**In response to a request for information on the present condition of past patients on the Gerson Therapy I wrote the following letter. All information included is simply our reaccounting of our experience, and in no way implies anything other than our opinions and attitudes. The following letter appeared in the  Jan/Feb and March/Arpil 2003 issues of the Gerson Healing Newsletter.**   "The sky's the limit' when John surveys the world around him.  Eight years after experiencing many debilitating symptoms of MS, John is healthy, vibrant and able to pursue his physically demanding outdoor hobbies.  Fall sees him hiking over many miles of rough, hilly country. Photo by Edward Olson

October 23rd, 2003 Dear Mr. Printer, This in regards to your request for a response from those remaining on a modified Gerson Therapy. My mother Mrs. Ed Olson of Havre, MT, encouraged me to send the enclosed article I had written for several family members. In thinking of what to add for your purposes, I decided the short postscript was sufficient. Other interesting, often amusing aspects of our "Gerson lifestyle" would only confirm the original intent of the article: to explain how I admire my husband, how we appreciate the Gerson Therapy, and how we are still benefitting from its influences. It is a disheartening fact that we find few, none actually, willing to put their "traditions" and habits aside to follow the Therapy---even if it involves a fatal disease and the end of theirs or a loved one's life. John's cousin is progressing rapidly into the acute stage of M.S. The cousin was diagnosed after John had begun to respond while completing the therapy, yet he has yet to accept or read one page of the Gerson books we have offered him. I know John thinks of him often: sitting in his wheelchair, watching the seasons pass through a window in his ranch house while John is going about his usual work and play. If people can benefit in even some small way by being exposed to the therapy, all your work will be worthwhile. Thanks to the entire Gerson group for providing the resources we needed. I'm sure others will thank you also. Yours, Mrs. John Stout In answer to several reoccurring questions, I am going to recount our journey as a family dealing with Multiple Sclerosis. In the process, I hope to make clear that I admire my husband greatly for the manner in which he faced this devastating time. I feel he deserves a great deal of credit for the manner in which our entire family has benefitted from this experience. January, 1995: One day, John stepped out of his pickup and his leg would not move into the proper place to take his weight. He could not maintain his balance, and he fell. This happened again and again. He began to walk in an exaggerated manner. The eyesight in one eye became very disoriented and virtually unuseable. March, 1995: John had Multiple Sclerosis. The specialist explained that John had two of the three more common identifying "markers" of the disease. The diagnosis was certain. This is where our journey began. We had two questions for the specialist: 'What can we expect for a future?' and 'Is there anything we can do?' His best answer for both was, "We don't know---in your case." The very nature of M.S. is the individual variation among patients, both in the lifelong progression and possible effects of treatments. The one known fact was that there is no known cure. For a few days, we were a very scared family. My husband is a rancher, used to riding horses and ATV's, carrying fence posts and baby calves, and climbing in and out of grain trucks and tractors. He is an avid hunter, with not a single indoor hobby except to read about his outdoor interests. At the time, we had a four-year-young son and were just beginning our life together. Finally, we decided we needed answers to our two questions. John continued with his work, struggling through the days. We began with the pamphlets we got at the doctors' offices, the national M.S. association and the state organization. I asked the library to send for anything they could find on the subject---they found 32 books instate. I read 26 of them in the next month. "Fifty percent of those people were completely disabled after 10 years...only about 70 or 80 percent of M.S. victims are still alive 15 years after the onset of the disease. After 35 years, only 30 percent survive." (Prevention's New Encyclopedia of Common Diseases) John had been experiencing many various symptoms, but two remained with him day and night, for three months, and are fit to mention here. His eyesight was terrible in the effected eye, and his leg did not move normally. Upon rising each morning, these troubles were there like a black cloud hanging over his head. After a typical long day of ranch work, he was exhausted and the symptoms aggravated and intense. John tired quickly and utterly. Spring weather had become oppressively hot for John and the high summer temperatures were yet ahead. How long could John continue to work---a year---or more? The books stressed "accepting" M.S., getting out of "denial", and "coping". I realized we had to find answers to our original two questions. It seemed that "acceptance" of the disease was supposed to mean RESIGNATION. John agreed: we could not resign ourselves to the daily dread of what the next moment might bring. The best answer we had found for What can we expect? was that, by most accounts, John fit somewhere close to the most severely progressing category of M.S. patients. His symptoms, while not as severe as they could have been, included all five types: motor, sensory, visual, vestibular, and genitourinary. They remained daily, not coming and going in exacerbations (periods of intensity, followed by periods of relative ease). We decide he would most likely progress steadily, until he would become, wheelchair-bound, if not bedridden, carrying around ice packs, a napping pillow and wearing a urinary bag tied to the leg. We found it devastating---this attitude they call "acceptance". We moved on to the second question" What can we do?" Several new medications used in clinical trials were designed to target various reactions within the immune or nervous systems to prevent further damage from taking place and thereby preventing additional symptoms from being added to the exacerbations. Steroid treatment was aimed at decreasing inflamation during the exacerbations and thereby keeping to a minimum any further damage they would have on the brain and nervous system. The best recommendation given was: "Some people find it helps." If no benefit was seen, another type would be begun. And so your life would go. We found a few "facts", or statements generally accepted as true. MS is a chronic, progressive disease of the brain, spinal cord, and optic nerves together with the entire central nervous system. The cause is still debated but what happens is not. The myelin sheath, composed of protein, that surrounds the nerves, is destroyed by the body's own antibodies in the form of two specific white blood cells. After contacting nearly a dozen doctors and several MS research centers, we had a mountain of information to sort through. A few treatment plans had no explanation behind their regime. These we eliminated as well as those with extremely severe and permanent side effects. Some sounds like voodoo. Others required application to research trials, travels across the country, etc. These were set aside until later, if needed. We had covered "a lot of ground" in the months since we first heard of MS! We had found a few possible answers to our second question" What can we do?" One was "Not Much!"---but that answer did not allow for a very happy tomorrow. If we "accepted" (by now, you can tell I hate that word) MS, we were, in effect, resigning ourselves to a future of fear and worry. We accepted the fact that John had MS; we accepted the fact that he was having a difficult time. It also remained that we wished for a normal, long and fulfilling life, as a happy family. We decided not to accept that MS would control our lives; we determined to control the MS. April 20, 1995: We began a limited whole-foods diet, with flax oil and herbal supplements as we found some explanation of their benefit. Dr. H. A. Vogal's notes and the Dr. Swank Diet contributed most of our guidelines. John's symptoms lessened somewhat. Most of his balance was restored but the summer heat and work took a heavy toll on John. Fatigued intensified symptoms by each day's end. All of his body systems affected still exhibited noticeable effects every day. December 1995: We discovered the Gerson Therapy and found that it could explain how each individual aspect of MS affecting the body, related to each other. The Gerson Therapy could even explain why John had developed MS. Taking the well-accepted fact that MS is your body attacking itself, it could be concluded that your body wasn't working in a normal and proper way. And while it could not be determined exactly what cause MS to begin it's takeover of John's body, Dr. Gerson had developed a therapy by which his body could begin working properly again. Here we had answers to both of our questions: We could get John's body to working normally again---thereby preventing further damage. So we could expect no worse than the effects of the damage he had already sustained. With restored functions of all his body systems, we could even hope for some lessening of exacerbations and their devastating effects on his work and our family. We began with canned juices and any required supplements that we had on hand. Continued on Page Two...