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Being healed from a Devastating Disease

 Recently I read another amazing story by Becky Douglas who founded the charity in India called Rising Star. She just has one incredible story after another. I'll summarize it here.

Becky was 7 1/2 months pregnant with her third child. She had just finished another school year teaching seminary. Her husband was frequently out of town so she would have to wake her two toddlers up at 5:15 and take them with her to the church 25 minutes away. Naps were in short supply and she was very sleep-deprived. (I get the impression she frequently pushes herself to the limit.)

One night her toddler woke up with a nightmare so Becky laid down with her in her bed to help her go back to sleep. As she lay there she realized she had a fever and was feeling terrible. When she tried to go back to bed, she didn't have the strength to walk so she ended up crawling. It took her three tries to get into bed. Then she couldn't speak loud enough to wake up her husband. She just lay there in pain, realizing she was quickly getting worse. Finally, her husband's alarm went off and when he woke up, he realized something was very wrong. He quickly dressed in a shirt and tie and then gave her a blessing rebuking the disease and promising her that she would completely recover and that her unborn child would be fine. He found a babysitter for their girls, then drove his wife to the hospital because they couldn't afford an ambulance.

In the hospital they gave her a spinal tap which can be very painful but she was so out of it, she didn't even notice. Her husband was worried about her unborn child but the doctor said, I have to focus on saving her life. Becky herself was sick with worry about this baby and the effect this disease would have on it. Finally she got a diagnosis of spinal meningitis caused by the polio virus. For the next ten days, she was in the hospital with a fever between 104-106, in the strictest quarantine. When she came home, she couldn't do anything but lie in bed. The Relief Society took care of her girls every day while her husband was at work. They brought in meals although she was too weak to do much more than sip soup. She couldn't even roll over without help. She couldn't even focus her eyes to read. 

A young woman whom they had taken into their home when she was struggling in high school and at home and was in Becky's seminary class, dropped out of her college classes to come take care of Becky. After 6 weeks at home, her baby was born after an unusually short labor. Becky's mother came out from Utah to take care of her. The baby was healthy! But Becky couldn't even hold him. She couldn't drive or even move her head from side to side. Sometimes she worried that the disease was coming back or that the partial paralysis she had was not going to get better. Her husband gave her more blessings to help her feel peace and remind her of the promises God had made. It took another 8 months for her to recover. Slowly she regained her strength and now she is no different than she was before the disease.

Her baby boy seemed developmentally delayed at first but slowly he caught up and ended up graduating from BYU and Duke Law School.

Becky ends her story talking about how she has friends who struggle with their testimonies because of some questions about Joseph Smith, etc. She tells them she doesn't have all the answers but she can wait because she has faith that all truth will come to light. What she does know is that she cannot live without her temple marriage and being sealed to her family for eternity. She can't live without the priesthood or her testimony of the gospel of Jesus Christ. She knows how fragile life is and she can't live without the peace and joy she experiences through those blessings of the gospel.

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