Jesus healed me of leukaemia!

I am a grateful survivor of leukaemia (AML).

A committed Christian since 18, but no spiritual giant, I attend a small church in East London and enjoy contributing in house group. At the time of need, this group of people, from the leaders down, really supported me in prayer and in practical visits - along with other friends and family.

I want to stress, that I am not triumphalist regarding my survival, in the face of many, of greater faith and expectancy, having not. We are all loved by God. Ultimately it is a mystery why some live and others do not. All I can do is tell my story.

I enjoyed quite good health until October 2014 when I landed with a bang in a major cancer hospital with the odds firmly stacked against survival.

I enjoyed quite good health until October 2014 when I landed with a bang in a major cancer hospital with the odds firmly stacked against survival. A blood test at the local hospital for minor complaints that wouldn’t heal revealed leukaemia. I was transferred that evening to St Bartholomew’s in the City. Just six days later I was on mega doses of chemo.

“You could have collapsed at any time, including when you were driving,” the specialist concluded. That week I had driven over 500 miles giving dance workshops, and to a house party, all while feeling ‘like death warmed up’.

Naturally I was shocked - leukaemia was what other people had - and rang a Christian friend for prayer. But there was no panic. My life was in God’s hands! I looked on the internet to see if I had a chance of dying perhaps – and saw at my age there was only a slim chance I’d survive.

The consultant held out that chance of a cure and one has to pause to thank God for those who fought to create and maintain our NHS!

The consultant held out that chance of a cure and one has to pause to thank God for those who fought to create and maintain our NHS! However even in the best of hospitals most in my position were not going to make it.

I had a chromosome change in the third and worst category (although not the worst of the worst category as the consultant cheered me with!) Overall I had near to 30 pints of blood. I failed the first round and had an even stronger cocktail of chemo. I was then medium/high risk but remission was still possible – I contemplated that in life we are all at high risk but we can make it to immortality through the remission of sins on offer to all.

I was in hospital for five months. People continued to battle in prayer, one with verve having lost others to cancer.

In desperate need people of all faiths call on God for healing, even submitting to his will. The difference as Christians is we are in a ‘win-win’ situation. We have assurance of eternal life through Jesus. I had no assurance from on high that I would survive here. I was in God’s hands for whichever. Lack of fear or desperation to live was perhaps a testimony. I wrote my funeral service to make sure of my favourite songs, while daring to take some hope from God-incidences - such as the girl at my telephone bank telling me she’d survived a transplant when she was two.

I had no medical training but understood some complex issues through parallels in my faith journey. With the bone marrow transplant, I saw that just as I understood I couldn’t do the job of living a good life myself and welcomed Jesus in at 18, now I had to welcome the donor because I couldn’t do the job of preventing the 85% chance of leukaemia cells returning.

I myself prayed very little; chemo doesn’t hurt but it’s like jetlag and I slept lots! I felt more of a battlefield than a warrior! However I managed email updates for my many friends, some in Nigeria and Australia. They wanted news and some needed support. They even got forwarded to Cambodia! Later I have brought them out as a book.

Many dangerous infections later, I was declared in remission: five years of remission equals cure. I was ‘cured’ in 2020. As in a war, my body has many battle wounds. I tell people ‘I live with it - with an emphasis on the first two words!

Thank you Jesus!