By Sharon, an Ex-Christian Scientist Group contributor.


I had severe untreated burns on the top of my foot when I was nine. My cousin spilled a pan of boiling hot jelly right on my foot. I got no help at all with it—no antibacterial cream, bandaging, nothing. I was told to just ignore it and ‘know that you cannot be burned.’

I was sent to school with socks on. The blisters broke and drained all over, and the teacher tried to dress it and put something on it. I, of course, refused to allow anything to be put on it. Because it was never treated in any way, it got horribly infected and was all full of pus and rot, and was extremely painful to the point that I couldn’t put any weight on it.

The incident I remember most clearly from that time is my mother going shopping and bringing me along, and I was hopping on one foot behind her and she was oblivious to my pain. The only attention my mother gave me with that or any illness was to tell me to ‘straighten out my thinking,’ or at best she would call the practitioner.

I am extremely lucky I didn’t get blood poisoning because I was only nine and I didn’t even know to try and keep it clean. When I had my own children, I just could not figure out how a mother could treat her child that way.