestion starting again after it has been stifled for months. A lot of it was familiar to me as we had already went through this in 2004 when trying to get Samuel off TPN and back on NG feeds. He could not tolerate even 5ml or 1 tsp. of liquid given over an hours time. He threw up. It took weeks, patience, anti-nausea meds, motility meds and lots of towels to clean puke to get only half way back to normal. Of course, none of this worked for Samuel because we weren't dealing with a normal GI tract and at that point, I didn't know about the leaky gut. At any rate, here I had to find "third world" medical instructions and that was heartbreaking. Heartbreaking because not only did I have to deal with this in my own home, but also because starvation is a reality for families worldwide. At least I had options. The scanty medical care Samuel received was certainly better than none. The Internet has "how to" galore, all you have to do is sift through it. Samuel's "maintenance" medical costs which I paid out of pocket were not cheap, but we had options. I really took a step back when I read that medical text and thought of the many families who don't have options. Starvation is a horrible, painful, hideous way to die. It is a stupid reason to die. Malnourishment isn't much better in that it opens the door for all kinds of diseases. I know first hand.

Shortly after Samuel died, several churches raised money in his honor and asked where I would have them donate. My answer, "Feed the hungry. There wasn't anything worse than watching Samuel starve. Nothing worse than having him beg for food and tell him he couldn't eat. Nothing worse than hearing him sob over it." And it didn't matter that we had food. It didn't matter that we fed him. His body never received it past a certain point in April. His body looked no different than the malnourished in third world countries. He starved to death and died the same way many children die worldwide. Those memories break me. 1/3 of the inhabitants of the earth are starving to death.

I have spent months trying to determine what I might do with my time for the Kingdom, for the One who helped me keep my promise, for Jesus who prepared a place for Samuel and rescued him from that broken body. If you have been a follower of Christ for even a short amount of time, you have most certainly been told that "God has a plan for your life." What exactly does that mean? Does it mean you have a perfect childhood, get a good paying job, drive a sports car, live in a mansion and have money coming out your ears? I know certain evangelists who will tell you this is true. If you take the time to search out scripture, you will find that when Jesus walked the earth, He didn't hand out "perfect lives." Proverbs 30:8-10 says Give me neither poverty nor riches— Feed me with the food allotted to me; Lest I be full and deny Yo u and say, “Who is the LORD?” Or lest I be poor and steal and profane the name of my God. In Matthew 19:24 Jesus says, "Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God." Jesus knew that the "rich" have a difficult time "finding God" because they believe that great wealth means their soul is rich. He sums this up again in Revelation 3:17 where He says "You say, 'I am rich; I have acquired wealth and do not need a thing.' But you do not realize that you are wretched, pitiful, poor, blind and naked." Anyone who tells you God's plan is for you to have an abundance of material things hasn't read their Bible. As Solomon says, it is best to be somewhere between rich and poor as far as material wealth goes.

God's plan for you is the same one Jesus gave His disciples.

The Great Commission Matthew 28: 16-20
Then the eleven disciples went to Galilee, to the mountain where Jesus had told them to go. When they saw him, they worshiped him. Then Jesus came to them and said, "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to Me. Therefore go and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey everything I have commanded you. And surely I am with you always, to the very end of the age."

Make disciples of Jesus Christ in all the nations. Keep the commandments. That is the plan. Now we just need to figure out how to integrate that into our daily 9-5. 1 Corinthians 12 gives detailed illustration to the fact that Christ is the head of the Church and followers of Christ are the body. We are the body yet we all may have different functions in it. The trick is to find what the function is and then do it. Remember, "God's hands and feet." This is our privilege. Unspeakable joy enters in when you find your function in the body and do it. I was raised thinking I had to get a good education so I could get a good job. As a child, it is pounded into your mind. But who do we really work for? 1 Corinthians 10:31 says So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God. I work for the King. This is what I am going to "pound" into my kids heads. Education and jobs are great and again, that is our privilege given by God. But the ultimate goal in everything should be for the Glory of God. Impacting the Kingdom. Where do you start? Start with what is in your hand. Everyone has God given talent. Everyone has a God given longing. God made us to serve Him so when you find your niche, it should be a joyous occasion. You should "know" it when you find it.

Sometime in April, I became aware of Compassion International through Angie Smith's blog. I have "known" Angie for just over a year now though we have never met. At first I just skimmed through the Compassion site not really having much of an opinion either way. The Lord kept drawing me back to it. So I started reading through the "real" stories of children and families who are helped. I dug deeper and contacted some people personally who are involved in Compassion's outreach and was further intrigued. We all know we are supposed to "help the poor" but do you really know what the Bible says about the poor and how we are supposed to help? Psalm 82:3 says Defend the cause of the weak and fatherless; maintain the rights of the poor and oppressed. Proverbs 22:2 says the Rich and poor have this in common: The LORD is the Maker of them all. Deuteronomy 15:11 says There will always be poor people in the land. Therefore I command you to be openhanded toward your brothers and toward the poor and needy in your land. Is the Lord shocked by poverty? No. He is responsible for both. Chew on that for awhile. James 2:5 says Listen, my dear brothers: Has not God chosen those who are poor in the eyes of the world to be rich in faith and to inherit the kingdom he promised those who love him? This verse says "poor" have a very special anointing of faith on them. Chew on that. I know a bit about special anointings because Samuel had one.

