Rebecca’s Story (Part 3): Healing Juvenile Arthritis Through Gut Health, Diet, and Community Support
Release Date: 01/12/2026
Regina’s Story: DeGeorge Syndrome, Congenital Heart Disease, and Fierce Maternal Advocacy
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There is a moment in many parents’ lives when everything shifts — often quietly, in a doctor’s office or an ultrasound room. In this episode of Born For This Stories, Johanna and Peter sit down with Regina, a mother navigating the complex realities of raising a medically fragile child with DeGeorge Syndrome and a congenital heart condition. From a prenatal diagnosis to open-heart surgery just days after birth, Regina shares what it means to live inside long hospital stays, constant monitoring, and the emotional weight of advocating for a child who cannot yet speak for herself. This...
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Marcia’s Story: Advocacy, Identity, and Raising a Child With Complex Needs
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Some parenting journeys reshape not only how you care for your child, but how you see the world. In this episode of Born For This Stories, Johanna and Peter sit down with Marcia, a mother whose journey into medical parenting required her to navigate complex diagnoses, cultural expectations, and the ongoing work of advocacy. Marcia shares how becoming a parent to a child with unique needs challenged her assumptions, strengthened her voice, and ultimately transformed her sense of identity. This conversation explores the emotional and practical realities of raising a child with complex needs —...
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Mariangel’s Story: Clubfoot, Community, and Creating What Was Missing
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Some diagnoses arrive quietly, but they change everything. In this episode of Born For This Stories, Johanna and Peter sit down with Mariangel, a Venezuelan-Canadian mother of two whose daughter was born with clubfoot. What began as shock and uncertainty after birth became a journey shaped by resilience, family support, and a deep commitment to making sure her daughter and other children like her were never left out. Mariangel shares what it was like discovering her daughter’s clubfoot after a C-section, navigating early treatment, learning to advocate within the medical system, and opening...
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Rebecca’s Story (Part 3): Healing Juvenile Arthritis Through Gut Health, Diet, and Community Support
Born For This Stories
Healing doesn’t always look the way we expect, and it rarely happens all at once. In the final part of Rebecca’s three-part story, we explore what long-term healing looked like after stepping fully into a gut-centered, holistic approach for her daughter’s severe juvenile idiopathic arthritis. This episode focuses on the slow, steady work of rebuilding the immune system, restoring gut health, and creating an environment where healing could actually take root. Rebecca shares how food, sourcing, detoxification, nervous system regulation, and community support became the foundation for her...
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Rebecca’s Story (Part 2): Choosing a Different Path After Juvenile Arthritis
Born For This Stories
When the standard treatment plan doesn’t feel right, what happens next? In Part 2 of Rebecca’s three-part story, we continue her family’s journey after her daughter’s devastating diagnosis of severe juvenile idiopathic arthritis. This episode explores what happened when Rebecca chose to step outside conventional care and pursue a radically different approach. An approach rooted in nutrition, detoxification, gut health, and environmental changes. Rebecca shares the emotional weight of making high-stakes decisions for her child, the isolation that can come with choosing a nontraditional...
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Rebecca’s Story (Part 1): When Juvenile Arthritis Hides in Plain Sight
Born For This Stories
What if your child looks healthy, happy, and pain-free, but their body is quietly fighting a war you can’t see? In Part 1 of this three-part series, Johanna and Peter sit down with Rebecca Hunter, mom of three and holistic medical mama, to share the beginning of her youngest daughter’s journey with juvenile idiopathic arthritis (JIA), one of the most severe cases her doctors had ever seen. What started as a ballet teacher noticing limited ankle movement slowly unraveled into a diagnosis that would change everything. Rebecca walks us through years of subtle signs, dismissed concerns,...
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Dr. Kim Tran’s Story (Part 2): Healing Eczema From the Inside Out
Born For This Stories
What if healing your child doesn’t mean doing more, but understanding why their body is responding the way it is? In the second part of Dr. Kim Tran’s story, Johanna and Peter continue the conversation about severe childhood eczema, gut health, and the long road from desperation to empowerment. This episode goes deeper into the science and the emotional reality of parenting a child whose symptoms don’t respond to conventional care, and the guilt parents carry when they’re told they “did everything right.” Dr. Tran explains why eczema is not a skin problem, how gut health and the...
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Dr. Kim Tran’s Story (Part 1): When Baby Eczema Is More Than Skin Deep
Born For This Stories
What if the thing you’re told is “just skin” is actually your child’s immune system crying out for help? In this powerful episode of Born For This Stories, Johanna and Peter sit down with Dr. Kim Tran, a pregnancy and pediatric chiropractor and functional medicine provider, to share her family’s journey through severe infant eczema. What began after a “beautiful, picture perfect home birth” quickly spiraled into sleepless nights, bleeding skin, and a medical system offering only temporary fixes. Dr. Tran walks us through what it’s like to be a holistic provider who suddenly...
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Susie & Zayn (Part 2): Advocacy, Survival, and the Fight No One Sees
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Some stories don’t resolve quickly. Some live in the space between crisis and hope. Day after day. Month after month. In the emotional conclusion to this two-part series, Johanna and Peter continue their conversation with Suzie, whose son Zayn continues to battle hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS) and a complex web of GI complications, strokes, feeding struggles, and life-altering medical decisions. Part 2 is a raw look at what happens after the first surgeries, after discharge, after everyone assumes you’re “in the clear.” Suzie shares the moments no parent forgets—the bloody...
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Susie & Zayn (Part 1): A Mother’s Fight Through Hypoplastic Left Heart Syndrome
Born For This Stories
Some parents walk into a diagnosis. Others are thrown into it without warning. In this powerful two-part story, Johanna and Peter sit down with Susie, mom of three and mother to Zayn — her brave “heart warrior” born with hypoplastic left heart syndrome (HLHS). Part 1 walks listeners through the moment everything changed: an unsettling 18-week ultrasound, a devastating phone call during their gender reveal, and the first terrifying weeks inside the walls of Boston Children’s Hospital. Susie shares what it was like to navigate pregnancy in the height of the pandemic, advocate alone for...
info_outlineHealing doesn’t always look the way we expect, and it rarely happens all at once.
In the final part of Rebecca’s three-part story, we explore what long-term healing looked like after stepping fully into a gut-centered, holistic approach for her daughter’s severe juvenile idiopathic arthritis. This episode focuses on the slow, steady work of rebuilding the immune system, restoring gut health, and creating an environment where healing could actually take root.
Rebecca shares how food, sourcing, detoxification, nervous system regulation, and community support became the foundation for her daughter’s recovery, and how this journey reshaped the health of their entire family. This conversation is about patience, trust, and learning to measure progress differently when you’re healing from chronic illness.
This episode brings Rebecca’s story full circle and offers hope to parents who are deep in the day-to-day work of supporting a child with autoimmune disease.
In this episode
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How gut health became the cornerstone of healing juvenile idiopathic arthritis
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The role of the GAPS diet in immune regulation and inflammation reduction
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Why healing from autoimmune disease is non-linear and deeply individual
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Food sourcing, nutrient density, and reducing environmental stressors
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Supporting detox pathways through daily habits and lifestyle choices
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Navigating school, social situations, and food boundaries during healing
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How emotional regulation and nervous system support affect physical healing
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The importance of consistency, patience, and parental leadership
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How community support sustained their family through a long healing journey
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What life looks like now and how this experience changed everything
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