"Don't it always seem to go, that you don't know what you've got till it's gone." Big Yellow Taxi by Joni Mitchell
I hope this finds you in good spirits and great health. Health is such an amazing gift, yet (sadly) sometimes we have to lose it, or see some one we love lose it, to fully realize its preciousness.
I don’t think I have ever shared this with you, but from an early age I had extremely poor health. By the time I was 19 years old I was very, very ill and despite lots of conventional treatment and invasive testing, I was just becoming weaker and weaker, sicker and sicker. At the time I was living in London and a dear friend of mine called Fred said: “You’ve got to go and see Dr. Dave.”
I’d had, by that time, more than my fill of doctors and specialists, so I was pretty skeptical.
“What’s so special about Dr. Dave?” I asked Fred.
“He’s a Homeopath,” Fred said
“A what-ee-o-path?”
“You mean you’ve never heard of Homeopathy?” Fred said.
Shaking his head at my ignorance, Fred brought me up to speed. I decided to take a chance on Dr. Dave, because surely Fred knew more about the world than I, he was 24 after all!
Anyway, long story short. I went to see Dr. Dave at his office in North London. I remember the whole scene vividly to this day. There was a student from Africa there, sitting in with him as part of his studies.
Dr. Dave asked some pretty odd things and the session was lengthy. Next he asked me to open my mouth and dropped a small white pill into it and asked me to let it dissolve under my tongue.
He gave me two small packets of pills with instructions written on them. He told me to stop drinking coffee and use a non-mint toothpaste ( he was Old School and thought they made remedies less effective).
Things did not go as I’d hoped at first. All my symptoms got much, much worse. I felt like a 90 year old woman. I could hardly walk. This lasted for about a week, during which time Fred and I had words…”What on earth have you gotten me into?”
Then something phenomenal and totally unexpected happened, all my ghastly symptoms disappeared, my energy returned and I felt on top of the world. Better than at any time in my life. I remember thinking this is crazy. Crazy good!! How come everyone doesn’t know about this? If I had only known about this I could have avoided the disgusting antibiotics, having radioactive dye pushed around my body, skipped the endless tests and x-rays.
How could one sweet little pill work this miracle? My awe only increased when I stayed well for three full months on that one little pill. When I noticed some symptoms returning, I did as Dr. Dave had told me and took another pill from one of the packets he had given me. Low and behold it worked again. I remember thinking one day I’m going to train to be a homeopath. The rest, as they say, is History!!
I’ve had some people tell me maybe Homeopathy did nothing at all. That I was just highly suggestible. That my recovery was due to the placebo effect. It seems very unlikely to me. If the placebo effect was so powerful in my case, then how come none of the conventional pills I’d been given since the age of five had ever been able to make me well? In fact, they had made me progressively sicker.
So, why am I telling you all this? Because if like me, you were one of the lucky ones who got to hear about Homeopathy and it helped you return to health, safely and without side-effects, I’d love it if you could pay that good luck forward and tell someone you know who is struggling with their health about your experience of Homeopathy. They can then make their own choice. Because then they’ll know there is a choice. So many people have never even heard of Homeopathy and, unfortunately, if they rely on the mainstream media, then they probably never will.
What inspired me to write this now is because, as I write this, a recent friend of mine, who is only in her fifties, is in hospice care. I can’t help thinking how her story might have been very different if someone had told her about Homeopathy ten or twenty years ago. Instead she did the only thing she knew to do, she took lots of different drugs to suppress her symptoms until they could not be silenced any longer.
If you do tell someone about Homeopathy and they want to take a chance on it, just as I did all those decades ago, just as perhaps you did, then please also feel free to tell them to e-mail or message me and I’ll be happy to answer all their questions and help them in any way I can.
I’d like to dedicate this to letter to the memory of Dr David Curtin, a lovely man and a fine homeopath, my first. I heard recently that he died in January 2010. I’d also like to dedicate it to my friend in hospice. May she know Peace.
RIP Dr David Curtin, My first homeopath in the late 1970s
Thanks for listening.
Wishing you well,
Mary