"Precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little and there a little." Isaiah 28:10
"Precept must be upon precept, precept upon precept, line upon line, line upon line, here a little and there a little." Isaiah 28:10
Somehow after closing her curtains in the evening, my Mother turned round suddenly and fell in slow motion onto her back. She couldn’t get back up from the floor because her knees were painful and I couldn’t lift her. My daughters were in London for the weekend.
We agreed to call an ambulance thinking they could lift her up and it would be sorted. However when they arrived after a couple of hours, they felt obliged to take her blood pressure thinking that might have caused the fall, though we felt it was a simple accident. They said the problem could be high blood pressure and if so it could have serious consequences.
They proceeded to test her, and announced it was what they had feared. They said this meant they were really obliged to take Mum to A&E, but they did feel that would be very difficult, as it would be packed with results of weekend celebrators and probably rather shocking for Mum. So they felt they should call the out-of-hours doctor and hope a later reading of her blood pressure might be lower.
We explained that Mum is a Christian Scientist and has never had any medical treatment since 1942 when she found out about it and followed it ever since. I went in the kitchen and called the practitioner.
They decided to wait with us, and two and a half hours later the doctor phoned back. An interesting discussion ensued. One said, wasn’t it rather a contradiction the two words Christian and Science? I pointed out that it was the meaning of knowledge referred to. So then they were intrigued and wanted to know how it worked.
They were very sweet and patient, but when they got the doctors’ phone call, they decided they’d have to leave and gave me a list of symptoms I should look out for, from which Mum seemed rather shocked and scared, though she insisted she was fine.
We had recently been to a local meeting with the President of The Mother Church regarding Christian Science nursing. Mum knows the local Visiting Nurse and the Manager of Lime Tree House, so I thought a solution might be for us to ask to be taken there. However they were full and also they felt there was a dilemma because a doctor had been called. However when I explained Mum firmly would not accept medical treatment, and at the surgery they had a record of Mum’s wishes as a “Living Will,” they said, “In that case lets stick with what’s
right.” I called the practitioner back and as usual had great relevant help for Mum.
The Dr arrived after 1.00 am and announced Mum’s blood pressure was virtually the same, dangerously high, so he wrote a prescription and said to collect tablets in the morning! and take one a day. He also said to go to the surgery in the morning for another test. Mum made it clear she didn’t want them, and he said “Well it’s up to you.” As I saw him out he told me he had high blood pressure too! I said “So don’t you take tablets?” “Oh yes,” he said, “I do - two lots.”
We spoke again in the morning to our practitioner and Mum was clear she was not going to the surgery and felt fine. Quite a few days later (!!) the surgery rang to say Mum should make an appointment. I explained the situation and pointed out they had Mum’s “Living Will.” She said maybe she would like to make an appointment for later in the week. I repeated the info and said “Do you want Mum to speak to you?” “Oh no,” she said, “I don’t want to upset her.”
That was the end of it, and Mum has been fine since. No more calls from the surgery office manager, and as Mum told the practitioner on the phone was, “perfectly fine.” It was a fantastic demonstration. Mum and I are so grateful for the support. We were all so grateful.
A bonus was that I felt I should let my brother know what had happened and the outcome. He was very satisfied with the way it had been dealt with, but said he wouldn’t tell his wife as she has no idea how CS works and it would probably activate a long unproductive argument. This was very interesting since we thought when he abandoned CS decades ago, that it was that he also felt it did not work; but it seems not, which was great news.