The Torah (Genesis-Deuteronomy) explains God's plan for the poor in great depth and it's not welfare. God's plan is to get them working to get themselves out of poverty. Of course, immediate family should always take care of them first without repayment. The person is still required to work and contribute to the family, however. If family is not available or able, then the poor can sell himself into slavery to another. Slavery here isn't what you imagine slavery to be however. Slaves had to be taken especially good care of right down to the most minute detail. If the slave did not have a pillow to sleep on, the master had to give the slave his. They were often treated better than family. A person could only be a slave for six years and in the seventh year was set free with tons of resources to make it on his own. Special rules were in effect for farmers to harvest only the inner parts of their fields leaving the outermost borders for the poor to take freely. Provisions were made for the poor when it came time for sacrifice or offerings as well; sort of a sliding fee scale type thing. In short, they were not to be ignored, exploited or taken advantage of. Mercy and grace must always abound and if you knew about a person who was poor, you were supposed to help them get out from under their poverty. Proverbs 28:27 says He who gives to the poor will lack nothing, but he who closes his eyes to them receives many curses.

So many people closed their eyes to Samuel's life and sufferings here. They knew it and yet they ignored us. I will never forget how that felt as long as I live. I have never been the kind of person who would walk past someone I could help. I have seen third world suffering first hand and if I could help someone miss out on it entirely, I would.

As I continued to search out Compassion, I realized that they are helping the poor very much in line with Torah teachings. It is not just welfare assistance creating dependency; it is a whole host of life-sustaining and life-changing skills that gives the children hope and a way out of poverty. They are changing lives, not just throwing money at people. They are helping the poor keep their dignity by keeping families together and helping to stamp out the desperate measures some may take to survive. They are helping children have a "childhood" which is something Samuel never had.

Compassion follows Torah because it is centered around building the relationship. Children who enter the Compassion programs are often enrolled as young as four and "graduate" between the ages of 18-22 depending on the country. You can be their sponsor for over a decade in many cases. You are not anonymous, the child you sponsor will know who you are and will exchange letters with you. In many instances, the sponsor becomes the lifeline to hope for the child. While you may sponsor the child, their whole family is affected because of you. And you have the option to give additional financial gifts or visit your child in their country.

My "formal" education is in Accounting and there are a number of economical reasons why the small monthly gift helps these children. If you give $32 a month to a family whose income is $11 a month, even though in our economy in the US, it isn't much, for them it is a significant raise. Obviously these people don't have house payments or car payments to meet. Nor to they have telephone, or Internet. Compassion is their only lifeline. They are throwing themselves out there and praying that someone in the world will notice and care. Often the families are farmers who grow and trade for their living. They have very limited resources so you gift helps with medical care, clothing, tuition, job training, etc. Compassion has special programs in which you can financially give more and a lot of people do. They give you very specific info on the child's economic circumstances and also tell you which months are hardest for hunger and disease.

Helping to meet some one's basic needs is an important step in their well-being. But as I have learned from Samuel, your whole body can be completely ruined and you can live in a 10x10 room for months, but if you know Jesus, that changes everything. You can find joy in the little things. Life is built upon love and not on materialism. So many of the children being reached through this program have nothing in the realm of "stuff" but have the Joy of the Lord which no man can buy or sell. It is God given. I want to help that happen. I realized last month that Samuel's life has given me a heart for people in third world countries who need us as much as we need them.

I felt the Lord tugging at my heart and I knew He was calling me to this I started looking through the pictures of children waiting for sponsors but I couldn't figure out how to even pick because there are so many. I decided to plug in Samuel's birthday to see if there was a child I could sponsor and there was only one: Esther in Ghana. Fitting. She is in Africa and Samuel's favorite RN was an Esther. My children and I fell in love with this Esther immediately. And in the same country, on the same page, I found a Samuel. I took that as a confirmation. My Samuel doesn't need my help anymore but I could help someone else's Samuel and I cannot tell you why but that thrills me no end. We loved him immediately too (Their pictures are in my side bar.) . But then I began to have a big problem. I wanted to help all the kids. Mark came home and asked me if I was sponsoring ten more but I knew I couldn't. I still wanted to. Well, God showed me how I could help them more. So, I decided to become a Compassion Advocate in addition to sponsoring children. I cannot close my eyes to them.

When I first started looking into Compassion, it seemed like such a little thing. But it has brought me great joy. Anna prays so sweetly for these children and she loves them even though she may never meet them on earth. It is a good learning experience for them as well: geography, economics, culture, etc. I want my children to realize that they are blessed. I want them to realize that all the stuff of this world is worthless compared to the joy of helping another human being. I want them to appreciate what they have but always be willing to give. I want to work to make a "Giving" not a living and I want to teach them to do the same.

Why does God allow poverty? Why does He allow disease? So we could learn about His compassion. So we will act with compassion as our second nature. Jesus was often moved by compassion in His walk on earth and all He asked in return was for people to believe in Him. If someone on earth has a need, God created someone else to meet it. Everything has an opposite. God made the rich to bless the poor; to be His hands and feet. Each has a gift to offer the other and I think God knew that if His commandments were followed, that the rich and poor would then bless each other and meet somewhere in the middle.

If the Lord leads you to sponsor a child with Compassion, please make my day......let me know. If you are looking for a well thought out Bible compliant charity who makes good use of funds, Compassion International is one of them. Perhaps you are called to do something else for the Kingdom. God knows you won't have to look very far to find someone who needs God's hands and feet to come near them. Instead of asking God to "fix" everything for us and just watch from the sidelines, let's ask Him how we can be His hands and feet and teach other to do the same. God gave US dominion over the earth to carry out His plans and we need to take it back by sharing Jesus, making disciples, and following His commandments.

