Every American is required by law to have health insurance, although many still don’t.  The idea is to cover more Americans so that more Americans can have access to more affordable medical treatment.  Regardless of whether you think this is a good idea or not, this does mean that more Americans are going to be face to face with more medical doctors and receive more medical treatment, usually drug therapy.  With this in mind I suggest you give serious thought to my 2 rules of medical interaction:

1)     LIVE YOUR LIFE TO CREATE HEALTH TO AVOID MEDICINE AS MUCH AS POSSIBLE.  

2)     IF YOU MUST SEEK MEDICAL ATTENTION, MAKE WELL INFORMED/EDUCATED DECISIONS.

Here are conservative numbers I obtained some years ago from the L.A. Times and S.B. Sun newspapers.  In the United States alone, 120,000 people die as a result of medical practice…errors.  We call this malpractice.  Medicine calls it iatrogenesis.  90,000 people die from diseases they did not have when they checked into the hospital.  This is called nosocomial infections.  100,000 people die from reactions to prescribed medication.  These are called side-effects.  If you are old enough you know people who sadly fall into one or more of these categories.  

            Add these three numbers and you have 310,000 people dying every year in America directly due to the practice of medicine.  Now, according to the CDC, in 2013 611,105 Americans died from heart disease and 584,881 from cancer.  From there we drop to 149,205 from chronic lower respiratory diseases such as emphysema/COPD.  This makes the practice of medicine the 3rd leading cause of death in the U.S!  

            This typically leads to one of two reactions.  The most common reaction is a shrug of the shoulders, perhaps a nervous laugh, and an “Oh, well, what can you do” attitude.  The less common reaction is real fear or perhaps even outrage.  The second reaction has the chance of prolonging and improving the quality of that person’s life.  It will drive you to change, to avoid the inevitable.  The first reaction, in contrast, will lead to the same statistical pile of death.

            The top three killers heart disease, cancer and the practice of medicine can, to a great extent, be prevented by lifestyle.  Weight management, regular aerobic exercise, plenty of water, well balanced diet, and supplementation are all very important.  Note that all of these reduce inflammation, which the literature is more and more telling us is the primary cause of many killer diseases.  This is where regular chiropractic adjustments, disc pump exercises, and deep tissue therapy come in.  They reduce the spinal component of your body’s inflammation, perhaps the largest harbor of inflammation in the body.  This is why adjustments are part of the process to avoid medicine, because no medicine at all is the only 100% safe medicine.

Besides the common cold, the #1 ailment among preschool children is the ear infection, technically called Otitis Media.  Quick anatomy lesson - Otitis media means an infection of the middle ear.  In the diagram above the middle ear is a mostly empty chamber on the other side of the ear drum whose purpose is to house the three tiny bones, called the hammer, anvil, and stirrup.  They are part of the hearing mechanism.  Very importantly, connecting this chamber to the back of the throat is a small drain line, called the Eustachian Tube.  Two more important points - First, the lining of the middle ear chamber is mucus membrane, and it continually makes a liquid called mucus.  Second, bacteria are everywhere in and on the human body, including the middle ear.  I know it’s gross that we are a walking bacteria factory, but that’s the way it is.

            So what exactly is an ear infection?  Here’s the sequence of events:

1)     The Eustachian tube gets blocked or shut off sealing up the middle ear chamber.  Now it’s closed up and nothing is getting in or out.    

2)     The mucus membranes continue to make the liquid mucus which builds up in the chamber.  This sounds painful.

3)     The bacteria love the warm wet environment and replicate like crazy.  This sounds very painful!

The logical question is what is the original cause of the ear infection?  Is it the bacteria?  Or is it the mucus?  Or is it the closed off Eustachian tube?  Quite obviously it’s the closed off Eustachian tube.

  

            And how does medicine treat the ear infection?  Do they treat the cause, the closed off Eustachian tube, or do they treat the effect, the bacterial growth?  We all know they treat the effect, the bacteria, with a poison called antibiotics.  And this leads to a couple of fun facts.

            The University of Pittsburgh published a study that showed that the use of antibiotics for the treatment of otitis media is no better than placebo.  And more to the point, the use of antibiotics can increase the chance of re-infection by 2.9 times.  What this means is that statistically, when you give a child an antibiotic for an ear infection, not only would he have gotten better at the same rate as if you had never given him the drug, he is now nearly 3 times more likely to develop a second ear infection.  Why, because we never let his body cure itself of the cause of the infection.  But, you say, my baby is crying and in pain right now.  What do I do if I don’t treat the symptom?  

