Karen Taylor, Stage 4 Endometrial Cancer Thriver

[MUSIC] Welcome to the Radical Remission Project, Stories at Heal podcast. My name is Kelly A. Turner, and I'm a PhD cancer researcher, New York Times best-selling author of Radical Remission and Radical Hope, and the founder of the Radical Remission Project. In this podcast, it is our honor to bring you inspiring healing stories directly from Radical Remission survivors themselves, as well as from the amazing doctors and healers they work with. [MUSIC] Hello, and welcome to the Stories at Heal podcast. This is Liz Curran, co-director of the Radical Remission Project, and today I'm happy to welcome Radical Remission survivor, Karen Taylor. In 2016 at age 55, Karen was fit but stressed with a very demanding job after going through a difficult divorce just a few years earlier. She started to experience heavy bleeding, and after a few months of investigation, and finally a biopsy, she was shockingly told she had stage 3C, clear cell, and a matriol cancer. Clear cell is a very rare and extremely aggressive cancer, so she felt both hopeless and helpless. Karen, new treatment was limited as clear cell doesn't respond well to chemotherapy, so she decided to do everything that she could. She had extensive pelvic surgery, some chemotherapy, 42 rounds of radiotherapy and brachytherapy, but despite it all, six months later the disease had spread to her lungs. It was then she decided that she would be among the 6% who survived longer than five years with this diagnosis and began to do her research, and that included reading Radical Remission, which gave her so much hope. Karen has been NED since 2022, after almost all the long tumor spontaneously disappeared just a few years earlier. Following the disappearance of her long tumors, Karen decided to launch her wellness business, a new healing company. Well hello, Karen, and welcome to the Stories that Heal Podcast. Thanks for being here and sharing your story with us today. Oh, my absolute pleasure. I cannot wait to dig in and share your story. Lots of really good little nuggets there in your bio, so I'm excited to share you with the audience today. Why don't we start out with having you share a little bit about your diagnosis in 2016 of the Clear Cell endometrial cancer? Why don't you take us back to a time in your life where you know, tell us what you were doing and how this diagnosis impacted that? So I was very sporty as a youngster, and so I'd always kept very fit. I'd always eaten quite well. I didn't drink particularly and I didn't smoke. So I had, I'm looking back at now, maybe in naivety or in arrogance that, you know, cancer was literally never going to affect me. So I knew nothing about cancer. In 2016, I was in the music business. I was part of the management team of the very successful artist, but with success, rings, an unbelievable workload. I was working sort of 18 hours a day, seven days a week. It was crazy, and I got very, very run down. I got tired. And then this bleeding started, and because I was 55, I thought it was something to do with the menopause. So I went to the doctor and the doctor instantly disnistened and said, yeah, definitely the menopause and put me on lots of drugs. Stop the bleeding. None of which worked, which I thought was a bit odd. And then I always did, I think you get park runs in America as well, but I always did the park run here every Saturday morning and there was one Saturday morning I was running and I had to stop because the bleeding was absolutely out of control. And so I decided to take myself up to A&A because it was just, it was unsustainable. The clots were just the size of my hand. I thought this is not right. Went to A&A again because I was slim. I was fit. I was quite young. Instantly dismissed again. They just said it's the menopause. I had a marina coil at the time and they said, we think your marina coils come out or whatever. Then of course it happened. And then they started to take me a little bit more seriously because they saw how much blood I was losing. So they kept me in. I mean, overall it was all very vague and very, um, nobody was taking it seriously. They kept me in overnight because she wanted to give me a scan, but when she gave me a scan, she said, I can't see you think because there's so many clots in there, but we'll give you a biopsy. So again, I was, the work hands would never ever be mentioned at any point. I just thought it was maybe um, five broids or something. So I took biopsy and then two weeks later I got a call to, and it was late. It was about seven o'clock in the evening. I was at my friends for dinner and they said, can you come in eight o'clock tomorrow morning and I thought, what? What? I thought it was really, really odd and I said, who am I seeing in this, the name the stockter? So, Coles, you will find out later in the interview. I'm incredibly tenacious. And so I instantly googled him and it said he was an oncologist and I thought, what the hell? Why in earth would I be seen in oncologists? I still, it's the pen is still didn't drop. Anyway, it got there and he said, very, very sorry. Not only is it cancer, but it's an extremely rare one that we don't know much about. So we're going to refer you to the Marston, which is leading cancer hospital in the UK, because they're the only people who know what to do with it. And they said it's also very aggressive. So that was really scary and it was so unbelievably shocking to me. And so, yeah, went under the Marston and then they said, we're going to have