Kick cancer to the curb

Fun Run event scheduled for June 28 to support local three-year old battling leukemia.

The First Annual Team Kicker Fun Run is set to take place on Saturday June 28 at Whitmore Track and Field Complex. The Fun Run is a 1-mile and 5k charity run to support Season and Josh Johnson and their three-year old boy Kicker, who was diagnosed with Type B Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia (ALL) in December 2013.

“He had been complaining of leg pain off and on for 4 months but it was really inconsistent,” Season said. “Then finally around Thanksgiving he stopped walking completely.”

“He would be at the park playing with all the other kids and then the next day he wouldn’t be walking,” Josh said. “How does a two year old tell you he has cancer?”

The Johnsons took Kicker down to Loma Linda to see an osteopathic (holistic) doctor, who immediately sent them to the ER at Loma Linda Hospital. They stayed there for three weeks, as Kicker received treatment and was given his prognosis.

The doctors told Season and Josh there’s a 90-95 percent survival rate for ALL, but that it requires three and half years of treatment. “He will have years of treatment including chemotherapy where they inject chemo directly into his spine so he has to go under general anesthesia,” Season said. “The treatments will lessen as we go along but right now it’s weekly.”

Season, who is a Nutritional Therapy Practitioner and had her own practice in Mammoth before Kicker was diagnosed, is also researching and implementing holistic treatment along with the traditional care.

“We have an entire team of alternative physicians that we are working with as well,” Season said. “Most kids die from the treatment and not the disease. We are letting the chemotherapy do it’s job and then getting rid of all the toxins.”

“When you’re in this situation, you’ll do anything to figure out what it takes to make your kid better,” Josh said. “It’s not normal, conventional medicine but he’s really doing so good. It has been the little pieces of everyone’s help that is making him so healthy.”

Normal side affects of chemotherapy are chronic nausea, headaches, leg pain, weight loss and a weakened immune system that inhibits the body to fight off infection. Season said most kids Kicker’s age end up on a feeding tube, but Kicker hasn’t experienced any of these side affects. “When Kicker goes into the clinic he screams and he hates it. But as soon as that’s over, he’s fine and he’s running out of the clinic to play with his toys.”

“He’s changed into a whole new kid,” Josh said about Kicker after he started treatment. Kicker previously had been a timid kid, who whined a lot according to his parents. But within the first two weeks of treatment, “he became super energetic and really interactive,” Josh said. “It kinda made us wonder how long he has really been sick. He could have had this his whole life.”

Kicker “has had to develop this courage that no three year-old should really have,” Season said. “I’ve noticed in maybe just the last month he has this new confidence that he didn’t have before.”

Season and Josh lived in Loma Linda for the first four months after Kicker was diagnosed, but decided to move back to Mammoth when they found a child oncologist out of Reno and saw how well Kicker was doing. “Being home, in our house, and out of the city was way more therapeutic for all of us,” Season said. They currently drive to Reno once a week for Kicker’s treatments.

Season and Josh are originally from Mount Shasta but were placed in LA and then the Bay Area when Josh started working for California Highway Patrol (CHP). When a position opened up in the Eastern Sierra, they asked to be transferred to Mammoth and now call it home.

“The CHP has been amazing. As soon as it happened Ron Cohan, the commander in Mammoth, came by the hospital,” Josh said. “They told me I could work wherever his treatment would be the best. I don’t know how people who don’t have an organization like the CHP behind them are able to get through something like this.”

Season and Josh moved to the Eastern Sierra in the fall of 2012, first to June Lake and then to Mammoth.  “I feel like we are so new here and so I didn’t really expect any response from Mammoth outside our group of friends,” Season said. “But I’ll see someone in the grocery store come up and say they are praying for us. It’s really humbling that people care that much and want to reach out and help.”

The Team Kicker Fun Run is being organized by Sarah Tapia and backed by Mammoth Christian Fellowship, which meets at the Middle School on Sunday mornings. “There’s some mommy friends helping me out which makes it easier and more doable,” Tapia, who has never organized a race before, said.

Tapia first met Season through a woman’s bible study, but really got to know her through her nutritional therapy practice. “She helped me on my health journey,” Tapia said.  The race “just fits in with what the Johnsons are all about— health and nutrition and exercise. Healing your body in that way.”

For children 12 years old and under the entry fee is $15. For everyone over 12 the entry fee is $30, regardless of what race they run. On race day registration fees will be $20 and $35.  “We want little kids to come out because Kicker is a little guy,” Tapia said. “The one mile is on the track so it’s perfect for the littles because if they can’t do all four laps that’s fine and they can still have fun.”

Registration will be at Black Velvet Coffee on June 16 and 23 from 5-7 p.m. “If people can’t participate or they don’t want to participate, if running is not their thing, they can volunteer,” she said. “Or they can buy a shirt for $10. Or they can sign-up and not show up.”

Race-day registration starts at 8 a.m. and the race starts at 9. “It’s going to be a manually timed race so I will need lots of volunteers,” Tapia said. She bought medals for the top three finishers for both boys and girls. The top male and female adult finishers will receive a gift basket of donated items from local businesses. “If any businesses are interested, we are accepting donations,” she said.

“I think if I was just putting on a regular old 5K it might be different,” Tapia said about the community support she’s received for the race so far.  “But because it’s a local family and a cute little boy people are more excited about it. I am hoping for this to really be a family and community backing behind [the Johnsons] to show them that we really love and care about them.”

The Fun Run will continue as a charity run every June Tapia said and the proceeds will go towards other families in need. Season and Josh also plan on starting a foundation that will give scholarships to other children with cancer for their alternative physician treatments, supplements and even travel costs.

“One of the things we’ve definitely learned through this whole thing— because we are forced to do it— we have to live our life fifteen minutes at a time,” Josh said. “You start living for those moments in between the garbage because you’re forced to. But those moments become so much better.”

“You just go along with life and you get jaded. And you forget about how good people really are,” Season said about the outpouring of support they have received.

“It really shows you the value for life again,” Josh said. “I feel like I am going be moving furniture for the rest of my life. I owe so many people. We are out of ways to say thank you.”

To volunteer at the race or if you have more questions email Tapia at saglbre@yahoo.com or follow Team Kicker Fun Run on Facebook.