Samuel's Gut -- What Really Happened

Every year, for me, seems to wrap up the same way. Saying good riddance to all the bad and wondering what new horrors the next year will bring. Sure I think about the good things that happened but I know all too well how quickly the bottom can drop out of your world. Nothing remains, nothing lasts, nothing ever ends up the way you thought it would. 2008, without a doubt, has been one of the greatest and worst years for our family to date. The past seven months have been the "quietest" I have lived in years. Samuel was such a giant part of my day and having him suddenly gone and all the responsibilities he came with just vanish has made life strangely silent. December, as I have already shared, has been a month of "revelation." Samuel's last days in review. Samuel's life in review. I see things clearly now. Things that were once blurred by worry and responsibility have come into focus. The "focus" is overwhelming. This update comes with a warning. I am going to share with you what happened to Samuel's body and it is sick and horrible. And yet, we lived it.

In the middle of my "revelation" this month, I asked God to show me what happened to Samuel's gut. Especially at the end. I said, "I took care of him all that time, don't I have a right to know exactly what was wrong?" The Lord answered me with one word. "Holes." I already knew that. Okay, dig deeper. Obviously, at the end, Samuel's gut was bleeding out. His "digestion" if you could call it that, was reversed. After the week of his birthday, things no longer went down, but instead came back up. His "plumbing" was backwards. It was all wrong. But this wasn't the first time. The same thing happened in December of '07 only without the blood and without the "blasting off" of cancer. Obviously something was very broken.
I thought back to something puzzling A "pattern" we noted early after Samuel relapsed was that every time Samuel's body would lose blasts, we could tell by the poop. When he did not lose blasts his poop looked more normal. When cells were dying quickly and his labs showed blasts down, he had diarrhea or the sand and gravel poop we saw from about September of '07 on. Now, if you were doing chemo, diarrhea would be expected since it destroys the lining of the gut. . But with the natural treatment, he should have just peed the blasts off. That is the expectation of every alternative cancer treatment. "Drink plenty of water to flush the system." It is not good for a body to rid itself of tons of dead cells all at once hence most alternative treatments for cancer can be done at home because they gently rid the body of cancer. Samuel's body wasn't just ridding itself of cancer. It was dumping all the food toxins in the fastest way possible. Through the gut. I would expect more poop than pee based on him not having a colon but not diarrhea based on blood filtering. The exception would be when the toxins in the blood are so overwhelming that the liver pushes them out through the gall bladder and into the intestines instead. This typically happens when a person does a "cleanse." The diarrhea and flu like symptoms occur when the toxins dump into the intestines and they have to clear it. Usually a "cleansing crisis" only lasts a few days and you are told to back off on the cleanse if symptoms get too awful. Drinking extra water and eating fiber filled fruits and veggies helps the gut clear the toxins before the gut thinks it should digest them again. I always thought Samuel's poop pattern was strange, but it just never clicked until the Lord brought it back to my attention. Something was terribly toxic in Samuel's blood to make his liver continually dump toxic wastes into his small intestine. This was more than just leukemia and his "plumbing" did not just circumvent the normal elimination system overnight.
There is a condition in which the gut develops pores and in later stages, holes, that allow contents of the gut to "leak" into the blood. It is called "Leaky gut." It is a condition I had heard about previously. One formula our ND recommended back in 2004 was for Leaky Gut. I did try it for awhile but found my own food regimen for Samuel worked much better. I looked it up again when Samuel started having bacteria cross the gut to the blood in December of last year but somehow never saw the list of symptoms and side effects. If I had, it would have explained a lot but by that time, it was already WAY too late. Allopathic medicine does not recognize this condition beyond "increased intestinal permeability" which is caused by inflammation of the mucosa lining of the gut wall. Left undiagnosed, inflammation leads to pores that allow the contents that fit through these holes to get into the bloodstream. It can happen in any part of the GI tract including the colon. The only treatment offered is antibiotics to kill any bacteria before it crosses into the blood and special formula or TPN in extreme cases. Of course, first it has to be diagnosed. You cannot physically see the holes but there are a variety of tests to check for the evidence. Certain nutrients deficient in the blood such as zinc and albumen. Electrolyte disturbances. Elevated WBC's especially monos. Elevated LDH. Biopsies of the gut show increased WBC activity in the lining. All of which we saw evidence of.
This condition is not uncommon in young children as well as adults and is identified in many autism cases. I believe it is more common than people think given the large amount of small children and even babies I know of whose GI's are already showing signs of damage. It is very easy to see how it happens. Leaky gut can be caused by anything that damages the gut lining including poor diet, antibiotics, chemo, poor food assimilation, pain meds especially ibuprofen and narcotics, and steroids. Things were are led to believe are "fine" may be killing us. The "holes" in Samuel's gut did not happen overnight. They were the result of years of his gut in crisis. Years of drugs, pain meds, an anus closing down trapping the poisons there so they could do even more damage. Every drug, every antibiotic, every food he enjoyed eating was poisoning him. On top of that, I believe his gut was most likely compromised even from birth.
There is one thing every incidence of leukemia, for Samuel, had in common. Table food. He was originally diagnosed six months after being weaned from breastmilk. But even before that, he was nicknamed "Pooper" because he pooped all the time. Perhaps his colon was compromised initially and the chemo just sped up the demise. It literally fell apart inside him and later in the surgeon's hands. Really similar to what happened to his small intestine at the end of his life. There were many opportunities for Samuel's colon to be damaged. Before he was six months old, he had taken a round of steroids for croup. Later, a round of abx for an ear infection JUST before diagnosis. Not to mention I had a round of abx while carrying him and an IV abx just before his birth. As I have said previously, we saw evidence in some of his baby pictures of extreme paleness and I think breastmilk literally kept leukemia at bay. I mention breastmilk because it has large amounts of the immunoglobin IgA which heals and restores the gut mucosa. As you recall, in the end, breastmilk always helped improve not only his gut function, but also his labs overall. It is also the easiest food on the planet to absorb in a state where the gut is compromised. It prolonged his life.

