An awakened sense of the help and the encouragement which the testimonies in our periodicals have brought to me leads me to add my expression of gratitude for the transformation that Christian Science has brought into my life. As a child I was always delicate, and even when not suffering from some particular ailment had never enjoyed the freedom and vitality natural to childhood. This continued throughout my girlhood. Then I met with a severe accident, through which I suffered an injury to my spine, together with internal displacements. For the greater part of the next six years I was in a state of semi-invalidism, almost constantly under the care of physicians, who did all in their power to help me, but only afforded occasional temporary relief. Meanwhile the internal trouble increased, the organs having become enlarged, and constipation and cystitis developed, the latter resulting in internal abscesses that caused me untold suffering.
During a period of temporary improvement I went to Chicago to gain a place in the business world; but the long hours, severe climate, and strain of business to one unaccustomed to it helped to weaken me, and one day I found myself entirely helpless among strangers, suffering from a physical condition that, from a medical standpoint, necessitated a surgical operation. Having undergone an operation the previous year with no benefit I could not face that experience again.
At the point of desperation from the intense suffering, I remembered that a Christian Science practitioner was living in the house, and while much prejudiced against Christian Science I asked for her help as a last resort. She remained with me almost constantly for the first day, as I was in a serious condition; and at the end of ten days I knew that I was healed. I had been taking several kinds of medicine, but from the first treatment all material remedies were laid aside, never to be resumed. At the time I was greatly emaciated, weighing little more than a hundred pounds; but my weight and strength increased steadily, until I reached a normal state.
