Throughout my career as an Army officer, I had lower back strain. I suffered several days each month, on the average, and I would often spend a weekend in bed to rest my back. During our frequent household moves, I always had to be careful not to lift anything heavy or I would be out of action for a while. On one occasion, over ten years ago, I was hospitalized when I was temporarily paralyzed from the waist down because of a pinched nerve in my back.
I was happy when I reached the age of forty because the Army wouldn't require me to take physical fitness tests anymore. Then the regulations changed, and those over forty had to be tested too. I restarted my physical conditioning program. While exercising one day, I ran into a wall and injured my back; for the next three months, it got progressively worse.
Only a few months before this incident I had taken an interest in Christian Science. But I waited awhile before calling a Christian Science practitioner for prayerful help about the injury, thinking my back would heal "by itself." The practitioner was very encouraging, and for a few days I thought I had been healed. But several days later the condition worsened sharply. I found myself in great pain, totally unable to walk or even to stand upright. After a miserable weekend I tearfully informed the practitioner that I would seek medical treatment. (More than anything, I wanted immediate relief from the pain.)
