From my earliest childhood until a few years ago, when healing came to me in Christian Science, I had never known a time when T was not suffering from pain and weakness. Severe illnesses from lung and throat trouble, etc., all left their trace in some weakened condition of body, until invalidism had seemingly a strong foothold. My mother had a serious illness when I was but a little child, and during all my childhood and girlhood days she was bedfast much of the time, suffering intensely. My sister, who cared for my mother and took charge of the home, at last broke down completely and was sent to a sanitarium. I undertook the care of my mother and the home, but in a very few weeks I became a wreck, suffering so intensely that the physician came as often as five times a day to try to do what he could to relieve my agony. I remained in about the same condition for many months, the physician working earnestly to find out the trouble and the way to cure it. After I had endured months of terrible suffering, he told my father that nothing could save me, and that I could live but a very short time, but that he felt it would be a satisfaction all around if another physician were called in for consultation. Father told him to send for the best physician he knew of, and he sent for a prominent doctor from a neighboring town. They held a number of consultations, and later I was under this second physician's care for several weeks, but he finally decided that my only chance for recovery was to be taken to a hospital. I was carried on a cot nearly two hundred miles to a hospital in Philadelphia, where for about five months I was under the direct care of one of the best physicians there. I seemed to improve somewhat, but the weakness and the suffering were not met. I returned home, and in less than six weeks I had a relapse, suffering in many ways more than I had before. We then sent to another neighboring town for another physician, and I was under his care for six months, growing worse all the time.
There seemed to be an enlargement in my left side, and finally the doctor told my father that he was alarmed at my condition, and the only thing he could advise was to send me back to Philadelphia to a hospital. Father immediately engaged a bed for me in the hospital and preparations were, being made to take me there, when my brother, who was at that time in a sanitarium, where he had heard of Christian Science, learning of the doctor's decision, hastened home to have me go back with him. This I was glad to do, as I had dreaded going to the hospital.
During all the time I was under materia medica, not only did each physician diagnose my condition differently, but each seemed to diagnose it differently from time to time while treating me, and could not decide definitely the exact cause or trouble, as almost every part of my body seemed to be diseased. The physicians all agreed that the conditions had developed from diseases in childhood and were intensified by overwork and anxiety for my mother. I was told that I would never be able to care for her any more, and I was not even given the hope that I would ever be able to care for myself.
