Christmas and National Boards

This is Kim's first Christmas and our first Christmas in California. We are celebrating it with Jeff and Becca. It's been nice to take a break from school - especially this past quarter. I failed Infectious Disease and have the chance to take it again this next quarter. I am allowed to miss one class that is required for national boards, so as long as I pass all my classes this next quarter I'll be okay. I have been scanning in class notes to be able to study better and to sell them for my class and myself for profit. It's really coming together. Blake is even helping me with setting up a website to host all the files.

Kim has been growing up extremely well this year. She is still tiny which is great :) She's able to wave, shake and nod her head. In fact today when we were at the Christmas party, someone asked Kim if she was adorable and Kim nodded. It was so precious.

She still isn't vaccinated. Both Monica and I are, and we just don't know if we want to. There are pros and cons both ways and it's tough to figure it out. Part of me wants to say that if you eat healthy, move well, and think well you'll be fine. The other part of me thinks of Murphy's law and that she could get sick and die. I am not prepared to make a decision now, but I know how I feel. I feel that if we were to get her vaccinated I would feel like we gave in and would regret it. So I need to study it out and figure out this controversial issue. Needless to say, she is still cute.

As for Christmas, Monica and I sat down and wrote down some Christmas traditions that we would want to implement. Obviously Kim isn't aware of what's going on now, but seeing her cousin who just turned three we can tell it means a lot for him. We started to wonder what do we want to focus on during Christmas time. It's easy to talk about Santa and say Merry Christmas, but how do you bring Christ in one of the most busiest times of the year?

This year it helped that there were three baptisms within two weeks in December. It forced us to do church work, but still it was hard to bring it home. Our washer gave up the ghost so we had to buy a new one (THANK YOU Craigslist), also bought a wii with a projector (also cheap deals - thank you again craigslist). Monica got the whole family to pull together some money so that I could get a chiropractor table. She got $600 together! WOW! I got her a silhouette and power tools that she wanted.

Overall this season has been fun. I have loved being able to just be home with Monica and Kim. They are my family and the reason that I work so hard. I love them with all my heart. I am lucky to have such a wonderful wife and daughter.

Gaining my Philosophy

I wrote this to my family after reading a post about having a sick child in the hospital.

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Sheesh that is hard. I thank my lucky stars that we have Kim. She is one of the biggest highlights of my life. I am so glad that she is happy and healthy. It's scary to learn about all of these diseases in school and how even just simple actions can have large consequences later in life.

Take for instance an avid runner who lives in Berkley. He loves to run and in Berkley there are hills. So he runs up the hills. This causes him to run in a constant flexed position. He is only 24 and now can't run uphill. Why? Because with every step he took running uphill, caused his bones to deform in the front and collapse. Compression fracture. Simple little things like that. You think you are doing the right thing, by eating right, exercising, etc. and then you find out that you didn't do something right and now your life changes. Blah! Not cool.

It has been interesting to learn about philosophy. We are talking about how we don't cure anything. We don't even treat any symptoms. All we do is remove the interference within the nervous system and allow your own spirit heal you. It's not even your body. A dead body has a nervous system, but it doesn't have a spirit. Our spirit uses our master organ (brain) to communicate with the rest of the body (through the nervous system directly which then connects to the endocrine system) and together it's able to correct just about any problem it faces. IT'S INCREDIBLE! But it's also relieving to know that I don't have to heal anyone. They can do it for themselves. I don't have to coach them on how to be healthy, their spirit will tell them. It's not my job to show you how to be healthy, there are other people who get paid for that. I am just there to help you connect your spirit with your body. Pretty cool stuff.

Ok, well that's what I have been learning in school. It feels good to actually put it in words. Kinda weird to also know that I am saying this type of thing.

The Stress Mounts

Fourth Quarter... The dreaded fourth quarter. Infectious Diseases with Dr. Boss. He is known to flunk half of the students in a single blow.

I was so stressed about this quarter that I hurt my back just a few days before it even started! The first week they told us all the homework needed to do, the 17 online quizzes, 2 papers, group presentation, shadow a doctor, and more. Not only that but I had someone from the stake presidency of my church calling me to get me to talk in stake conference. Also, with Kimmy starting to crawl we had to baby proof the house and make sure that my wonderful wife was happy.

I broke. I came home one day and couldn't do it. I called my my dad who also did graduate school in Idaho (super cold). They didn't have money, little food, two kids, and somehow they made it! He gave me great advise that calmed me down. I then called up my good friend JD Chilton who is a counselor in the Elder's quorum. He gave me a blessing which really calmed me down. THANK YOU!

