Having been so thoroughly healed through Christian Science, I feel it would not only be ungrateful, but that I should not be doing my duty to God to keep silent any longer.
On the 24th of March, 1902, I was working on the new station, South Eastern & Chatham Railway, Bexhill, glazing the covered platform, when I suddenly slipped and fell onto the concrete platform below, injuring my spine. I was taken to Hastings Hospital and detained one week, being sent out on the 31st, Easter Monday. The house surgeon told me to come again on Thursday, which I did, and then he told me to rest. The next time I went I saw a new house surgeon, who told me I was giving myself wrong treatment and that if I did not want to be deformed I must exercise my back and muscles as much as possible, for I was at the age when my back would set. The next time I went he told me he could not do anything for me, that I must get an out-patient's letter and see one of the doctors. He said I could come next day at noon and he would speak to one of them. Next day I attended and saw one of the doctors, who said he could not examine me without a letter. I asked him if he would hear me, and I told him all. He said the walking about was wrong, and that I needed rest. He also rang for the house surgeon and told him that he had given me wrong treatment, and that it might injure me for life. The house surgeon said it was a case that had come into the hospital before he came there, therefore he did not know the extent of the injury. I attended there for eleven weeks as out-patient, getting worse and weaker every week. I took drugs in the form of liquid and pills, also used a lotion for the back, the last two weeks. After the ninth week my doctor told me that I should have to go into the hospital again and have my back straightened, and that in the mean time I must lie in bed until they sent for me, as there were five beds wanted before mine.
During this time I wrote to a cousin at Eastbourne, and through her efforts I got into Poplar Hospital, London. I entered this institution about the 18th of June, and was in bed for three or four weeks, when I asked the doctors if I might get up. Whenever I asked them if I should ever be able to do my usual work, they would not tell me, but turn away, or say that there was plenty of time later to think of working, that what I needed now was to get fit for it. I was given medicine to make me eat; also pills and plasters, then massage treatment, until at last they said I must have a surgical jacket to keep me straight, for I was bent double, and though I could get my back straight with levering myself up with my hands, I could not do so without. The only rest I got was when I was on my back. I wore the jacket, which was made of "chemicalized" felt and steel supports, about one month before I came out. Though I was not well, I asked if I might leave, as I thought there were others who needed the treatment more than I did. I left about the 18th of October, 1902, and I went again to be examined in February, 1903, for the last time, for, though my doctor there would have liked me to stay, the hospital was full and I could not do so.