to give you a radical hysterectomy and then you're going to have to have chemo, you're going to have to have with your therapy, you're going to have to have the whole suite. And they said, clear cell, it's, we know very little about it and it doesn't really respond to chemo, but do you want to have chemo? And I am a great believer in marrying to, I am a great believer that you should try the conventional approach and also try and marry it with other techniques. And so I said, yes, even though it's not going to work, even if it increases my chances, 1%, I'll do it. So, has the hysterectomy, which you'll went completely wrong, and which against this the start of that book, because one of the things that I definitely use was my intuition and after the hysterectomy, I really didn't feel very well and they kept saying, you know, you've just had a massive operation, that's why. Anyway, came home and a week later I had a catastrophic hemorrhage, which resulted in me being on life support for a few days or an intensive care for a week. It was horrendous and it put the chemo back by seven or eight weeks. So it was all starting to get a bit out of control. You know, I had a cancer that they didn't know much about. The chemo was being delayed. I have this horrendous, you know, massive blood transfusion, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. So it starts out badly. And then the chemo, I will say I didn't find it too bad. I did run all the time through the chemo and do my yoga, then my two things, it's running and yoga. And then I had a little break and I had brachytherapy, which is internal radiation, which wasn't very nice, I think in a match. But you know, I wanted to do it. I wanted to give everything my best shot. And then I had six weeks of radiotherapy, 42 rounds. And have a scan after that. And they said, we think you we can't see anything, but it was straight after all that treatment. So it was unlikely anything had started coming back. But the issue was when I literally got diagnosed, they did find it in lymph nodes, far away. There was one near my heart. And so I was classed as stage three C. So I knew I was in a bit of trouble at that point. I knew it wouldn't be easy. And so I went to see there's a drug, drug development unit at the Marston, because they generally do all the trials in the UK. And I went to see them and said, look, have you got anything else for me if it comes back? Because that was always my worry. It wasn't having cancer. I had this absolute fear about it coming back. And if it came back, I was probably a goner, because they had no treatments. And the lady at the drug development unit said, we've got so little. So then I think it was maybe at that point, I thought, right, that's it. I'm going to have to do, I'm going to have to take this all into my own hands now. I can't rely on the doctors and the hospital. They don't know that much about it. And that's not their fault. Only 20 women a year in the UK get this particular cancer. He was going to pay for trials, you know, cost a million pounds plus for a trial. Nobody's going to put that in when, you know, a pharmacy to put company, get so little in return, if they're just treating 20 ladies a year. So that's when I bought the radical remission book. I don't know how I came to find it, but maybe I was just browsing an Amazon or something. And I read that book and I honestly inspired me so much. I just thought, right, that's it. I am going to literally do everything that this book is telling me. me to do within reason. And then I came across an article in one of the newspapers here and it was about a lady who had had blood cancer and she was in Germany and she was, she was terminal and the doctor said just go away and do whatever you need to do. And then she came back a year later and she was absolutely thriving and the doctor said how on earth is this happened? What what were you doing? And she said I take really high dose curcumin and I thought right that's it. So I tracked that down that was in Germany. It's a very high dose, it's a thousand milligrams per tablet and lots of you know if you're going to a health shop you'll find they have nothing like that you know they have 20% this was 100%. So I took huge amounts of I was taking huge amounts of curcumin huge amounts of cannabis oil. This was this was after I missed that a little bit which was then I went for another scan and horrifyingly they said we can see some things in your lungs that could or could not be tumors and that was before you started the cannabis oil and the curcumin. Yes, yes. And the wound shure if it was they said the wound shure. So then I thought right that's it. So I started the cannabis oil I started the curcumin and in the meantime I found a herbalist in Edinburgh who had had a variant cancer herself and she'd overcome that and so I had a great meeting with her and she put loads of other stuff in the mix. There's Veritrol IP6, dried mushrooms. I mean I had a huge amount to take every day but the tumors in the lungs that were obviously keeping a very close eye on me at this point I was getting scarved every 12 weeks and they were growing quite quickly. So my oncologist at the Marsden said we need to biopsy this we we don't know if it is cancer or if it is cancer is it a new cancer? Is it lung cancer? Or is it spread from the clear cell? And then in between all of that I was coming out of the Mars one day and I had a really itchy back and I went to my back to scratch it and there was a big lump on the back and I thought