Surviving cancer against all odds!
By Bill Fox/Columnist
Kelly Turner, Ph.D., is the founder of the Radical Remission Project, and the author of Radical Remission: Surviving Cancer Against All Odds. While studying at Harvard, she volunteered on a pediatric cancer ward. I’m sure that working with young cancer patients must have been very distressing, but for Kelly, it resulted in her pursuing a career working with cancer patients.
She read a book by Andrew Weil, which changed her life and her focus. In that book, Weil described a case of “spontaneous healing.” Her curiosity aroused, she started investigating and found mention of thousands of other cases of unexpected remissions, but none of them had been investigated in depth.
She went back to the University of Berkeley to study this phenomenon and to pursue a Ph.D. This resulted in her spending a year traveling around the world to meet and learn from alternative cancer healers. She also interviewed over a thousand people who had experienced “spontaneous” remissions from their advanced cancers.
“Kelly defines Radical Remission as any cancer remission that is statistically unexpected…and occurs whenever:
- A person’s cancer goes away without using any conventional medicine; or
- A cancer patient tries conventional medicine, but the cancer does not go into remission, so he or she switches to alternative methods of healing, which do lead to a remission; or
- A cancer patient uses conventional medicine and alternative healing methods at the same time in order to outlive a statistically dire prognosis (i.e., cancer with less than 20 percent chance of five-year survival).”
The following story, like many others, seems almost unbelievable, but was documented by Kelly. Matthew was diagnosed with terminal brain cancer at the age of 27. He had tried everything Western medicine had to offer and his doctors had virtually given up. With nothing left to lose, Matthew decided to embark upon a spiritual adventure and went to see a healer in Brazil called John of God. Matthew shared his desire with John of God to be healed of his brain cancer. Matthew was instructed to start taking energetically infused passionflower herbs every day and to meditate daily in the main meditation room with John of God. Only about 100 people are invited at a time to meditate in the main room, where a strong current of energy is believed to course through the room.
Since he had no more options back home, he decided to stay and after two years of spiritual practice with John of God, he was told to go to a hospital and get an MRI. Before the results came in, Matthew knew his tumor was gone. The MRI confirmed that he had been cured. Matthew spent the next two years volunteering in Brazil to help others going through their own healing process.
The book, Radical Remission, does not make any unrealistic claims, only suggesting that if people follow the nine tips shared in this book, that any cancer treatment include not just surgery, chemotherapy, and radiation, but also the essential “treatments” that these remarkable patients embraced in their own healing journeys.
During the course of the study, Kelly identified more than 75 factors that cancer survivors said they used as a part of their healing journey. Nine of these factors were used by almost every one of them. They are as follows:
- Radically changing your diet,
- Taking control of your health.
- Following your intuition.
- The use of herbs and supplements, which is recommended you do under a doctor’s supervision.
- Releasing suppressed emotions.
- Increasing positive emotions.
- Embracing social support.
- Deepening your spiritual connection.
- Having strong reasons for living.
I will further investigate these nine factors in my next column! In the meantime, if you have been under remission from cancer, I would love to hear your story at Bdfox@rogers.com.