Testimony of Healing October 21, 1911 Issue

Words cannot express my gratitude for what Christian Science...

Odin Fern with contributions from Carol Kimberley

Words cannot express my gratitude for what Christian Science has done for me, so I am going to give a brief outline of my case and my condition before coming into Christian Science. I was said to have been born with infantile partial paralysis of the right side, caused from injury at birth. I was very delicate as little baby, so my aunt took me to a doctor, who said I had spinal trouble. I was under his care for a long time, but got no better. I could not sit up, walk, or talk, or use my right arm and leg. I was about five years old at this time.

I was then given magnetic treatment, and after the second treatment I did walk a few steps alone, the first I had ever walked, but after that I grew weaker, and could not even finish the ten treatments arranged for. My people then took me to a very fine physician and surgeon from New York, who said I had hip disease and must be operated upon at once before it was too late. I was taken to a hospital, and he operated on me then put my right leg in a plaster cast for ten weeks, and ordered two braces for me, one for day and one for night. While under this treatment, the doctor died very suddenly, so we had to try something else. Electricity and massage were then applied to my right side. I had massage for two years or more, then rubbing and osteopathy for nine months. In the latter treatment my ankle was badly injured; so I was worse off after I got through than before I commenced.

All kinds of braces and shoes were bought for me, but all were failures. My right side would not grow as fast as the other. I was examined by some of the best doctors and specialists in Los Angeles. They all said the same, that there was no operation or anything that would cure me, that I would always be a cripple, so must make the best of it. I could not talk, use my right arm and hand, or walk without a brace from waist to ankle, the disease extending from my tongue to the toes on my right side. By this time I was fifteen years old, and my people had tried everything they heard of. My right arm and leg were now four inches shorter than the left, and I was having another brace made when Christian Science found me.

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