what the hell is that? And I just had a scan where they hadn't mentioned that I literally drove out the Marsden and drove straight back in and said what is this on my back? And she said oh I think it's a cyst so and this is where the intuition comes in which is one of the you know the big factors in the book and I just thought it's not a cyst I know it's not a cyst and I said can you remove it? And she said no it's a cyst because I've had an ultrasound on it but I wasn't happy and so I had to go privately again more money but I went privately who ended up actually being somebody who was in the Marsden in the Sarcoma unit and he took it out and then yeah again I went back for the results and he said it was weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks and weeks and I got the results and I didn't know what was happening but it turned out that it was such a rare collection of cells that they had had to send it to Australia where there was another sarcoma guy in Australia who'd come across this mixture of cells before and again only like eight recorded cases in the yeah ever recorded and but he said I don't think it's red we think it's probably benign but because it's so red we literally know nothing about this one so when I got so when the lung the weren't sure about the lung tumors I thought is that coming from the clear cell is that coming from this weird back thing I've got or is it a new one so it sads the biopsy from the lung and so I decided because everything again felt really slightly out of control it was all happening in the middle of all of that I had brain aneurysm which I'm going to wow you were really in the thick of it it was absolutely chaos at the time but I decided not to panic so I thought panicking will not help anything here I stayed quite calm I got a team around me who helped me the friend Hazel came and she helped me with all the research and we researched all the different cancers all the different you know what might work might what might not work and in the meantime I said to the Martin I want my clear cell genetically tested and again they said this was 10 years ago when it wasn't really a thing then and they said because there is no treatments there's no point in getting genetically tested but again my intuition and my tenacity said well I want to know you know how many genes are mutated how this grew and you I've got it probably from stress and you was that but I also thought if I know what genes are mutated maybe there is something that you know because I know hospitals are busy and doctors are busy and that's why I'm a firm believer you've got to take some control yourself you've got to be in control of your own health yeah well I'm curious I want to ask you how did you foster that because that's a really big part of your story right you have all these things you just shared about all the many things that occurred in that short sort of period of time yeah how do you stop in the throws of all of it and you find that voice that says I can be that 6% I had a very strong reason for living I've got two children and my daughter was about to graduate my son you know I wanted to see them grow up I wanted to be there when they got married and had children and I just wanted to be there for them and that was the number one thing with my children where I just thought I've got to keep going you know so often I think I'd look at the window and it'd be windy and it'd be rainy and I think oh I cannot bother to go through a run and then as more but as it is and you might probably cut this out of the interview but I used to picture my children at my funeral and whenever I did that it was the it worked for me it was such an incentive I think no get the trainers on get out there and so everybody has to find their way right to the the inspiration more big or otherwise like it did the job right it got you out the door got you moving exercise was a really big part of your healing it sounds like too so you really dove into these factors really well it's really it's nice to hear you tell the story so I'll let you continue and then yeah so I was having this biopsy on the lung at another hospital and a lung special hospital and so I went to see the lady there and she did a scan because she had to find out where the tumors were but by that point it is such a complicated timeline but by that point I'd up the cannibal soul I'd up the curcumin I was doing all the other stuff that the lady in Edinburgh suggested I do and I went for a scan and my ex-husband came along and we went for the results and the doctor walked in and she she she just said I have never ever told this to a patient ever in my whole career and she's you know she's had a oncology at the nose and so she you know she'd been there a long time and she said all the tumors are shrunk and I went what and it was the singular most exciting moment of my life and that it will never be surpassed because I just couldn't believe what I was hearing and yet I manifested her walking through the door and seeing that to me so many times them on the run up to that particular meeting like everything I thought might happen happened and it was it was absolutely incredible even the words she used were the words I've been imagining in bed the night before you know half hoping that this miracle would happen and here it was sort of scream and scream and scream and I could not believe it and she said they haven't gone but they were scattered between both lungs and had 11 at that point and she said they've all shrunk not not hugely