[Pnews] Kevin ''Rashid'' Johnson - My Denied and delayed cancer care

[Prisoner News]

*FROM MY DENIED AND DELAYED CANCER CARE TO THE WORST POSSIBLE TREATMENT 
(2023)*

By Kevin ''Rashid'' Johnson

FROM NO CARE...

It's been exactly a year and a half since Virginia prison officials had 
clinical evidence
from PSA blood tests that I have prostate cancer and ten months since my 
cancer was
definitively diagnosed by biopsy at the Medical College of Virginia 
(MCV). The biopsy
found that the cancer was then spread throughout my entire prostate. To 
present date
my treatment has still not begun. Not only that, but the option for 
receiving the course of
treatment that doctors advised me is the least dangerous and most 
effective has been
now scrapped for the MOST DANGEROUS and likely LEAST EFFECTIVE plan of
treatment.

When I elected radiation treatment over surgery during early January 
2023 it was a
desperate move to finally get some regiment of treatment underway, in 
the face of
hospital and prison medical staff repeatedly denying and delaying my 
access to care. I
didn't want to give them any more pretexts to falsely justify refusing 
to set me on a
course of care as they had already done for over a year.

At that time the radiologist, Dr Alfredo Urdaneta, explained to me the 
course of
treatment that he recommended as most likely to eliminate my cancer and 
cause me
the least physical harm. This four-stage plan of care consisted he said 
of my first
receiving a month's prescription of an oral medication that would 
suppress my body's
testosterone levels and thereby shrink my prostate, to make the gland a 
more effective
target for radiation treatment. This would also stop the cancer's growth 
he said. During
the time that I'd take the meds I would also, second, receive two 
injections of a
testosterone suppressant. Third they would inject tiny radiation pellets 
into my prostate
gland. Then fourth I would undergo about twenty sessions of external 
radiation.
Dr. Urdaneta explained that this plan of care offered the most effective 
option for
targeting the cancer with radiation while minimizing the amount of 
radiation beamed into
my body and in such a sensitive region where damage to other organs and 
vital
functions might occur.

But it was a case of bait and switch.

On Feb 14, 2023 I was ordered the oral meds by Dr. Urdaneta, but the 
prison never
administered them despite my repeated written complaints at the prison.
On Feb 23 I called the hospital for confirmation that I was supposed to 
be receiving the
meds, but was told by MCV staff that they could not give me any 
information about my
own care. I then calling back with a journalist Carole Seligman then a 
lawyer Noelle
Hanrahan on the line to witness this claim, but they then sent us to 
voicemail.
When I went to the hospital two weeks after the meds were ordered, on 
March 3, for the
first shot, the shot could not be given because the meds were never 
administered. The
meds were then reordered and the entire plan of treatment was rescheduled.
TO THE WORSE CARE...

I began receiving the meds on March 5, and returned to the hospital on 
March 20 for the
first shot. After that the plan of treatment suddenly changed. The 
second shot was never
given and the oral meds ended. I was seen again on March 27 by Dr 
Urdaneta, at that
time he informed me that my plan of treatment would now be nothing but 
some 40
sessions of external radiation. FORTY SESSIONS! That's forty times of 
having organ-
frying radiation beamed into my body without any precautions or 
protections. He would
not give any explanation for this sudden change or the choice of this 
admittedly more
dangerous course of treatment.

He did rush to have me sign a consent form acknowledging that I 
recognized the
treatment I was going to receive might not cure my cancer and there may 
be serious
side effects and injury. I had to sign the form as a condition to 
receiving any treatment at
all.

Throughout the year and a half that I have been known to have cancer the 
hospital
visits and acts of initiating treatment that did happen were solely the 
result of persistent
outside protests against my denied treatment that occurred throughout 
this time. Yet
even now when a course of treatment has been planned, it has been 
scrapped for the
worst and most dangerous choice. A choice that will likely not cure my 
very curable form
of cancer and will likely cause severe internal injury to my body. This 
is the state of
prison medical 'care' in Amerika and especially that given even by force 
of public
pressure to the politically imprisoned.

Dare to Struggle Dare to Win!
All Power to the People!
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