Every chemo caused a massive GI crisis for Samuel. Even with the ileostomy. All those abx never helped matters but as long as his anus wasn't involved, the food could escape in a reasonable amount of time. After his gut was reconnected however, this all changed. I am not certain if he had "leaky gut" prior to the ileostomy being taken down but I can easily see how it developed after. My GI reminded me that we will never know just how damaged Samuel's small intestine was when he lost his colon. They certainly could have left a lot behind in hopes it would somehow heal and it never did. The damage was so intense that even a shunt in the abdomen never worked because of the massive amounts of scarring to what was left of his gut. Not to mention his anus and rectum collapsing and healing shut. I would say that is damaged. The ileostomy wasn't perfect either and at one point, his stoma closed up and tried to retract back inside his body. That also reversed his digestion to the point where his breath stunk like poop and the smell was coming out all his pores. The fact that his anus continually closed down after having his gut reconnected causing the contents in his gut to rot there and irritate the lining supports how this crisis would never heal. These were ALL mistakes made by caregivers who never put any forethought into the future. A lot of these could have been avoided if people either had the knowledge or actually gave a crap. By the time we found our GI, it was far too late. My own gut was screaming at me to NOT go through with the surgery to hook his gut back up but I did not feel we had any other choice. The stoma wasn't working right either. It probably would have, had we been able to abandon chemo then. But that wasn't an option yet either. That, and I did not know then what I know now. Had I known in 2004 what I know now, I would have walked away from everything.

For the first 15 months after Samuel's gut was hooked back together, he never had more than a month of healing time for his gut before his anus closed and started the vicious cycle of closing down and trapping the contents all over again. During that time, I fought with our "caregivers" for help with the anus and with the constant ileuses but no one would listen. They either never believed his anus was closing because they had "just" opened it up. Or they wanted to fight about who should actually do the surgery and who would pay for it. It was always about the system and never about Samuel. Therein lies another problem. It was always me against them. We rarely had an advocate who stood by us when we needed help most. All that damage over all those months just added up. All those foods in his gut constantly irritated the lining and as a result, he suffered chronic diarrhea or constipation. We thought the anoplasty would fix it all but instead he came home worse than when he left. That was puzzling then but I know why now. They loaded him up with more ABX than he has ever had for any other surgery and then add morphine.

I had always assumed that Samuel's gut issues were a result of the anus closing down, food becoming stagnate and creating blockages. Whatever was "stuck" was then hperabsorbed and created all the muscular pain as well as the headaches. That was only half the picture. What was really happening was whatever food, digested or not, that was stuck in there just burned holes in his gut trying to get out any way it could. If the anus wasn't accommodating, then the contents found another" hole." A lot of foods properly digested from the stomach can be directly absorbed in the gut to go into the blood and then to the liver for filtering or further processing but certain nutrients should never cross without first being properly assimilated. Undigested foods should absolutely NEVER cross. So here we have another problem because Samuel OFTEN pooped out undigested foods so how many of those do you think entered his blood the same way they came out?

The immune system responds trying both to heal the lining of the gut and clean out the "invaders" in the blood. If the condition is not gotten under control, the immune system is soon overwhelmed. It is one thing to have a few contents here and there but can you imagine particles of undigested food flooding into your blood? It is easy to see how Samuel's immune system could be overwhelmed. Once overwhelmed, the immune system just dumps the "invaders" into the muscles, joints, vital organs, and lymph nodes in an attempt to clean up the mess. Organs swell causing more immune response. Physical symptoms set in such as headaches, muscle pain, joint pain, diarrhea, constipation, fatigue, anal irritations, swelling anywhere in the body. A "leaky gut" appears to be the starting point of many chronic problems such as food allergies, auto immune diseases, and cancer to name a few. What it boils down to is the blood being poisoned by the gut leaking it's contents into it. It is sickening.
Leaky gut can be treated with a strict diet, probiotics, enzymes, stomach acid, certain herbs and absolutely NONE of the afore mentioned drugs. Successful treatment can take anywhere from 4-12 months depending on the severity. As I found through some research, there are many tests available to diagnose this condition but you have to first go to a physician who admits it exists. Samuel's g-tube diet was perfect for healing his gut and what is amazing is how God prompted me to "make his food" as soon as we arrived home in July 2004. It was that diet that kept him alive. Funny, it was always the first thing many MD's tried to get me to discontinue. This diet had tons of enzymes, probiotics and herbs that helped clean his blood, nourish his gut and support his liver. When he came home in 2004, it was with hepatitis from prolonged TPN. The very first thing I did with his diet then, was to get his liver in check. His homemade formula was predigested so all his body had to do was absorb it. Interesting that this exact diet was similar to the one indicated for healing Leaky Gut. The other thing that helped was that Samuel did not want to eat. It took several years for him to even want to eat. Unfortunately, what we did not know was any food that he ate no matter how nutritious was poison because of the "holes." We saw evidence of this everytime he tried to eat. His gut would always revolt.