but they've all gone from whatever it might be 8 millimeters to 4 millimeters and you know which so we still need to know if it's cancer or not we still don't know but definite so you still need to go for the biopsy so I was going for the biopsy and I went for the scan and she had to plot where the tube is wound so which one she was going to take a biopsy of and then she said a lot of your things are blood thinners so you should come off them because you have an op and so again we searched all of that worked out which one were the blood thinners which wound but to be fair I didn't do that I did the opposite I upped everything I know it's a bit naughty but I did and then I went in for the op um she said you're never going to believe this and I said what and she said they'd all gone she said I couldn't even find anything to biopsy I've got a tiny tiny fragment at the bottom of be along and that's all I could get and hopefully that's enough for the biopsy. And she said, what on earth do you do? And she was the first doctor to really drill down on what I was doing. She was the first one that was genuinely interested. Everybody else had been curious, but not too huge, not too a huge amount. And so that was amazing. And then the biopsy results came through and they said, it's very difficult to tell what it was, but their guess was it was clear cell spreads. That's what it was. It was not 100%. They did get quite a few people to look at it. But that had been the sort of the whole story was I was a bit of a complicated unusual case. And so that and then all the tumors had pretty much gone. There was one that was quite stubborn and quite big and it was near, it was on the aorta. So they said, we'll give you some radiotherapy, but there's going to be a cold spot at the back that we just all not get because we can't risk it as it's attached to the aorta. So I thought, that's not very good. There's going to be cells left behind there. But then, you know, also some things have happened along the way, but the tumors, there's no tumors in the lungs. It hasn't read anywhere else. How was the spot on your back at that point? Well, he'd cut that out and it's never come back. So that I had so many things on the go that that's been forgotten about. I thought the brain aneurysm, but that's fine as well. I got that coiled. So yeah, I think that's that sort of the basis of my story and it was 10 years ago and so to get 10 years with such a poor prognosis at that point, with such a rare and aggressive cancer, I do think I know it's astonishing and I still don't know what it is particularly. I can't, you know, when people ask me what I've done, I've done so many things that it's, you know, and I've said it before and I'll say it again, what I've done has been expensive. And if money's an issue, you know, it's awful and I don't know, you'd have to do a crowdfunding option, I think, to keep it with. Because I still take the kind of soil, I cut back slightly on that because it's so expensive and I have no evidence of disease. So I think, right, and I have been on it 10 years, you know, nobody knows what the long-term effects of such high doses of curcumin and cannabis oil are and I have to drive mushrooms every day. I still do everything every day, but I've sort of slightly reduced it. Yeah. I mean, your story's incredible. It's so important for the audience to hear because you were really in the throes of treating yourself from all angles for a long, long time and then you still found healing and you might not be able to see her, but she looks beautiful and thriving and and it just, it just, you looks like the picture of health and I feel like it's so empowering for people because a long cancer journey can feel like endless and hopeless at times like you mentioned, hoping hopeless and helpless. And I think that that really, your story is so important for people to know that if you just keep trying, you can find any day after all that time and stay there. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I would love to know if I did say to the Master, what do you think it is? And they said, we think it's a combination of all the different things you do. We don't think it's one particular thing. It's just this big, you know, and I do, I haven't changed my lifestyle, but I've also, I've very much tried to do it from stress now. I know it's, it's impossible. Everybody has to. Even if you live in a tent in the wilderness, you've still got to find your food and there's still a weather to tend to with. So, you know, I think stress is a part of life. You can't, but I have very, not selfish, but I now will, I used to be a real yes lady. I would, you know, somebody said, you want to come to dinner party? I think, no, I'm so tired. I go, yes, lovely. And that's right. So the, and now I will say, actually, I'm a bit tired tonight. I'm not going to come. I'll put much more boundaries in now because I know it's my life. And so just to please somebody that I'm at the dinner party, I'm not prepared to do that if it's going to send my immune system down because I'm a bit run down in a bit tired or whatever. Right. Exactly. That's really powerful. Hey, everyone, this is Dave Vass, the founder of the healing oasis. At the healing oasis, we strive to embody the 10 healing factors from radical remission in everything we do, surrounding you with the serenity of nature, nourishing you with delicious farm to table, cancer fighting meals, providing personalized, naturopathic protocols from our expert cancer doctor and creating