A defigning moment - I thought I might have a few breaths left to live!

I have had pain and many injuries, affect my life and almost end my life. More on this later. This is my story - I actually held back several other recoveries to injuries I have had over the years, for the sake of time.

The pain I have experienced in my life, is from several events that could be looked at as bad events or challenging events that I had an opportunity to learn from. I was a very physically active boy, I loved sports, and over the years of competitive baseball, football, wrestling and polevaulting, there tends to be risks to one's body.

There have been several major challenges over the years, at least 2 injuries could have ended my career, my relationship and my life. The potential career ending injury was my second year in practice, I completely ruptured a disc in my lower back (in the gym doing squats) with sciatic pains going down my leg. I had severe low back pain and spasms, and remembered my father ruptured a disc and ended up having 3 failed back surgeries. My daughter said, it was not a good way for me to start my healthcare practice.

I was determined to not to let what happend to my dad, ruin my career. Over time, I realized this injury was one of the biggest blessings that could have happened to me. It helped me actually relate better to patients with the same condition (vs book knowledge). I worked hard on getting my body back in shape - doing daily home traction, physical therapy and chiropractdic treatments, anti-inflammatory supplements. The combination of all of these brought me out of this without surgery and without having to stop my practice. I was even able to continue playing competitive softball within a few months and have been quite active with my dauther and grandson on the trampoline. That low back injury was 40 years ago and I am still quite active in practice and love educating my patients about recovering from chronic pain!

Second injury was life threatening and happened about 20 years after my first serious low back injury. I was riding moped which was fun and saved me lots of gass, from my office to my home. I was about home, coming around the last corner at 25 mph, a dog blind sided me, he cut right in front of me, turning my sterring wheel 90 degrees, flipping the bike (it was like I was watching but somehow involved in an unreal movie) I was skidding on my helmet and my forearms (if you have ever come off a bike you know what road rash is) - the bike landed on top of me - (the next day I had x-rays and found out fractdured 3 ribs, my big toe, and my heel). I never lost consciousness but as I lay there looking up at the blue colorado sky, I thought to myself, 'that should have hurt'. I had NO pain! I also had no ability to move my body from my neck down. I suddenly remembered my neurology pneuonic, 'C-3, 4, 5, keeps the diaphram alive' in other words, I might have just breathed my last breath! So, I started yelling for help. Help did arrive and after a few minutes I could move, then I felt the searing pain go from my neck into both my arms and legs like 220 volts. I knew I had ruptured a disc in my neck but I was determined to help the healing power of my body, of every human being to heal. It took 6 weeks but I knew in my mind, Chiropractic care, massage therapy, exercise and nutrition would bring me out of this without surgery, and I was proven right about the power of the human body, once more.

I believe what has helped me the most the knowledge that pain is not all physical. There is a biological, a psychological and a social component to the healing power of the human body. Biopsycosocial as it is called. Some people describe it as mind-body-spirit. I believe if we have the attitude or the right mind set, (when we combine the physical hands on modalities) with the understanding of just how powerful our mind, body and spirit are in helping to heal the body - we are born in a miracle (we are 1 unique person out of 7 billion people on this planet) I have great faith that there is always a spiritual solution to our challenges.