When my older brother described the symptoms of a hernia he’d had diagnosed and treated medically, I told him that I’d had exactly the same symptoms.

In my case, I was healed through Christian Science while on a family sailing trip in the Aegean Sea. We had chartered a sixty-three-foot sailboat, and because I’d had some sailing experience, our captain assigned me as his “Number One”—the one to carry out his orders, such as “Hoist the anchor,” “Tighten the jib,” “Steer a course of 180,” while he made navigational decisions. 

A few days into our trip, because the winds had strengthened to 7 Beaufort (about 38 miles/61 kilometers per hour), the captain decided to anchor us for a couple of days at a beautiful island marina until the winds diminished. Boats were jammed next to each other in the harbor like sardines in a can.