a supportive community where you can bring loved ones along at no extra cost. Come reduce the stress of your diagnosis by getting away for a transformative three week retreat. We're a one of a kind cancer wellness center where anyone healing from cancer at any stage is welcome to apply. If you're ready to rest, rejuvenate and focus on your healing, join us. Visit www.thehealingoasis.ca to learn more and schedule your free intake call. Hey listeners, do you ever wish there was a support space that actually left you feeling inspired and uplifted, not drained or discouraged like some of those traditional support groups? We've been there and that's exactly why we're so excited about what's new from the radical remission project. So you've probably read the books, watched the docu series and tuned into this podcast. Since 2014, we've been bringing you powerful stories of healing, but now it's time to go even deeper. That's right. We're inviting you to join us in a whole new way with our brand new radical remission monthly driver events. And this is not a support group. These are uplifting radical remission style experiences curated to spark hope, joy and connection. Each month, you'll find live events led by certified radical remission coaches and special expert guests designed to help you thrive through and beyond a diagnosis. These new offerings include healing circles, mindful living, spiritual exploration, community gatherings and open forum chats on healthy habits. Whether you're navigating a current diagnosis or living beyond one, this is your chance to connect with a like-minded forward thinking community. So come build deep friendships and find your people, your thrivers. It all starts at radical remission.com/thriver-events. And we will have that link in the show notes. We can't wait to welcome you. See you there. I want to dig back into we're talking about stress and boundaries and learning how to find those. What do you think was your most helpful way of we we talked about the releasing suppressed emotions factor but finding that stress reduction. Obviously, we had a really big life with a big job and it had a lot going on raising your kids, had divorce, had all of this on top of all of that. Yeah. What did you do for stress reduction? Because you said that you felt like that might have been one of the contributing factors that got you into that situation. I've started saying no more often and started to try and find things that brought me joy and brought me and I'm quite I'm very sociable but I'm also quite solitary. I'm a big mixture of the two and I've got a caravan in the lake district which is the most beautiful part of the UK and I thought and when I go up there I can really, really relax. So I started going up there more to deepen nature overlooks a river and there's loads of wildlife around. So I started to take myself off to there. Sometimes for weeks on end and I would read, I would listen to music which is still a big thing for me and I just did things that brought me pleasure and it was more the things that brought me pleasure in those days was doing things with my kids but mostly on my own I found I found I don't know why I found it quite you know when people are around you everybody's always gotten an opinion and I didn't really want to hear anybody's opinion about anything I just wanted to be sort of centered with myself and thinking this is going well and I always use that expression I did want to upset the apple cart but I never you know because I don't know what's working you know I can't put the finger on which particular thing yes it probably is a big mixture of all the things I do but that also brings with it some scaringness because you think you know should I maybe reduce the monthly out goings that I've got and take a risk and drop the cannabis oil, but I don't do that. So, you know, there's still that element of fear there, you know, there is. But there's also an element, where I think my God, of survived 10 years with this disease, it's absolutely incredible. Well, I do wonder if your intuition is at play and keeping you, it's not like you're doing all the things that you've always done, but there's still that element of a few supplements that might be what you, you know, feel really were the most powerful healing tools. Yes, you know, I've got a big box full of everything and often I would think, I don't need this today, I'm going to take that today. And again, I can't, I can't really describe why that happened, but it just does and it still happens now and then, you know, I knew it was all right to maybe reduce the cannabis oil. I felt quite confident doing that. I mean, the thing is with cancer, as you know, things change in a minute. And that's the, I think that's the scariest thing of cancer. I could feel absolutely brilliant and then, you know, I could go for scammed, you know, that was one of the things I've had so many scams over the 10 years that my radiation levels are, our exposure is incredibly high and what's in the dark zone now. And so the Maelson said, you know, because you've got such an aggressive cancer, you should be getting scanned at least every six months, because if something kicks off again, we'd have time to intervene. Again, my intuition thought I've had so much radiation, it's going to end up bringing on another cancer, which would be so slow. So I said, no, I do one every six months, I want every year now, so I'm doing it every year. And again, that's my intuition sort of seemed to me, you're going to be all