I started thinking more about the timing of Samuel's relapse which had never made sense to me. He went through all those surgeries, a whole year of GI complications, another surgery and never relapsed. Surgeries stimulate the immune system in a big way and typically relapse can be associated with them. We really thought we would be in the clear after the anoplasty but when we came home his gut seemed so much worse.. After a few months of herbal treatment and attention to diet detail, he was doing MUCH better. Better than ever. He was finally able to eat food! He was eating and pooping and everything seemed so grand. I had even cut down on the G-tube feeds to once a day because he was able to eat so well, and wanted to. And we wanted him to. His poop was just beautiful! All we ever wanted was for him to be able to eat and poop and he finally was able to. Then relapse. Well, I realize why now. At first, I thought it was just acidic vs. alkaline foods and it was the diet shift that allowed the leukemia to come back. I realize now that it was not acidic vs. alkaline, it was table food with no predigestion vs. his beautiful homemade formula. I had been feeding him the same diet since 2004 with great success. Up until the year, 2007, he never really was interested in food and since table foods usually bugged his tummy so he was always sorry if he did try eating. He had a few staple items and that was it. This changed around April and May of 2007. The herbs I chose to soothe his gut were working and he was able to eat and enjoy food without issue. Or at least we thought. What his body was doing was storing up whatever foods were leaking into his blood and without his "cleansing" enzyme rich diet, his body wasn't getting rid of the toxins. Most likely, all the diarrhea we had seen for the many years before, was from toxins being cleaned out regularly and being dumped into his gut vs. kidneys. The "plumbing" was wrong for years trying to deal with the damage. It is amazing the lengths a body will go to in order to survive. I wasn't adding enzymes with his table food because he seemed to be doing so well. We just enjoyed watching him enjoy food for the first time. What we did not know about were the "holes." The herbs did help soothe the mucosa lining and the fiber in the herbs helped his poop to move along and appear normal. We always saw more "normal" looking poop when Samuel's body was not clearing out blasts. When his body could take no more in 6/07, leukemia entered. All we saw was he was doing what we thought was great, then relapsed. It was a total shock. Now, that I know about the Leaky Gut, I realize that food for his enjoyment only poisoned him especially after the anoplasty. He must not have been making any enzymes for months before the relapse if not years. Everything he put into his mouth for the sheer joy of eating poisoned him because his small intestine was so damaged.
As soon as he relapsed, one of the first things I did was took over total control of his diet. All that table food was taken away. And he dropped 60% of his blasts in a few days time with no meds at all, just food changes. His g-tube diet being very "cleansing" immediately caused a "cleansing crisis." You could smell the dead cancer cells. What I did not know was that his body was also dumping all the "food poison" it had collected as well. There must have been an enormous build-up. We did see signs occasionally before he relapsed. He was tired when he shouldn't have been. He had a lot of trouble keeping his body temp regulated. We just assumed it was the heat. Or that he just was physically doing too much. His body wasn't using the food he ate properly but his immune system was trying to manage it all. We always gauged his activity level with how energetic he was with the ileostomy. Those days when his food took less than five hours to travel from top to bottom, were the best.
With diet and the cesium treatment, Samuel was able to get back into remission. The cesium protocol was the best treatment for him as it "cleans the blood." The cesium/DMSO combo revved up his immune system as well and I am certain that helped it clean out the toxins in his blood as well. It obviously wasn't keeping up previously. The protocol consisted of many aspects. Additional enzyme support. Strict diet. Additional nutrients, etc. All the things his body was deprived of because of the massive gut injury. His table food intake was significantly reduced (much to his dismay) therefore, the "poisoning" had stopped. Once we started the "blood cleansing" foods and herbs, that telltale diarrhea began. His blood started dumping it's garbage into Samuel's gut. The thing is, who knows how much of the cesium, the diet, the additional enzymes his body actually was able to use. His gut was in crisis the whole time.
Cellulitis and abx entered the picture just as Samuel entered remission. Every drug, every abx, all nail guns to his gut. And on top of that, he was starving because the cellulitis had decreased the size of his stomach. So we allowed him to eat some well chosen table foods that followed his alkaline diet. Didn't matter. No enzymes. So they were poison. His gut went crazy between the food, the abx, and the pain meds. Leukemia came back within a month of remission. We stopped the abx just to have the cellulitis return with the leukemia so had to put him back on abx. After that, it really made no difference what I fed him, how soaked in enzymes it was, etc. His gut was done in. And he had now WBC's to heal it. It is an amazement that we ever gained control of it after that. Everything was poison after that. That was when the muscle and joint pains began. The muscular and joint pains are a result of the toxins in the blood being so overwhelming to the system that it deposits them into tissues and joints. They also cross the blood brain barrier and cause headaches. IV Sodium Bicarb helped a lot because it neutralized many of the toxins in the blood. It worked even better by mouth because I could give him a large dose and he would feel immediately better. It was amazing. But it didn't last long. When I did some research on the liver dumping wastes into the gallbladder and then to the gut, I found that the gallbladder also provides bicarb to the gut to neutralize the stomach acids. It also stores bile which by the way, I hadn't seen bile in over a year by this time. It usually flowed out between ileuses. So I wonder if he just could not make enough of that as well. Pancreatic enzymes also enter at the same juncture. I know he wasn't making any enzymes at all by then but what I did not know as that if his liver was dumping wastes into the same place where digestive juices should be entering, it is no wonder his "digestion" was so impaired. The gut can also push foods directly into the tube that drops the enzymes and bile forcing undigested food into the gallbladder and liver so who knows if there wasn't something worse going on here too. In the end, the blood in his stomach was fairly fresh so it very well could have come from the liver. It is a miracle his liver worked at all. At one point, in October, we did see his liver enzymes skyrocket and it was at that time I did a "liver cleanse." We also saw blasts drop like flies even though I wasn't even treating cancer at that point. Unfortunately, the cellulitis looked to be rearing it's head again and we chose to use G-CSF to see if there was any benefit. None. Just more blasts. The vicious cycle continued. Only after that, his poop turned to sand and gravel. Interesting note. When people have their gall bladders removed, what is often found inside them is sand and gravel. So, it would seem that we fed Samuel, foods leaked into his blood, went to his liver, and were dumped into his gallbladder then back into his gut to be digested over and over and over. Especially if his anus was closing which it was! His body was continually trying to digest waste. All that time, I thought he had a blockage but what I believe now is that it was a vicious cycle which is why we never got rid of the sand and gravel poop after that. It is so sick to think about it.
And yet, we somehow managed to keep it under some control for a time by adding even more enzymes and acid to his foods. In December the bacteria started getting into the blood and the pains got even worse. Then exhaustion set in and he literally was lifeless as he was starving to death even though we fed him the whole time. His body did not know what to do with the nutrients and his gut was so damaged by then that it was absolutely frightening. Our caregivers simply wanted to drug him out at that point and accept defeat. I was adamant that I wanted to find the problem and fix it rather than just cover it with drugs. The Bicarb and nettle tea worked better than anything else for relief anyway. And the argument was the same, the pain was all cancer according to the Onc. I knew it could not be simply because Samuel's WBC was less than 5k. That cancer was still under some kind of control miraculously enough! That pain wasn't cancer. It was obviously gut. It had always been.
My kids and I sat by Samuel's side in December while he lay on the couch dying, and we laid hands on him and prayed for his body to live and not die. We stood in agreement that day. I also told Samuel that if he wanted to live then he would have to get up off the couch and fight. Laying there was death. He was not too pleased with me because he was SO tired but 30 minutes later, he came into the kitchen to show me he was up. "See Mama, I am up. I am walking." I praised him and I praised God. It wasn't long after that the Lord showed me the herbs that helped quickly detoxify the blood and that stopped the pains. By this point, Samuel had again given up all table foods. I then bathed his foods even more in massive amounts of enzymes and acid for hours before I fed him and that forced his gut to work. It took a couple weeks of feeding, drawing food back out, adding more enzymes, feeding again, and then the same thing all over again, but it worked. Once I had the herbs that worked his pain vanished. His liver and spleen, once swollen (filled with food toxins) went back down to size. When we added steroids, they initially benefited him because they reduced the swelling in his gut stopping some of the leaking and gave us enough leukemia control that he got another remission. Steroids also helped Samuel's energy level. Leaky Gut depletes the adrenal gland and the steroids helped prop it up and gave him back that energy he was lacking. Unfortunately, the steroids were a double edged sword because they initially helped with getting the swelling down inside his gut but they continued to eat the flesh inside. Another side effect of Leaky Gut was funky reactions to drugs because the liver is so overwhelmed that it cannot properly distribute them. Wouldn't this explain a lot? Samuel never had "normal" reactions to drugs and in the end, the drugs hardly worked. Not to mention that every pain med given was just another nail in his already mutilated gut. And then there is malnutrition and starvation because the liver cannot convert nutrients. . Nutrients do not do what they are supposed to do anymore because they are not properly assimilated so even though you may be feeding them, the body ignores them or takes them to the wrong place. Say spleen instead of bones. I realized what was wrong with Samuel's bones after he died. He had developed rickets. No one here could apparently diagnose it when he was alive. His bones in his ribs were being robbed of nutrients and as a result, his bones protruded so far outward that his ribcage looked like a mountain. The bones literally puckered. His spleen became a dumping ground that grew so full that I described it as a brick. Even though we saw blasts go down to less than 15k near the end, that spleen grew in spite of it. Later his lymph nodes also became a dumping ground and his vessels just stopped containing his blood allowing the toxins to leak everywhere.