It's been hard on my wife though to see me go through this. I really want to make it up to her so if you have any suggestions, please let me know so that I can help her know that she is still number one in my life :)

Quarter of Neurology

This quarter started out a little hard as I was learning all about the central nervous system. I learned about this before, however not at this level. Learning about how the nervous system really works has brought on a new meaning to how the body truly works. It's tough because we are not taught this in undergrad. The brain is typically a mystery.

We learned about the anatomy for the first few weeks and it was hard to put things together. After midterms however it started to make sense. The reason being is that we started to talk about pathologies associated with lesions with the nervous system. We would have questions such as, "If you have left hemiplagia (arm and leg weakness), right decreased pinwheel (pain) sensation, and left decreased tuning fork (vibratory) sensation, where is the lesion?" If I had seen that before now I would have laughed knowing that I had no idea what was even being asked. Now, I know that the lesion is on the left side of the medulla.

It's incredible how once you have someone's life in your hands and you are responsible for their health, you learn really fast. Good doctors care and know how to care.

Lost Generation

I was shown this at school and thought that it was very neat to be able to read a poem forewards and backwards to have two separate meanings.

Being Nice Works

There have always been two stories that have affected my life tremendously. Both talk about the power of being nice to others and about attitudes.

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Old Man Gatekeeper -

A man came walking in to a city and was stopped by an old gatekeeper. The man asked the Gatekeeper, "How is this city? How are the people?"

The Gatekeeper replied, "How was the place that you came from?"

The man spoke back, "Oh, they were horrible! Full of mischief, high crimes, murders, robberies every day!"

To that the Gatekeeper said with a frown, "Well, you'll find that here."

Within a few hours another man approached the Gatekeeper.

"How is this city? How are the people?" He asked.

"How was the place that you came from?" Replied the Gatekeeper.

"Oh they were wonderful, everyone always helped you out with anything that was going on. Didn't matter if you needed your roof patched, lawn mowed or needed a baby sitter, people were so willing to drop everything and help."

To that the Gatekeeper replied, "Well, you'll find that here."

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Shopkeeper

After moving in to a town for only a week, Abby started to complain to her new friend about a store.

"They were so rude! I can't believe how they treated me! You have been here longer than I have; you should go in there and have that employee fired!"

Within a week Abby went back to the store and was surprised when the employee was nice to her! "Is there anything else I can do for you? I sure hope you have a nice day!" The employee remarked to Abby.

Abby ran to her friend just waiting to hear the gossip of how her friend must have railed the manager and told them off. When she asked her question, she was surprised to hear what her friend did.

"I walked in to the store and told them about how you had just moved in to town. They were so happy to know that it just made your day when you went to their store and found them to be so nice and customer friendly. That their store was one of the best in town!"

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Biochem - As you know my class has been having problems with our biochem teacher. We weren't taught biochem last quarter and this quarter was even worse. We were getting ready to talk with the dean and file a formal complaint. At the end of the worse day, I explained to him where we were coming from (about last quarter). He was happy to know that we weren't just trying to complain.

The next class period I made sure to talk with him and be very nice (I even brought Monica and Kim for support. Who can sad no to Kim?). He then made it possible to recover some points and that his intention isn't to fail us. He was very willing to help us out and I made sure to let him know that we were very grateful.

Funny thing was that over half the class left within an hour (it's a two hour class) and those left were our main core class (the other half are from other quarters). He took down our names to know that we were the ones really interested in doing what it took to understand this.

I am so glad that I have learned the power of being nice to others. They are people too and want to be treated nice.

First Neck Adjustment!

As you can tell from my last post, I was a little frustrated today. Some of the things going through my head have been:

• Monica has been having her wisdom teeth coming in for the past three months and we haven't been able to pay to have it done.
• Biochem and all that drama
• Am I ever going to be that successful chiropractor? It seems so far away sometimes and out of reach.
• Tons of memorization with these classes. I am finally learning all new information in my classes and can't rely on what I learned in undergrad.

However, I had something to look forward to today. Matt Alexander asked if I wanted to come over on Wednesdays to practice our technique. He finally got a table and since he is 5 quarters ahead of me I was thrilled that he even offered. We talked a lot about chiropractic which helped me get reconnected to why I wanted to be one in the first place, but then we started on adjusting. I was so excited because he wanted to tackle the cervicals.

He showed me some things, but then he had me try. I got so nervous. I started to sweat and I could feel a slight tremble in my hands. "Come on James," I told myself, "you can do this. Be confident." I was able to correctly find his subluxation after a few moments. Then came the scary part. He actually trusted me to thrust on his neck. I couldn't believe that he would even allow me since I had never done it before.

I tried once. "Not enough speed and power, try again." He wanted me to try again after crinking his neck?! If I was nervous before, I certainly was now. I got in position and tried again. "Almost, you just about had it. Try again," he said understandingly.