right, whether that's Naïve or not, I don't know. But they did say, you know, if you develop a car for stop being tired, which was the big thing for me, I was so tired at the very, very beginning. If you're stopping tired, again, you can come in and have a scan. But the intuition for me, I think to have intuition and act on it, you need to be quite confident because I think it's so easy to just sort of bow to the doctors and the hospitals think and they know everything. And of course they do, they know more than me. Do you feel like you couldn't deny your intuition? It sounds like it was very loud inside of you, pushing you to, when you knew that it wasn't an alignment, what they were saying wasn't an alignment with what you were feeling. It sounds like you were always empowered to advocate. So do you think that you were compelled or do you feel like you really had to boost yourself up to do that? Naturally, when I was a music business, I used to be what's called a plugger. So my job was to get, to persuade people that radio one, the producers that really want to play our labels records. So I'd go and say, "produce there," and they'd say, "No, don't like this." But I would never, that would never be enough for me. I'd go back to the label and I'd say, "Right, give me all different covers, give me all your statistics, give me all, you know, what capacity venues they're playing." And then I'd go back to producing, I'd say, "Look, I know you don't like track, but this is, it really is happening." And they'd say, "Actually, yeah, that's quite impressive. Yeah, we'll give it a play." And I think, "So you just don't give up." No, no, I think tenacity is my thing. You know, I just, I think you've just got, when this can't say, you've got to keep going, you can't give up, even if you get the worst prognosis in the world, and mine was quite close to that. You know, and maybe it works for some people and maybe it doesn't for others, but that thing of hope is so important. I think once you lose hope, that's it. Yeah, it sounds like tenacity saved your life. I think it did. And that book saved my life because that book, I've never come across anything like that before. I didn't know spontaneous remission even existed. And I read the book and it was such an anion of that together with the article I saw on the curcumin. Those were the two things. And then also you know, when I was getting, I had a chemo, I said to the nurse, "What's my chemotherapy made from?" Because I had literally, I had no idea. And she said, "Well, this one's made from the bark of a utri." And I went, "What?" That absolutely blew my mind as well. So all these natural things were sort of coming to the fore. And I thought there has got to be a sure little solution here. Yeah. When you read radical remission that first time, what do you think, besides obviously hearing and knowing that spontaneous remissions and radical remissions existed? What do you think spoke to you the louder instead of the book? A reason for living. I think purpose. Yes, purpose. I absolutely knew I had to live for my kids. I mean, the other two things were, I took control of my health, you know, quite a few times the doctors would recommend things and I'd say, "No, I don't think that's right." Not through knowledge, not through arrogance, but just through feeling I had within and all the hopes and supplements, obviously. So I think it was some of them, and I can't say the spirituality. Oh, I did start seeing healers, which I've never done before. And, you know, I just decided to throw everything into the mix that could potentially help me. And then as things started to improve, I sort of stripped away a couple of the things, which were either very expensive or I didn't think have that much impact. And so I left it. Yeah. It is hard. There's so many things that you can do that you really do need to kind of somehow find your own personal way of assessing the value or the, you know, percent helpful each one can be. And it's very subjective, obviously, everybody's going to have a different response. So I feel like your intuition really spoke to you and the visualizations you talked about, that's a lot of spirituality there trying to bring it in. Yes. Yes. I've just said I'm not a real spiritual person, but then I did do that manifestation all the time before every sort of scan result that I went for. And then I always, always, well, I would say to anybody, get a copy of the scan report. Don't just leave them to tell you the basics because in the scan report there's so much more information there that you can use to then research yourself. Right. And sometimes, you know, they'd sort of say, I think that's all fine. And then I get the report and it'd be two pages long and we go through every single organ in my body, you know, and they'd say we're a bit concerned about the appendix, which ended up having out. Blah blah blah blah. So you find out so much more if you take it into your own hands. And I know that can be very scary for a lot of people. It was very scary for me. You know, I didn't want to know that something was going on with my appendix. Why was it 10 centimeters long? What was in there? But I do, I do think knowledge is power. And so the more you learn about your own body, you know, you can then, I'm not saying you should question the doctor all the time, not at all, you know, they're doing an amazing job and they're in just so much pressure. But I think the two can work hand in hand. Absolutely. Yeah. I mean, it's slightly disappointing that doctors