Every time anything leaked into his blood from his gut, it provoked his immune system and it would seem to me that THAT is why once his gut started bleeding out, the blasts went insane. Everytime his gut had a little break, the blasts got better. Note insert ileus. Ileus was his body's defense mechanism saying, "Stop poisoning me!" Ileus is when the gut completely shuts down and STOPS functioning at all. This is different than a blockage and is extremely painful because the gut is NOT moving at all. It took between 48-72 hours to get his gut moving again. Enough of a food break for his body to detox a bit without adding more food to the burdens. It was his body's last defense against the poisoning. After a few days with no food, the gut started working, the blood toxin load was down and the blasts went down. That explains perfectly why we could expect his blasts to skyrocket when he had an ileus episode and go down quickly once a few days passed. When I was able to solely feed breastmilk, he felt great and he did great. But there was usually enough for a 24-48 hour period and then we went back to his normal diet which at that point, his body could barely tolerate even with the enzymes and acid. And of course, he wanted to eat food with his mouth which again just added to the demise! The only thing in the end that he could tolerate was breastmilk. If he had been able to get breastmilk 24/7/365, we might have had a chance. But how could he live like that? All he wanted to do was eat food. He ate "good" foods with his mouth the entire three months of last year where his leukemia was in remission. The combination of cesium, breastmilk and steroids bought him that time and he appeared to thrive. He certainly felt great. Right up until the steroids tore one hole too many. In the end, once I realized that the food was making him feel worse, I would tell him, "If you eat this, you will hurt." He said he did not care. He would just push his button and get more pain meds. Now I know why my mom dreamed of him in Heaven and all he was wanting to do was eat. How demonic is it that our one and only goal, for him to be able to eat with his mouth (and poop) was used to kill him? The weekend before "Passover" he had an episode where his blasts went over 50k then dropped to 15k in the days that followed. I was able to feed breastmilk all that time. However the day I started him on his regular diet and he ate table food, his blasts hit 70k. We never understood why that happened. Till now.

