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#167 SET THE EXAMPLE

3/9/2017

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Who do you look to set an example for you?  It’s different people for different things, right?  You might use Lincoln for leadership.  Jack LaLanne for fitness (I’m dating myself).  Stalin if you want to be a homicidal sociopath.  Mother Teresa for perfect giving human.  Bruce Jenner for world class manly man athlete turned woman.  Hey, we all need role models. 
           
            So who are you modeling for?  What are you modeling?  How’s that going?  These are loaded questions that can go far too deep for a one page article, but they are intended to get you to think about the fact that what you do and how you do it makes a difference to someone important to you.  To misquote Sting, “Every breath you take, and every move you make.  Every bond you break, every step you take, ‘someone’s’ watching you.” 
 
            So here’s where this article becomes about me, my favorite subject J.  I didn’t really get that patients were watching me until I was 39 years old.  For the benefit of newer patients, I’m going to relate a bit of my sad hypocritical story.  Let’s say you smoked your whole life and now you have to see a lung specialist for treatment of emphysema.  He might be a great doctor but how much confidence would you have if he took a smoking break in the alley behind his office?  He would be a bad example for you in this pretend scenario, right?    
 
            I have spent 30 years telling people to get adjusted regularly, to exercise routinely, to drink 64 oz. of water daily, to manage weight responsibly, to maintain flexibility, etc…  In other words, to live a healthful lifestyle.  But I did not do that for the first 13 of those 30 years.  I was a bad example.  Then one day in 2000 God said, “Tag you’re it.”  Briefly, I passed out while driving my family on a Memorial weekend trip.  Luckily, I knew that extreme dizziness and chest pain was not a normal sensation so I managed to get the car to the shoulder and in park just before I lost consciousness. 
 
            Long story short.  I did not have a heart attack.  I was 50# fatter with borderline hypertension doing nothing that I was telling my patients to do.  And it changed that day.  Not all at once.  One thing at a time.  First drinking water.  Next, getting serious about my own chiropractic care.  Next was losing some of the weight.  Next was beginning to exercise.  Next was losing some more of the weight.  Next was supplementation.  And on and on.  So over years, not months or weeks, but years, I transformed myself into a much healthier person today at 56 than I was at 39.  Although I’m far from the best example, I’m making my best effort, which is all any of us can ask of ourselves.
 
            The real point of this story is that I have had the same problems that most of my patients have had.  I’ve seen just about everything in 30 years, but when I experience it myself it becomes more real because now it’s personal.  So when I tell you to do something to help your spine or your health, it’s something I’m already doing.  Conversely, I’m not going to tell you to do something that I wouldn’t do myself.  Why waste your time and money with something I wouldn’t waste mine on right?  And if I find something good for my spine and health be certain that I’m going to tell you about it too.  And from this has evolved my 3 Tool +1 model of treatment that we went over in your report of findings.  Now it’s your turn to set the example for your loved ones, one thing at a time.

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    Dr. Rick

    After writing an article per week for a year, I just kept going.  These are most of my collection.  They are written with my existing patients in mind, so some stuff may seem odd or unusual, but would make perfect sense to those who know chiropractic and who know me.  Enjoy and share!  For my personal blog visit: 

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What Our Patients Have To Say

Yolanda wrote:
     
     I used to suffer severe headaches and migraines on a daily basis, usually all day.  I managed to work in an office because I had to.  When I went home at the end of the day I would often close the shades and go to bed.  I could not plan weekend events because I simply never knew how I was going to feel tomorrow.  If there were a special event such as a birthday or wedding, I would begin to medicate myself two weeks in advance to give myself the best chance of making the event.
     Friends and fellow church-goers had been trying to get me to see Dr. Rick for some time before I finally gave in.  Looking back, I don’t know why I waited.  Within a month, I was headache free.  I couldn’t remember what it was like to not feel pain.  I could do whatever I wanted and not live in fear of the headache.  This was a miracle for me, but the story does not end here.
     An opportunity came up for us to adopt a newborn baby girl not long after I began chiropractic care.  This baby was particularly important to me and my husband because her mother is a relative.  Tragically, her mother was also a drug user and did drugs during her pregnancy.  If we could not adopt the baby she would have been put into the foster system since the biological mother was incapable of raising her.
     To keep a long story short, we did adopt her and she is doing fantastically.  There is no sign of any effect of the drugs on her as of yet, and with God’s help, there never will be.  We think that is because of the vast amounts of love and attention she gets from us, her real mommy and daddy.
     What does this have to do with chiropractic?  The reality is that without chiropractic, I would still be nearly an invalid with headaches.  I COULD NOT HAVE TAKEN CARE OF AN INFANT OR RAISED A YOUNG CHILD.  THEREFORE, SHE WOULD NOT HAVE ANY OF THE OPPORTUNITIES IN LIFE THAT MY HUSBAND AND I WILL BE ABLE TO PROVIDE FOR HER.  MY DAUGHTER’S LIFE IS POSSIBLE BECAUSE SOMEBODY MADE ME GO TO A CHIROPRACTOR. 
     You need to tell everyone you know what you know about chiropractic.  Who knows who’s life you will change too.
Andrew's mother, Barbara, wrote:

     Hello, My name is Andrew and I am a happy, healthy one year old.  But I wasn’t so happy or healthy when I first met Dr. Rick a few months ago.  I had been having problems with my ears for four months, I couldn’t sleep at night and I was miserable.  We’d been to the doctor lots of times but nothing was helping.  In fact, all the medicines the doctor had tried seemed to make me worse instead of better!  Both the regular doctor and the Ear-Nose and Throat doctor said that if the antibiotics didn’t work, then they’d just have to put tubes in.  Now my Mom and dad weren’t about to let them do surgery on me, especially since they had been reading and learned that tubes can cause more problems than they solve.  My mom and dad did a lot of praying.  Then my mom heard that sometimes babies who have a traumatic birth like mine have ear trouble.  You see when I was born they used a vacuum extractor and forceps to pull me out.  I guess all that yanking on my head, hurt my neck.  She also heard that chiropractic care can be the answer.  Now she was skeptical because she couldn’t imagine a chiropractor helping ear infections!?!  But at that point she was willing to try anything!!  Happily, a few weeks of adjustments and my ears were all cleared up.  In addition, I no longer had a stiff neck or shoulders and my whole personality was happier.  I have to tell all babies who have ear troubles, don’t let them give you tubes until you at least try chiropractic care first.  After all, it can’t hurt and if you’re like me, you could be perfectly well with no drugs and no surgery.  In my family, we thank God for Dr. Rick, because I feel better, my mom and dad are happier and sometimes, I even sleep through the night.