don't ask me more often what I'm doing. There's only a couple have ever brought it up. Right. Yeah, well, you're a unique story, for sure. And if they're not even used to seeing your diagnosis and they're definitely not used to seeing the results you had, you know, you're kind of an end of one. And you know, that says something and gets really special. I'm curious, if you think back to before your diagnosis, obviously, it was a long time ago, but you had the big job and you're raising your kids and you had the divorce and you had all this stuff going on. And then you look at your life now. What would you say is the biggest difference? Good question. What would be the big difference? Well, I'm not working now. That's a massive difference. Did you end up taking putting your job in the midst of the treatment? Yeah, I had to. Yeah. I knew it was going to be a big part of it. If you're throwing up your time and giving it a space. Yes. Yeah. Because honestly, researching, it just takes ages, you know, it turns that change into my full-time job to be fair. Certainly the first year, as I say, my friend here's what came along and we researched together. It is time-consuming. You do need help. If you can get help from somebody else or family members or friends or whoever, you know, I think there is so much to discover about cancer. And, you know, when I had it genetically tested, I got the results back. And they found five mutated genes, three of which they don't even. See, the genes were mutated, but they don't even know how that relates to cancer. But two of them were sort of pretty standard. One was called the M-Tour, and one was P53, which is quite common. And so, again, straight away researched. I came across this PubMed article, which said, which was again such a coincidence, because there are so many things on the internet that you can sort of look at. But I clicked on this particular one and it said natural alternatives to restore function to the M2 and P53 genes and I've went what? And it was all the stuff that I've been doing. It was green tea. It was cannabis oil. It was curcumin. It was dried mushrooms and these were all from PubMed so they'd all be introduced some sort of trials or research certainly anyway. And so I hadn't technically tested. I wouldn't have known about the mutated pathways and then I wouldn't have come across this PubMed article. I mean I was doing it anyway but that just reinforced that I was doing all the right things. Yeah, talk about a message giving you validation. Yes, here's a medical article in a journal that has been vetted by its peers validating that you're doing all of these things and it could have been written about you. It would be actually there was one thing in that that I wasn't doing already but that was a lot of it was down to my amazing herbalist in Edinburgh because she she gone through slightly the same thing so she knew exactly what to prescribe to me. It's wonderful. So I would always say seek out herbalist as well. Absolutely. Yeah, so tell us a little bit about your new healing company. Their new healing company. So I've always thought that the curcumin, I mean obviously kind of was certainly in the UK is against the law so there's not enough to do about that. The CBD you can get from anywhere but combined with the THC it is illegal so I can't do anything with that. People will have to find their own suppliers. Actually there is that they are starting to get a bit better. There's an organisation called Cannes Card which started a couple of years ago and if you are taken kind of a soil and got stopped by the police the police now recognise this card as being acceptable by you're taking it for health reasons but you know they sort of semi-legalised it a few years ago but the government have not written any prescriptions for I think a handful so it's not really legal, not really, anyway but the curcumin is legal and so I've always thought that was a major part of my recovery so it was in Germany and I was a lot of people asked me about it and they were all buying it from Germany so I thought right that's where I'm going to start I'm going to import that so it's ready available to people in the UK and it's very strong it's pure curcumin and you know I still take six tablets a day which is still a lot it's the one thing I won't head back on just in case and I have absolutely no side effects from that sort of large dose which is good maybe it might affect other people differently but it's fine for me you know and the master and check my bloods you know now and then and they're all absolutely fine so all these different things I'm doing at this point are having no negative effects on how my body works or my blood work or anything so I'd started to import that so I started that a few months ago I haven't properly launched yet absolutely and I very low key through Instagram but I think the curcumin particularly for blood cancer because obviously you're a dislating Germania blood cancer but I think it's you know it's such a powerful anti-inflammatory and they say you know all disease is a product of inflammation in the body so if you can get that down you're already you know on the path to changing things and then eventually I would like to create some sort of cancer package where all see the sick main things that I use like dried mushrooms or the resveratrol you know you can get a package but that's for the future so at the minute it's just the curcumin but you know I just want when I got diagnosed I had lich I didn't know anybody would