All the toxins in the blood eventually accumulate EVERYWHERE and I mean in the liver, spleen, lymphatic system and then the blood vessels cannot contain the blood anymore. Add broken gut leaking food, drugs that continue to ruin the gut, no immune system, and what do you get? Death. Vicious death. Samuel never had a chance. The damage was irreversible and all his immune system was trying to do was to manage it. It was trying to somehow dump all the toxins somewhere so he could survive. It was overwhelmed in the end. We were overwhelmed in the end. It is a miracle that we ever got control of it, much less, to have had three remissions when it was at it's worst point. I always suspected that his leukemia was a side effect of a bigger condition. In my mind now, that is confirmed. All I ever wanted to do was "fix" his gut. All that pain in the end of Samuel's life was gut related. It makes complete sense why when we stopped feeding him in his last few days, he initially felt better. After the Passover weekend, his spleen was so large that I could barely feed him 2oz. of food and half the time, I would have to draw that back out. He never had another ileus after that most likely because his body wasn't allowing food to go below his stomach. If we had been able to switch drugs from Fentanyl to Nubain or any other drug that would not affect the gut, I am certain that his death would not have been so vicious or painful. That drug 100x more potent than morphine literally finished ripping his gut apart. There was a window of opportunity to switch drugs but no one would listen. That is why the pain control was so difficult in the end. The Fentanyl was ripping his gut apart and trying to ease the pain of it's damage all at the same time. We would just get ahead of it by raising the dosage and it would not be but a day and he was screaming for help from the pain again. This could have been avoided. But once again, one would have to actually admit that Samuel's gut had "issues." I am certain that in my Onc's mind, this had to be about cancer. How could he sleep if he truly believed we were able to get leukemia in remission 3x without a barrage of chemo? Samuel is not some poor little boy who lost his life to cancer. He beat cancer several times over. What he could not win, was the battle over a broken gut, and people who plugged their ears when I screamed for help.
I am overwhelmed by the utter destruction I have just described and the way it was never managed or even thought of. As you can clearly see, it was a vicious cycle that could only end one way. Samuel should not have survived the initial relapse and yet, God preserved him for another nearly 11 months. God showed me how to care for Samuel's gut all those years! Samuel wanted to live. Even in the end, he wanted to live. But he also wanted to eat and be a normal boy and in the end, the only place he could do that was Heaven. No one here ever truly understood what happened to him. I was the only one who actively tried to understand his gut but trying to learn all this while you are trying to save someone's life is pretty difficult. That is what we are supposed to have doctors for. God honored me. He honored Samuel. God continually led us through and we never gave up. I wonder what I might have thought had He told me about the "holes" earlier. Would I have been so certain that we could get him into remission back in June of '07? Would I have thought we could do it again in December of '07 or January of '08 when things were even worse? Would I have enjoyed the three months of bliss we had this year thinking we had finally overcome? Would we have been defeated in June of '07 had I known? Would we have give up then? The only option was to never allow Samuel to eat food with his mouth again. Never use any conventional drugs. That wasn't possible nor did it fit in with our "quality of life" wish. God does everything for a reason and I don't think He kept this from me so Samuel could die. I believe He kept it from me so Samuel could live another ten months even though I now see, it was a losing battle. I don't know why Samuel's gut did not get healed. I just think back to all the people we went to for help looking for just one who would listen. When we finally found that one, it was too late and even she could not properly diagnose Samuel's condition. Every day Samuel was here was a gift. Every thing we were able to do for him that kept him alive and happy was a miracle. God honored every prayer and every good deed. Every day we live on earth is a day we will never get back. It is what we chose to do with that day that matters especially in light of eternity. Samuel chose to live every day and be happy. Even though he was falling apart. Even though he had pain most days. Even though he was dying. He chose to smile. He chose to embrace what he had.
When he relapsed, life because extremely difficult. Some days were hideous. But there were days that were miracles. Many of them. He is happy and free to eat to his heart's desire these days. We are free from the medical system that was so focused on cancer that it neglected how the cancer came to get there. I've learned a lot. A lot about the gut and a lot about cancer. I truly believe that cancer is a symptom of something worse. You find that, you get a foothold on cancer. Samuel's case was extreme. The damage to his gut was extreme. But, I was extreme in my love for him and willing to do whatever it took give him "quality of life." It was hideous. It was difficult. The amazing thing was that he stayed here long enough to prove that leukemia can be controlled and possibly cured without the toxic measures that ruined his gut. He proved it not once, but three times. When we chose to stop chemo in 2006, I looked for an example of perhaps another child who had success with alternative treatment. I never found one. I found plenty of adults but none willing to share every aspect of their story. Most are selling something so you have to wonder if they are truly trying to help people or just trying to make money. People forget, however, that MD's are selling something too. They sell you on diagnoses and medicine. It all comes down to who pays for it and how much it costs. Unfortunately, insurance companies don't cover some of the most important medicines so people choose not to spend the extra money that might save them from some hideous disease down the road. Many diseases start out as one symptom that nags a person long enough that they seek medical help to make it go away. Usually, it is a drug that covers that symptom but doesn't treat the cause. Later, another symptom develops. Then another. Then the awful diagnosis. When you hurt, when your body isn't working right, rather than covering the problem, find out why and fix it from the inside out. You will be doing yourself a favor. Disease is all about prevention.

