[My mother, whom we call Mamoo, had studied journalism at the University of Minnesota. She was famous among family and many friends, for her wonderful letters, written during her life and travels as the wife of a career United States Air Force man.]

We all grow up inhabiting little boxes.

Our early home life is a little box.  Our school is a little box.

Our attitudes and lifestyle are little boxes.

Our religious life is a little box.  Our eating habits are a little box.

Some of us outgrow most of these boxes; others do not, so that

their children and grandchildren start out in the same old boxes

their grandparents did.

 

One of the boxes I have discarded is the way I think about the care of my body. 

In the past, if I felt I had a physical problem, I went to a medical doctor. 

I assumed that he had all the answers, having that long-continued education. 

I blindly and trustingly accepted his ideas, his treatment, or lack of it. 

I took his prescribed medication and never bothered to ask what or why.

Since my daughter, Raylyn Terrell, helped me to leave the hospital alive after my congestive heart failure experience in 1979,

I have been studying nutrition and wholeness. 

I found that successful treatment begins with cleansing the body of old poisons, and building health, with a view to preventing future illness.

A doctor should be given the respect and consideration that his education and experience deserve, but he must be open to answering any questions I put to him. 

A patient should always be free to ask for a second or third opinion from other doctors and other health counselors, and be free to refuse treatment or surgery according to his or her own studied, prayerful judgment.

I know my own body better than my doctor does, because I live in it every day,

but the doctor is just going to put my records in a little box in one of his files.