At the age of eighteen years, after leading a very active and healthy life, I became ill and had to consult a doctor, who immediately sent me home to bed. The following week I was rushed to hospital with double pneumonia and pleurisy. A few weeks later I was told that I had tuberculosis in my right lung. Years of rest followed, and I was in and out of hospitals having treatment and X rays. One day I had a relapse and was taken to a sanatorium in another town to have the lung removed. I was told it would be at least a year before I would be allowed home.
My husband had borrowed from a relative the Christian Science textbook by Mrs. Eddy, and he had been reading this book at various times before I entered the sanatorium. When he visited me there during the period of rest and building up of strength prior to the operation, he asked me whether I should like to rely on Christian Science for a healing, and this I agreed to do. He also brought me a copy of the textbook, and I started to read this earnestly.
At the local Church of Christ, Scientist, my husband became acquainted with a member who had had class instruction in Christian Science, and she spent many evenings explaining Science to him. She also wrote to me, giving me two quotations. One is from the Bible and reads (Gen. 1: 21), "So God created man in his own image, in the image of God created he him; male and female created he them." The other, from Science and Health, states (p. 463), "A spiritual idea has not a single element of error, and this truth removes properly whatever is offensive."