            A retrospective study by Dr. Joan Fallon reviewing 116 otitis media case-files showed that chiropractic adjustments resolved 112 of them within 5 days, 2 took 7 days, and only 2 needed medical attention.  As it turns out the proper adjustment by a trained/experienced chiropractor can resolve the cause, the blocked Eustachian tube, 98% of the time.  No drugs.  No side effects.  No kidding.  And sometimes, literally overnight.  

Research done at the University of Helsinki, Finland was published by Dr. Tapio Videman in the 1980’s that would revolutionize modern orthopedic surgery.  Prior to this time orthopedic surgeons would routinely cast or otherwise immobilize the joints they did surgery on, allowing the joint to heal completely before initiating a program of physio-therapy/rehabilitation.  And then came Videman.

            His study was done largely using rabbits.  He would immobilize their hip joints to varying degrees.  No it doesn’t sound pleasant to be a rabbit in his lab!  Yes it does get worse for the nose-twitching rodents.  After a predetermined period of time he would sacrifice the rabbit, remove the hip joint, section it and look at it under electron microscope.  What he found was astounding!  Videman discovered that reducing the hip joint motion by just 50% for a period of a mere 2 weeks resulted in, using Videman’s words, “permanent and irreversible” damage to the cartilage surface of the joint.  Keep in mind that the cartilage is the hard and smooth as glass liner between nearly every joint in the body.

            When I first read this I wondered, “So what about when we cast a broken bone immobilizing for 6 weeks?”  Yep, this means that you will have permanent and irreversible damage to the cartilage of that joint too, but Videman’s study also concluded that if you restore the joint motion back to normal, the degeneration process will be stopped.  So if you wore a cast when you were a kid, not to worry, the amount of damage may technically be measureable, but is infinitesimal and inconsequential.    

            When the orthopedic surgeons looked at his study, a revolution occurred.  Today, if you have joint surgery on a Monday, with rare exception, you will be moving that joint by Tuesday.  As a result your chances of developing arthritis in that joint later in life is much much reduced. 

            A much quieter revolution happened at the same time in chiropractic circles.  Our main job is to restore motion to your spinal joints, right?  We use the adjustments to do this.  In my office we also use the disc-pump exercises to maintain that motion.  The question is how often should we do the adjustments?  How often should we do the exercises?  It’s actually much more complicated than a shoulder or hip surgery that involves a single joint.  Your spine has 76 joints in it, not including the 72 joints that hold your rib cage to your spine.  And I can only adjust maybe 3-6 vertebrae on any given office visit.  Videman says we have two weeks before permanent and irreversible degeneration kicks in.  If you were faced with this data, how often would you want to be checked and adjusted?  Yearly?  Monthly?  Every 2 weeks?  Weekly?  More often?

            So we reserve 4 times per week for acute fresh injuries.  3 times per week for intensive care.  2 times per week for reconstruction.  Once per week for ongoing wellness.  Based upon the above data getting adjusted less than weekly just does not make sense.  You, of course, can do whatever you want, but now you know “Why Weekly?”  

“My greatest legacy would NOT be from my children and grandchildren copying what I did right, but them learning from what I did wrong.” – Anonymous.    

Right now, think of someone you like and know well who is older than you, or perhaps a loved one who has already passed on to the next life.  What did they do wrong…with regard to their health?  What could they have done differently?  What might have improved either the quantity or quality of their life?  What can you learn from them?  How can you honor that life? 

Example from my life:  My sister passed last year.  She was 65.  I wish to honor her.  What did she do wrong?  She smoked.  She was overweight.  She was sedentary.  She took poor care of her spine.  She tended to negativity.  She only went out of the house when she had to.  I can honor her by learning from the things that prematurely ended her life.  It’s easy for me to not smoke.  But I tend to overweight (240# at my peak) so I commit to maintaining a healthy weight (185-190#).  I commit to regular exercise.  I commit to regular spinal adjustments and disc-pump exercises.  I commit to trying to look on the bright side of life.  And I commit to the outdoors.  Finally, I commit these things in the name of Sherrie.  This is one way I can honor her life.  Perhaps I did not learn any of these lessons directly from her, but I can still honor her by remembering them and applying them to my life in her memory. 

