During my first year in school, I was stricken with what the doctor diagnosed as Saint Vitus's dance. I was in a coma for six weeks. The doctor told my parents that if I came out of the coma—which he doubted —I couldn't live to young womanhood, because every organ in my body was affected.
My mother knew that Christian Science heals because she was healed of blindness through prayer as taught in Christian Science. My dad chose the doctor. As one cannot have treatment from a medical practitioner and a Christian Science practitioner at the same time, I was under medical treatment the next eight years.
However, my mother remained steadfast in her loyalty to God and her study and application of Christian Science. She knew, as Mary Baker Eddy writes in Science and Health with Key to the Scriptures (p. 571), "Know thyself, and God will supply the wisdom and the occasion for a victory over evil." She never missed an opportunity to teach me of God's loving care for His creation.