Samuel is an example. Treating cancer CAN be done naturally as long as you are willing to find someone who can help you look for the "root cause" of the disease. A friend sent me an article about cancer being a "survival mechanism" which I read a few months back and thought was great.......if you have a tumor. But it doesn't explain blood cancer. Or at least it didn't until I found out about the holes in Samuel's gut. Flooding the blood with gut contents that should not be there would be a great way for a leukemia to develop. Back in 2004, a surgical RN on the East Coast explained to me the many ways the body has of "walling" something off. She said when surgeons have opened people up, they are often amazed at the body's ability to try to rid itself of foreign invaders. Well, how do you think they get in? Through some hole in the body. The biggest "hole" is your mouth. What you put into it. More and more medical professionals are realizing the gut/immune system connection, apparently just not the ones I was using. My Onc told me point blank that he knew nothing about the gut. Obviously! I also read another article about cancers that just disappear. Neuroblastoma for one. Hmm. Could it be that someone found the root cause? When Samuel was diagnosed he was given a 70% chance of "cure." No one would quote me odds after he lost his colon. We should have left then, but again, I did not know then what I know now.

Many have written hoping I would write a book or put some of these things we learned on paper. I am not at all led by the Lord to do that. There is TONS of info everywhere you look on treating cancer naturally. Most of the best research is covered up. It is hard for drug companies to make money on food and herbs. Many people shun diet alternatives and diet causes to health issues but for those who are truly looking for help, it isn't hard to find. People believe what they want to believe. I wanted to believe that leukemia could be controlled and cured with diet and alternative treatments. I still believe this today. I was willing to look at more than one aspect of medicine and cure. Remission was possible. Had Samuel's gut co-operated, I believe he would still be here running around and happy. He believed he would live. He did not fear cancer. What if more of us had that perspective when looking into cancer treatment? I still believe the cancer was the easy part.

Ask an Oncologist near you if a person can get leukemia into remission with diet and herbs and see what they tell you. I guarantee you the answer will be no. Perhaps they don't know. Perhaps they don't want to know. That was what we found with several Oncs. They said, "Keep up whatever you are doing," but never asked what we were doing. How is it possible for a person that is supposedly trying to cure kids to NOT be interested at all in how we achieved remission without harsh drugs? How is it possible for that same person to be so ready to let Samuel die? I have been amongst parents who don't want to hear about alternatives because they fully trust their MD's want to "cure" their kids. Or they don't want to change their habits. What I am talking about is adjusting your thinking. Thinking of cancer as a symptom rather than a freestanding disease. If you have cancer, there is something REALLY wrong in your body to allow it to get in in the first place. Unfortunately fear is a big factor in the business of cancer treatment. Everyone plays on it. What annoyed our MD's was that we never made decisions based on our fear of cancer. I made decisions based on Samuel's gut. I cannot tell you how many times I refused to allow chemo and forced them to deal with his gut first. It is all about fear and all about trust. Do you trust your MD, a mere person? Or do you trust God more? We all know what my answer is.

Treating the symptoms of cancer with poison is not a cure. Perhaps a few "get lucky" but I also wonder if they inadvertently found the root cause. There is a lot of research about leukemia and fungal infections. Nearly every leukemia case ends up getting antifungal medication at some point in treatment. Samuel did. How do you get fungus? Mainly from food. How does it get to your blood? Through the gut. There are a lot of unanswered questions and no two bodies react to "invaders" in the same way. Yet, all of these studies are mocked and shot down while countless dollars are given to "research" to make more poison. What would happen if cancer was treated as a condition of the whole body and treatment was tailored based on the disharmony in the body that brought it on? No two people are the same and I am certain that is why there are so many types of cancers. Yet, cancer treatment for each type of cancer IS the same. There is something wrong here and people need to start asking more questions BEFORE submitting to what is considered "normal."
What I am sure of, is there is not enough emphasis on prevention or on the gut connection. There are very few people willing to try alternatives first and even those who do do not know where to look for info. I cannot just sit here and do nothing. December was a month of the Lord opening my eyes to the truth. The truth about Samuel's life and his body. The truth about how impossible his situation was and yet we saw victories. The Lord has rekindled that desire in me to know more about the gut and the cancer link. The only way I can do that is to pursue formal education. So, I am. A person can do very little in the medical field without credentials and He has opened a door for me to move forward. My mom ended up staying with us over the holidays because of the snow and for the days she was here, I realized she needed some "help." She has a few drugs she needs to get off. And that has always been my thing anyway. If you need meds emergently, then use them, but plan to get off everything ASAP. Drugs just treat symptoms. Drugs cover symptoms and make you think you are healed when you are not. So I gave my mom some different things to try and I watched how her body reacted for the couple days she was here. She had a "cleansing" reaction which I immediately took care of with probiotics and her body responded in 30 minutes. Later, she had a reaction from NOT taking her blood pressure meds that she forgot at home so I gave her something for that. Her body responded again, in less than 30 minutes. And I realized again. How can you fix something if you don't look at it? Samuel's MD's spent less than 15 minutes with him at most visits with exception to my GI, and tried to solve his problems. They never did. They never saw half of the problems and NO ONE ever wanted to see his poop. How do you fix a gut if you don't look at what comes out of it? I was reminded by God that this IS my thing. There are a lot of people walking around with undiagnosed problems and it is not because the person doesn't know they have a problem. It is because doctors don't recognize them. Any parent looking for cancer treatment alternatives for their child needs to know it can be done and that it HAS BEEN done. They need to find me. And I need more education to be able to help. The Lord showed me that this is what I need to pursue. The Lord did not lead me down this path without a purpose in mind. I don't know altogether what that is, but I know if He has plans for me, they will be good ones.