When I was sixteen, I fell on my back and injured my spine. Walking was painful and difficult after the accident, so my mother took me to a physician. But the treatments he administered were ineffectual and so were discontinued. A dull pain in my back persisted. I was not always able to stand erect, and even stooping was painful. Irregularity, and at times a long and complete cessation of a normal organic functioning, concerned my parents and me.
This physical condition persisted off and on for the next two years. Several months after I had entered college, my father suggested seeking the help of a well known physician at a sanitarium near my school. This physician recommended surgery for my condition, and a time was set for the operation. The same day my father and I visited the doctor and scheduled the surgery, I overheard the doctor say "She should not try to have children."
About this time my mother wrote asking me to come home for a brief visit. When I arrived, she opened the door for me, and I was amazed at her appearance. In the fall when I had left for school, she was frail, pencil-thin, and had been a semi-invalid for a number of years. Now she stood before me, erect, rosy-cheeked, and radiant. I blurted out, "What has happened?" She replied joyously, "It is Christian Science."