play a cell I barely knew anybody would be fair I was absolutely in this abyss and I hadn't a clue where to turn or what to do and that's why the boot was so incredible into and then I bought other books on cancer as well I decided to just sort of learn as much as I could about it because you know I didn't I didn't know anything about my cancer and then I think if I can and I had so I had very little hope at the very very beginning it was so dire and it was you know the nobody was offering me any particular hope there was no drugs that could use particularly that the new would work and so if I can give anybody a little bit of hope I think hope is the number one when you when you diagnose with a disease like cancer hope is what you've got to cling on to because without hope it's hopeless and then that's no good either so yeah it's nice that you have have decided that you wanted to make this thing that was not always available to make it accessible so that the next person doesn't have to go through the hoops that you did to try to get their hands on it and it's always worthy of saying out loud you know find your herbalist get your dosage prescribed you know have someone maybe provide guidance to whether this is a fit for you I don't know if if you want people to talk to you about that but the curcumin and how how is how do you feel about prescribing that to people is that something that they should be getting a licensed practitioner to guide them on and I mean maybe I mean I do not in any way say I'm any sort of expert or and I'm certainly not a doctor all I can do is say what's work for me and you know something obviously is work for me because I wouldn't still be here after 10 years right so you know if that's part of the mix then it's relatively cheap it's easy to take it's got you know because it is a powerful anti-inflammatory you know as powerful as I prove it then you know it can have probably an effect on the whole body not just the cancer so so would you say that the healing company is more of a supplier of the curcumin is that more or less what it's yeah that sounds great yes so they hope we one day it will expand into a bit more at the minute that's yeah I'm starting with that it's called it's called a new healing company and it's through Instagram that was my next question how can people read you so the new is so the handle is at symbol the new healing company that's one yes right and we'll have that in the show notes for anyone that wants to connect and then if can they message you there if they want to reach out to you directly yes of course yes and I'll reply to all queries you know and I can I will always help anybody where I can because you know the role that the role that many of us out there and you know if it can inspire somebody to look elsewhere than great wonderful well thank you so much for putting that together for the world and for being here today to celebrate yet yourself and I was going to say inspire us with your healing story but also yes celebrate seems like a good word after all that you've been through and and to see you here today is just such an inspiration so thank you for being here with us today thank you and thank you for being part of the Radical Remission project because I can't rave enough about how it influenced me in the early days it was fabulous now did speak to um dr. Turner at one point and um uh you know she was she was fantastic um yes thank god that thank god that book exists that's what I'll see yes I completely agree I think it's for just such a gift that she has given to the world so yeah well thanks for coming on and sharing your healing story and thank you to all of our listeners if you want to hear more inspiring stories like Karen's be sure to follow like and share this podcast and please take a moment to review the podcast either on apple spotify audacity or on your preferred preferred platform and if you have your own inspiring story of a radical remission please visit radicalremission.com and complete the share your story form and thank you for listening to the Radical Remission project stories that heal podcast once again I'm kelly a Turner PhD cancer researcher and founder of the Radical Remission project if you found today's episode inspiring we encourage you to share it with anyone you think would benefit if you'd like more information about the radical remission project or would like some support bringing the 10 radical remission healing factors into your own life visit us at radicalremission.com to find a certified radical remission health coach or to learn about an upcoming radical remission workshop and if you'd like to connect with laser Carla directly for health coaching you can visit radicalremission.com/aboutus most importantly be sure to like share and please please please review this podcast wherever you listen to podcasts your reviews are what allow us to keep finding sponsors and sponsors are what allow us to keep bringing you these podcasts so thank you in advance for your reviews one last thing would you like to be on our podcast? If you're a radical remission survivor who's been in remission for at least three years, meaning that you either have stable or dormant disease or perhaps even no evidence of disease, you can contact us at RadicalRomission.com/podcast The stories that heal podcast is a production of the Radical Remission project and cat productions hosted by Liz Curran and Carla Man's Jiru, produced by Ryan Jiru, music by Batchbook. Follow the stories that heal wherever you get your podcasts.