How it all started...

I have finally decided to post a blog. It may be a little long in some sections and may be boring to some of you, but I have received a decent amount of requests in regards to a little more detail of how and why my health struggle has served as my inspiration in becoming a Doctor of Chiropractic, so here you have it. My reason for posting a lot of the health problems I have gone through is not at all to whine about every little thing that has happened, because I actually find it all quite amusing. But instead, I want to prove that we go through things for a reason. Most of my friends, family, and acquaintances, do not know nearly half of all of this information about me, because for the longest time I was uncomfortable sharing it. I guess I am more comfortable now in recent years, maybe due to the fact that I understand it all a little better. It has all happened for a reason; meaning it was all in God’s plan for me, to get me where I am today and I believe, to carry me even further in the future to help others. The majority of the first posts will be about my health and Chiropractic. Then I will be posting funny stories about crazy patients, health tips, inspirational stories, and who knows what else!

Discovering your sense of purpose comes easy for some of us, but for others it never seems to be discovered. For some of us, it simply happens. Oh yes we paid our dues to get here, trust me. We worked our tails off to get the job done, but I’d say we are blessed to have figured it all out so soon. I never imagined I would become a Doctor. Heck I never even wanted to go to College! I couldn’t wait to even graduate high school. All that wasted time learning things I would never use in life. Who cares about diagramming sentences, what happened in Germany in the 1700’s, or figuring out how to solve an algebra problem. How would all of this useless information help me succeed in life? My thoughts were, it wouldn’t. My plan was to get done with this dull part of life, leave the boring farm I felt stuck at, and go to New York City and be famous! It all seemed so simple. I was thin and in shape, thanks to many years of gymnastics, attractive and tall. I was going to be a model, I decided. All of my friends and family said I should be, so why not? Well I soon discovered why not.

When something seems like the “right fit” and is relatively easy to fall into, it is more than likely not what God had in store for you. Yea you may be able to fake it for a while. Oh you will probably even make good money and convince yourself that you are happy. But you won’t be satisfied with yourself, and one day eventually, everything will make perfect sense. At least that is what happened to me. It’s like someone hit me in the back of the head and I woke up to reality. I finally realized, okay, this is what I’m meant to do. I didn’t necessarily want to do it at first. I knew the schooling I was about to get myself into, and remember, I hate school. But I knew this would give me life-long satisfaction and purpose. It’s safe to say that I am one of the few that has passion as the driving force behind their career choice. Not passion for money, status, or interest, but passion because of first-hand experience. My profession saved my life. And who saved my life was an amazing Chiropractor.

At first glance of my story, you might judge me as a hypochondriac. But no, I just really have a lot of things happen to me. Hardly anyone knows about most of these problems because I am not at all a complainer, nor do I like drawing attention to myself in this way. My problems actually started right at birth. I tease my mom and say that she intentionally tried to kill me when I was born because she knew I was going to be such a problem. Later in life, after being in Chiropractic school and learning about different conditions and things that can go wrong, I quickly put together that my mom actually had eclampsia while I was born. This makes perfect sense because as soon as I was being birthed, the moment my head cleared, her body contracted around my neck causing me to turn blue, which then caused the inexperienced Doctor to panic. This then ended with him pulling me out rather forcefully and quickly by my head. All of this will play in significance on my health, as you will find out later. I was not in the clear yet though as the cord was apparently wrapped around my neck causing me to stay blue for moments even longer. Thankfully though, everything soon appeared “normal” for both my mom and I. I continued on as a healthy baby, with my parents giving no other thought towards my birth.

Things didn’t really start to get interesting with my health until around age eleven. Sure I had the usual childhood illnesses like repetitive ear infections, which with much regret from my mom later on, led to getting ear tubes. We later found out that a simple Chiropractic adjustment can allow the built up fluid in the ear canal to drain, without causing harm to the eardrum like tubes do. I had the occasional strep throat and what seemed to develop into a tradition for me to have pink eye on every Easter Holiday, but everything seemed pretty “normal.” Just basic childhood illnesses. Well, like I previously stated, if anyone really knows me, they know that I am not a complainer. The moment you hear me actually complain about something not feeling right, there is definitely a problem.

With this being said, it’s safe to say that I was actually a pretty sick child. I can remember at the tender age of five or six, being in choir at church. Man I hated choir. Not only is singing just not my thing, but I remember at almost every choir practice excusing myself to the bathroom so I could huddle down on the floor, grasping my knees, trying desperately not to throw up. I didn’t understand how everyone else could stand upright for the entire hour, and in addition sing, without feeling like someone was squeezing off their oxygen supply and causing them to double over in pain. I always blamed it on my stomach if questioned. Because my goodness, did I have stomach problems. And it was just an easier explanation I guess. I didn’t understand people who didn’t have stomach problems. I thought it was normal. No matter what I ate, or even worse sometimes was if I didn’t eat, my stomach would cause me to be in the most horrible pain.

My mom actually took me to a specialist when I was around six to see if there was something wrong. They didn’t give us much of an answer. Just said that I was “sensitive.” I also couldn’t stand for anything to be restricted around my stomach including seat belts and even tight pants. Everything always had to be loose. My mom says that even when I was a baby, I would try to push the seat belt on the car seat away from my stomach. I dreaded anything where I knew we might be standing for more than ten minutes. School field trips were an absolute nightmare for me, especially if it were a museum. Always the same thing happened; extreme stomach pain with restricted lung movement leading to blackouts. Nothing would help so I rarely said anything, because what was the point?