In contrast, let me offer an example of something I have learned from my father.  My father is my hero, my role model.  But he made one mistake, in my humble opinion, that has led to a premature decline in his cognition, his memory, his ability to grasp complex topics.  The mistake…he retired at about 55 years of age, with more than enough money and investments to last a couple of retirements.  Good for him.  The problem was that he just tinkered.  He puttered.  Did this and that.  Not to say there is anything wrong with tinkering and puttering, but in his mid 70’s his mental acuity, his short-term memory, even some of his long-term memory, is severely suffering.  The brain is a muscle and in my opinion he did not exercise it enough.  He is still alive and is still my hero, but I am watching my father fade all too quickly.

How do I honor him?  I think that when he retired he should have obtained another job, or volunteered, or taught…did something to expand his mind.  I’m very fortunate in that I love what I do.  I love working with you.  I love helping people to feel better and to gain health using nothing but my hands and the power that made the body.  So to honor my dad I will not retire until I can’t physically do this job.  That should keep my mind active and learning to prevent premature deterioration.  Have I told him this?  Of course not.  I don’t need to.  But I do tell him I love him and thank you. 

I could go on but we are at the end of the page.  Honor someone else’s life by improving yours.  Try to leave nothing for your kids to learn from your mistakes.  An impossible task maybe, but one I’ll keep shooting for.    

There is an expression that describes a moment in your life when the truth is very clear, a turning point in your life, a time of insight, an epiphany.  “Come to Jesus.”  It can be about anything, a relationship, school, work, addiction...anything.  Obviously it can mean just what it says, a time to come to Jesus.  But for the next page it is about health.  Have you ever had a “come to Jesus” moment?  I’ve had two that I will share.  The first was when I was 16 at the long-gone Melody-land Church in Anaheim.  I walked up to the front of this 70’s megachurch and became a Christian that day.  Come to Jesus in the most literal sense.  22 years later at the age of 39 I had another come to Jesus moment while driving my family to Lake Mead.  Many of you have heard this story, but it’s worth reliving.  Please read on…

            At 39 I had been a chiropractor for 13 years but had yet to personally and fully embrace my own teachings.  You might call me a hypocrite.  You would be correct.  I taught health but what I did could be called lazy and fat.  I also ignored my own growing spinal problems which significantly limited my ability to do anything physical, not that I did much.  So, I was driving my family that Memorial weekend when I felt a pain in my chest and dizziness in my head.  I managed to pull the car over to the side of the road and get it in park just before I passed out.  To keep a long story short, we went to the E.R. and subsequently to my medical doctor.  I did not have a heart attack.  No diagnosis was ever made.  I had a shot across the bow, a near miss.  Perhaps Jesus really did play a role in this second come to Jesus moment of my life.  I cannot say.  But it was at that moment that I committed to my personal health.  My life has since been transformed.

            When Christians literally come to Jesus they often comment how their lives are changed.  When I embraced Christianity at the age of 16 my outward life didn’t change much at all.  I was and still remain a very conservative person with a controlled life.  But when I embraced health at the age of 39 everything in my physical life changed.  15 years later I am thinner, more active, eat better, have more energy, greater mobility, and have less pain.  Although I am hardly the ultimate model of health and wellness, I consider myself a better than adequate example of how to live a healthy life.  As a general rule any time I recommend you to do something for your health I am already doing it.  Some examples are weekly adjustments, daily disc-pump exercises, periodic deep tissue, regular exercise, weight control, dietary restraint, supplementation, water consumption, stress management. 

            I give every patient in my office a detailed explanation of the subluxation, of how inflammation and scar tissue cause pain and spinal degeneration.  I teach my three-tool-method of treatment to restore spinal function and reduce inflammation and scar tissue, thereby moving you further from pain and slowing degeneration.  Some of you just want to feel better and move on.  And some of you want something longer lasting but life just gets in the way.  And then some of you have your own health come to Jesus moment and stay forever.  It took me 39 years to have my own so I will never criticize you for your own decisions.  But I have been here for you since 1991, and will continue to be for another 20+ years, Jesus willing.     

PAIN TOLERANCE is not the same thing as PAIN THRESHOLD.  Threshold is when we feel it.  Tolerance is how we react to it.  In the movie Lone Survivor, with Mark Wahlberg, we see the story of Marcus Luttrell, Navy Seal, and his team in Afghanistan.  If you have seen the movie or read the book this is the highest example of trained pain tolerance, continuing to fight, move, and function with multiple wounds and fractures.  It is unbelievable.   

