While I was researching and writing my latest book ‘A Journey of Creative Healing,’ I read  the New York Times best selling book ‘Radical Remission – Surviving Cancer against all Odds.’  The author is Dr Kelly A Turner, a researcher and psychotherapist who specializes in integrative oncology.   While Kelly was studying for her Phd she was shocked that no one was investigating cases of  unexpected survivor’s of advanced cancer,  so this became her purpose to research and identify common factors of these survivor’s cures – which she refers to as radical remissions.  The book summarises her decade of research, her thousand interviews of patients and finally identifies the nine key factors that can improve people’s chance’s of remission.

I was thrilled and amazed that most of my steps to recovery from MS mirrored those of these cancer survivor factors.

As with all the other health professionals work I feature in my book ‘A Journey of Creative Healing,’ I sought Dr Turner’s permission to use material attributed to her work. She is also the founder of the The Radical Remission Project that is dedicated to continuing research and creating a community for survivors, patients, guests, and health professionals and the Project’s mission is to collect and verify survivor stories so that these in turn may help others.  Although not a cancer survivor I was asked to document my healing from MS, over half a century ago, to add to their data.

Imagine my delight today  to find that I am The Radical Remission Healing Story of the Month.  (March 2018).

I acknowledge that some sickness is more immediately life threatening than others but I still see that sickness has the same commonality whatever diagnostic label you give it. Looking at the enormous contribution of Kelly Turner’s work and my singular, but no less effective, anecdotal story of recovery, it appears the predominant common denominators of improving your chances of  recovery to wellness are: Taking control of your health, listening and acting upon your intuition, releasing suppressed emotions, embracing social support, deepening your spiritual awareness and having a strong reason for living.

There are other factors in Kelly’s book – you need to read it – and yes in my case, the  vital icing-on-the-cake factor was to consistently put my  focus on doing something that gave me joy  – – a Daily Creative Project.