In the early part of 1907 I was taken very ill, the physician calling the disease rheumatism. The pain was intense in my right leg, and I suffered agony for about four months, when the hip showed signs of inflammation, which resulted in an operation after a consultation of doctors. Each day after the operation I had to undergo what they called irrigation of the hip with extreme suffering, for the first operation meant an incision deep into the hip. In three months I went through four operations, and after suffering intensely for nine months, I even prayed for death as a release. I had been taken from one hospital to another and had the opinion of four different doctors. The one we had from the first took my husband aside and told him that there was no possible help for me, as I had tuberculosis of the hip, in fact of the whole system, and could not live longer than two days at the most.
For six weeks I had not moved off my back without help, and had been kept under an opiate all that time. My husband was beside himself with grief, as we have three children; and he had started to make the final arrangements, when a friend asked him why we did not try Christian Science. We knew nothing about it, having both been brought up in another faith, but when he mentioned it to me I consented, making the statement that while I did not think there was any help for me, I would try it to please him.
A practitioner was found and I was taken home from the hospital the following day under her care. That was the last day of October, 1907, and the doctor said I would die on the way home. I then weighed about forty pounds and my husband would hold me on his hands like a baby when the nurse dressed my wounds, of which I had a number. Gangrene had set in, and as the back of my head was covered with a bed sore, my head had to be shaved. I came home in this condition. I could not raise either my head or my hands, and could not speak above a whisper.
