Thirds

September, 1985

Dr. Laird's office was located outside of Asheville, in Leicester. His practice was named Great Smokies Medical Center which was located in a large old mansion that had been converted for medical use.

I loved the two-hour ride up the mountain from Hickory to Asheville and then the drive along the country road over to Leicester. Asheville is known as 'land of the sky.'

Asheville still feels like a step back in time. I still call it "1960s Hippieville." Some residents might be offended by that. I think it's sort of a compliment.

In Fall, 1977, I had gone to college near Asheville, in Montreat, NC, right outside Black Mountain. I'd been to Charismatic fellowships in the Asheville area before I'd found The Way. After I found The Way, I attended Way fellowships for a couple months in Asheville, until I quit college in December, 1977, to study and serve with The Way and moved back to Hickory until the summer when I volunteered for Word Over North Carolina Summer Outreach and was sent to Fayetteville, NC. Then after Summer Outreach I went out WOW. WOW was an acronym for Word Over the World. I was sent to Milwaukee and volunteered for one year, from August, 1978 until August, 1979, as a Way Word Over the World Ambassador.

Now, in 1985, I was sick.
I wasn't sick when I joined The Way.
I didn't have all these health problems.
I used to be a jogger.
I couldn't jog now.
I was constantly fatigued and struggling for breath.

And ...... I'd throw up at night.

The vomiting must have started sometime in 1983. I'd wake up at least three times a week around 2 or 3 AM and have to vomit. Then I'd lay on the bathroom floor and fall asleep. Sometimes I'd vomit little blue furry, oval-shaped, capsule-looking things. I'd wonder if they were Theodur pills that my body rejected and coated in something.

I didn't tell my allergist in Hickory about the throwing up...or the furry caplets.
I didn't want more drugs.
I didn't want more needles,
I didn't want more tests.
I was sick of tests.
I was sick of drugs.
I didn't feel the drugs were making me better; they just covered over the problem not getting to the cause.

What was the cause?
What was wrong with me?
I was such a defective believer.

I was on large doses of Theodur and Breathine.
I was on allergy shots and epinephrine shots.
I sucked in albuterol through inhalers and nebulizers.
I'd suck in atropine.
I sucked cromolyn through a spinhaler.
I'd spray my sinus with steroid sprays.
I'd be on and off dose packs of oral steroids, or on non-dose pack titrated steroid doses.

At Dr. Laird's office, I ended up seeing Dr. Stephen Barrie, a naturopath. Dr. Barrie dealt more with my kinds of problems - allergies and over-active immune systems. Dr. Laird specialized more with chelation therapy for heart patients and with folks suffering from diabetes.

Dr. Barrie looked like a hippie. He had a beard and his hair was pulled back in a pony tail. He was balding toward his forehead. He was soft spoken, very kind. He was married and I think he had a couple children. I recall once his wife phoned him apparently about supper and what to serve the guests they were apparently hosting. I can't recall the specific contents of the meal discussed from his end of the phone conversation except that the food was wholesome and natural.

Dr. Barrie looked over my records and history.

"First thing, I'd like you to go off birth control pills. Can you do that?" he asked.

"Yes," I responded. Hubby I used a diaphragm after that, though I don't think my body would have allowed me to get pregnant anyway. I was too sick.

"The second thing I'd like you to do is to give up dairy. Do you think you can do that, until our next appointment?" His second request.

I responded in the affirmative.

I had noticed that Dr. Barrie had gone to school at Bastyr College in Washington state. I knew of someone in The Way who had gone to that same school and was also a naturopath.

"You don't by chance know Walter Crinnion, do you?" I asked.

A big smile crosssed Dr. Barrie's face. "Yes I do. Walter and I correspond regularly and are good friends. In fact we just talked the other week. He's been in Ohio at some festival up there with some ministry or something. He goes every year."

"That's the Rock of ages." I replied.

My heart felt a flutter of hope. Dr. Crinnion was a believer in the Household. He and his wife were Corps and had taught Christian Family and Sex at Emporia, Kansas, when I had been at Emporia in The Way Corps. I like them both. I recall that his wife grew sprouts and sold them for consumption.

Here was this doctor sitting across from me in North Carolina who knew Dr. Crinnion, who practiced in Washington state, all the way across the country.

This had to be God at work.
This had to be God's mercy.

Had I just obeyed Mrs. Wierwille over a year ago, maybe I could have forgone so much suffering in the past year?

Over a year previous, when Mrs. Wierwille had prayed for me, she had personally counseled me to get up with Dr. Crinnion at the Rock of Ages. But everytime I'd stop by the Third Aid tent at the Rock of Ages, Dr. Crinnion wasn't there. So, I'd given up...thinking "he'd just have me do more natural stuff with diet or something."

The Way used the tern Third Aid instead of First Aid.

First Aid was God directly.
Second Aid was a fellow believer ministering healing to the believer in need.
Third Aid were doctors and such.

Brings to mind another 'third' phrase from The Way:
"God first.
Others second.
Myself third."