            But pain threshold, our topic, is first and foremost genetically programmed in.  It is when your nervous system senses that something is wrong, or when your brain starts paying attention to it.  Even though it is programming, that programming is also highly influenced by things such as your emotional state, diet, activity level, medical conditions, sleep, even weather.  In other words your pain threshold varies over the course of a day, and certainly over a lifetime.  It is for this reason that pain is NOT a MEASUREMENT of your health status.  It is an INDICATOR .  This is why I can’t use it as a measurement of your health.  Let me give you an example.

            Jerry has chest pain that gets worse when he is emotionally stressed, when he exerts himself, when he has had a poor night’s sleep, and when he drinks too much coffee.  When he is calm he may have no pain at all.  These are his symptoms or subjective findings based upon his own personal pain thresholds.  His cardiologist discovers 90% occlusion of 2 arteries in Jerry’s heart.  His EKG is abnormal.  His cholesterol is high.  While chest pain is a bad indicator and no chest pain is a good indicator, it would be beyond stupid to use chest pain as a measurement of the status of the underlying cause of Jerry’s chest pain, which in this case is heart disease.

            And so it is with the spine.  Back and related pains such as neck pain, headaches, arm/leg pain are indicators, not measurements.  The thresholds for these pains will vary with the time of day, emotions, diet, sleep, exercise, too much coffee, not enough wine, weather, etc.  That is why we MUST use measurements, not indicators to know how your spine is doing.  Range of motion, inflammation levels(TSV), and complicating factors, as you know, are the three measurements I use to monitor the health of your spine.  I never use your pain to measure your spine, just as I never use my pain to measure my spine.  It is bad doctoring to ever use an indicator as a measurement tool.   

            Having said that, just like Jerry is certainly welcome to use his chest pain as a measurement and ignore his doctor, you too can use your back pain as a measurement and ignore your doctor.  The consequence for Jerry is his life.  The consequence for you is your mobility.  I can only speak for myself when I say that my future mobility as I move into my 60’s and beyond IS my life, and I plan to hold on to as much of it as I can.  What about you?      

 

             

How do we get sick?

Overwhelming Attack – This is when we get hit by an extremely virulent germ or such great quantity of germs that the healthiest of us is likely to get sick.  For example, if you are exposed to Ebola you are going to get sick.  If you have 10 people with a cold sneeze in your face you are probably going to get sick. 

Underwhelming Immune System – This is by far the more common pathway to illness.  We are all constantly exposed to low levels of flu viruses, cold viruses, and other pathogenic viruses and bacteria.  You have more bacteria in your mouth at this moment than the total number of all the humans who have lived on planet earth, many billions, and that’s just in your mouth.  99.9% of germs are not disease causing, and some are synergistic.  We need those in order to survive.  For example, humans cannot digest vitamin B12.  We require a bacterium to process it for us in our gut so that we can absorb it.  Without that bacteria, we would eventually die of pernicious anemia (the end result of vitamin B12 deficiency).

But there is that .1% hanging around, present all the time, just waiting for an opportunity.  They are called opportunistic infections.  This last week for me is the perfect example of the Underwhelming Immune System infection.  Last weekend my wife and I spent the weekend at her mother’s (Pat) in Nevada.  I have grown to love my Sleep Number bed but the negative effect is that I hate all other beds.  So, Friday night in Pat’s guest room bed was a horrible experience, leaving me with only 3 hours sleep.  That’s just not enough for an old guy like me.  In the morning I went for a hike and then began 6 straight hours of labor in her garage reorganizing the entire thing.  In the afternoon, the hot Nevada sun was streaming through the door and by the end of the afternoon I was completely spent. 

Perhaps Saturday night could have rejuvenated me, but I was only able to finagle 5 hours sleep that night making it 8 hours over 2 nights.  By Sunday morning I was done.  Whatever virus that has attached my throat (pharynx) and my voice box (larynx), was likely already hanging around waiting for the right opportunity.  And I provided it.  I did not catch this from anyone and it is unlikely that I would give it to anyone either, being an opportunistic germ.  But since you might not be at tiptop form right now, like me over the weekend, I will wear a mask.

Preventing illness starts with rest, time for your body to recover from each day, and continues with exercise, proper diet, and plenty of water.  These are the most important basics that we should all be working on every day.  

               

             

I’m sure you have heard the saying, “A failure to plan is a plan to fail.”  I guess the maker of this aphorism is telling us to plan stuff or stuff won’t get done.  Perhaps he could have said, “Plan stuff or stuff won’t get done.”  Not as eloquent I suppose, but let’s talk about some health stuff.  If you’re in your 20’s, or if you remember when you were in your 20’s, you probably didn’t give a lot of thought to your health, right?  Well, let me tell you a story.  My nearly 80 year old mother-in-law spent the summer with us and at that age, her health is almost the only thing she thinks about, or should I say her lack of health is nearly the only thing she thinks about.  She talks about it constantly.  She repeats the same thought about her lack of health over and over.  My wife sometimes will put a handful of bobby pins in one pocket and transfer them to the other pocket, one at a time with each comment her mom makes about her health.  At the end of the day the first pocket will be empty and there may be more than 20 or 30 bobby pins in the second pocket.  Conclusion: Something seems to happen between the age of 20 and the age of 80 where health goes from a non-issue to the overriding issue.  Does it really need to be that way?

            Good health is not an accident.  It requires an investment of time and energy about which I have written 139 previous articles discussing.  Health topics include things such as diet, exercise, nutrition, supplementation, chiropractic, massage therapy, homeopathy, acupuncture, relaxation, meditation, flexibility, strength, aerobics, core, endurance, etc. etc.  But to make it super simple I am going to boil it down to just two things, “Just One More Thing” and “The Rule of Ones.”  The first is the plan to succeed, and the second, the plan to not fail.  If you employ these simple two concepts as early in your life as possible you may get to your 80’s with enough health such that you can think about something else other than your lack of it.  And you’ll keep the bobby pins in the first pocket.

            JUST ONE MORE THING – This concept is so simple.  Pick just one thing to add to your health/wellness regimen.  It could be something easy or something hard.  And then do it until it becomes a routine part of your day/week.  It could be drinking more water or taking a new vitamin or exercising or adjustments or disc pump exercises or anything.  You pick.  And once it has become a routine part of your day/week, add one more thing.  This way you are never biting off more than you can chew and increasing your chance of success.  You set the pace.

            THE RULE OF ONES – This goes hand in hand with the above rule.  It says that whatever the “just one more thing” is that you are doing, that you will not let “ONE” week go by without doing that thing “ONE” time…the rule of ones.  Taking a vitamin or engaging in an exercise one time during a week is not success, but the rule acts as a stop gap to avoid failure.  If you miss one week you are likely to miss a second week and if you miss 2 weeks you have almost certainly failed.

So, two sides of the same coin.  Just One More Thing to layer health activities on top of each other over a lifetime to be healthy for a lifetime.  The Rule of Ones to prevent failure.  A plan to succeed and a plan to not fail.  This is how you make resolutions.

Perhaps you might remember the original Willy Wonka and The Chocolate Factory’s Veruca Salt, and her exclamation, “but I want it nowwwww!”  If you are even a little bit like Veruca, prepare yourself because you are not going to like to read about me and my spine.  I am going to use my own story to show you what being a patient patient means. 

            I became a chiropractor at the age of 26.  Many chiropractors go into our profession because they were helped by one.  I was not, but my wife’s daily relentless headaches were.  I was impressed, so here I am.  Although I did get adjusted in my 20’s and 30’s I did not become serious about my own spine until I was disabled by it at the age of 39.  It was Memorial Day 2000 when it all came to a head.  There is much more to this story than we have the space for, but at that time I could not take a step on my right leg without a severe sharp pain in my right hip, along with constant aching pain in my right leg and foot.  My family at the time was playing a fair amount of tennis, which I could not do.  I could barely walk, let alone run.  At the time I feared this was forever.  Finally, after 13 years of giving advice to patients, I began to take my own advice.  I started Initial Intensive Care with frequent adjustments and deep tissue therapy. 

            It would take months of attention before the pain slowly faded from a 3-4 on my 1-4 scale to a 1-2.  I continued with my weekly adjustments and intermittent deep tissue therapy.  I began a, now, 14 year long commitment to weight loss and weight management, aerobic exercise, supplementation, and hydration.  I changed every aspect of my health behavior slowly incorporating one change after another.  Despite years of continuous care my right leg would vary from a 0 to a 2.  I was happy for the 0’s, accepting of the 1’s, and frustrated when a 2 came around.  No 3’s thankfully.

            For reasons and circumstances beyond the space here I began a running program.  In March 2009 while out for my morning run I felt what I can only describe as a tapping at my L5 vertebra with every step.  When I walked it stopped.  When I ran it tapped.  So I walked home and within 2 hours my back was frozen and so weak I could literally not stand without holding myself up with a large walking stick.  Three more months of intensive care.  More deep tissue therapy.  Recovery from this injury came over the spring and summer.  I only missed one day of work by sheer force of will, not because I was ready to adjust patients.

            As much for myself as for you, I developed what I now call my Disc Pump Exercises.  I have been doing these for 3-4 years now and as a result of my positive experience, have incorporated them into what I call my Three Tool Model of treatment.  I attribute my newly-found stabilization to the combination of ALL THREE tools, weekly adjustments, daily disc pump exercises, and deep tissue therapy every month or two (it should be monthly but I’m working on that). 

            In all it has taken me 14 years, perhaps 1,000 adjustments, scores of hours of deep tissue therapy, and 3-4 years of near daily disc pump exercises to achieve the greatest stability my spine has experienced since this mess all started while driving through Victorville in 2000.  My last aggravation was a minor one just before last Christmas. 

            And what have I learned?  1) Patience.  2) It takes complete devotion to all three treatment tools to get maximum results.  3) I should have taken my own advice long before I was 39.  4) You can never fix the spine, or any joint, just improve and manage it, but you can do so very successfully with the right treatment, enough time, and, again, patience, my patients.      

I never really liked kids…until I had one.  My daughter was born in 1984.  By then I had been married for 4 years.  I was in my second year of chiropractic college.  I had my B.S. degree in Biology from UC Irvine.  My wife and I had many friends in similar stages of life.  Some had children.  Some didn’t.  I just didn’t see the magic.  I didn’t want to play with their kids.  I wasn’t really sure I wanted one.  I knew it was an inevitability that we would have one someday.  It wasn’t that I didn’t want one, it was just that I wasn’t sure that I did want one… very different.  Truth be told before we were even married, my wife and I had picked out a name for a girl, Kira, from a really bad movie with Gene Kelly and Olivia Newton John, Xanadu.  No boy’s name. 

            February 1984.  We found out my wife, Diana, was pregnant.  How did that happen?!  Fast forward to October 12, 1984.  Kira is born…and…BAM!!  I am completely smitten by her.  It’s like falling in love in a different way than I have ever fallen in love before.  This has happened 4 times in my life.  The first was Grad Night 1978.  Within a month of that fateful date I’m asking Diana, “What would you think if I asked you to marry me?”  Perhaps not the most romantic proposal, but at 17 years of age, who knows what romance is?!  The second was when Kira was born.  The third was my son, Ricky.  And the fourth, as most of you know, was when my grandson, Jackjack, came to life. 

            But that first child changed everything.  I got to know just how precious children are.  I got to know just how much of a responsibility it is to care for them, to love them, to treasure them, to protect them.  I got to know what a truly full heart feels like.  And along the way I discovered that every baby I hold, every child I tease, every kid I quiz about his or her school or favorite video game, every wonderful hug I get fills my heart just a little.  And every time it fills up, more room is added to ladle in more love. 

            In 1987 I earned my license to practice chiropractic in the state of California.  The great thing about what I do is that I can make my practice look like anything I want.  I wanted to incorporate children in it.  But to do so I needed to learn alot more, and so I did.  The Peter Pan Potential is a series of pediatrics training courses for chiropractors.  The Pediatrics Council of the International Chiropractors Association offers a chiropractic diplomate program in pediatrics.  I underwent a year of that particular training. 

            And right after that training patient zero happened, my son, Ricky.  This is 1991 now, and Ricky the 2 year old has a raging left sided ear infection.  Otoscopic evaluation of the right side is completely normal.  Left side is red, bulging, angry.  He’s crying.  Fever.  I had learned from Dr. Joan Fallon how to handle this, so I did just what she trained me to do, I adjusted the joint between the base of Ricky’s skull and his neck.  No exaggeration, his left ear was completely clear and normal the next morning. 

            And from there it has gone on and on and on.  Hundreds of kids, many on my wall, all a little or a perhaps alot healthier.  They are fun to play with, fun to work with, and just a joy to be a part of their life.

            But what always will mean the most to me is the moment when a parent hands over their greatest treasure, their child, to my hands, and demonstrates the ultimate trust in me to do what I think is best for their child.  Each of these moments is the greatest honor of my life.  Thank you.