How could he trust me to do this?! We are talking about his neck here! Sweat beading off my forehead, I tried one more time. Unfortunately I had backed off way too much and was even worse than my first try. For some reason he said that I could go again!

You've got to be kidding me! I have already tried three times. There's no way. He insisted and I willingly obeyed. He helped me setup again. "Come one James. You have this. You can do it. I know you can. Power and speed. You have it in you. Don't hold back." I thrusted and within an instant I could feel the difference. Movement and energy went into his joints and I could feel the excitement of landing a perfect adjustment.

"You did it!" He yelled with excitement. My first adjustment! I could barely believe that I was able to do it. I can feel the confidence come back into my body knowing that this is real and very possible. Thank you Matt. You have no idea how much I needed that adjustment.

Biochemistry 2... Can't get much worse than this

Biochemistry may sound daunting, but when taught correctly can be very exciting. Unfortunately without a great teacher, you left on your own to attempt to understand it by yourself. My whole class is lost. We are now on week four and you can feel the tension inside the classroom. At the end of the class people rack him with questions expressing their frustration in what is being taught.

One side of me feels like we should suck it up and "grab the bull by the horns" like my dad would always tell me. However, the other side thinks that it's ridiculous that he doesn't take the time to really teach us. He'll tell us biochem, but not teach it. The slides go up, there is some monologue, he asks us if there are any questions, we don't even know how to ask a question because the question would be, "I didn't get any of that, could you teach that again please?", then it starts all over again.

I hope that I can pass this thing.

Third Quarter is Here

Finally it's here! I am finally learning how to adjust!! YAHOO!!! I am taking several classes that are still in the hard sciences, but I am also taking Diversified and Toggle.

Diversified is actually practiced by 95% of the current chiropractors. If you have been to a chiropractor, the chances is that you had that type of adjustment. It's easy to understand and do. It's also a full spine technique meaning that they will look at your whole body.

Toggle is the first upper cervical technique that I am actually learning (and have really made contact with). Upper cervical means that it's worried about adjusting only the first two vertebrae in the spine. That area is like the rest button for the body. The adjustments there are very light and have a lot of finesse. The tables are also lower with a head piece that will support the head while you lie down on your side. It's pretty comfortable actually. Kinda cool. We'll see where it leads.

Can't Wait!

At first I was looking forward to a three week vacation, but now I can't wait to get started again! I lasted about a week and then I started going bonkers. Without a job and only free time, you can't help but get bored with playing games or loafing around. We are made to work! My poor wife had to suffer with my drive to work as we did yard work for my brother and other projects. We came to the conclusion that I am my father's son.

My dad would take us on vacation and within a couple of days, he was working on something. Well, I lasted a week before that set in. Maybe it gets shorter with age :)

Finals are coming and going

Second quarter is starting to seem like the past as I only have two more tests to go. This quarter has been rather tough in that the classes have been hard, but I have been more relaxed for some reason. It's hard to explain, but in the end I am just glad that I am passing my classes. C really is for Chiropractor :)

Are Chiropractors "Real" Doctors?

I have heard this a ton. The conversation typically goes like this:

"Hey did you know that I am going to be a chiropractor?"
"Oh that's cool, but why wouldn't you want to be a real doctor?"

BURN!! Well, what most people don't realize is that we go to school on average longer than Medical Doctors. I actually didn't know that till I read this article. It explains nicely how sure enough, I will be a doctor when I graduate. Why else would I be paying $7,000/quarter on tuition alone?

Update on Pre-Chiropractic Clubs!

I have GREAT news! The idea that I proposed to my boss about the pre-chiropractic clubs being setup at the different universities was sent and approved by the president of the school! Not only that but I will get $100/club setup! SWEET!!

Align Life Nutrition

There is a lot of confusion when you talk about nutrition. Who do you trust? Where do you buy your food? What should I avoid? They keep changing what's bad for me, does it even matter?!

I have asked these questions a lot of times. I have been battling weight all my life and it's been a frustrating war. I know that I should eat veggies and take out processed foods/drinks along with NO SUGAR! I should exercise and I always feel better when I do, but I still don't. I would love to do a cleanse, but which one? Are they healthy? Do they work? So many questions!!

That's when I found http://www.alignlifenutrition.com/ with Dr. . He spoke to Life West and then the next day at the seminar that I went to. What I liked about him is that he became a chiropractor first (so he has the philosophy) then went on to become a naturopath. There were other things that he went into, but needless to say, he has the credentials.

He showed us how the retail/prescription vitamins actually had neuotoxins! I was worried because three very famous pre-natal vitamins contained known toxins.

The thing that I liked the most, was that he would send you to get lab tested for all the toxins in your body (pesticides, neurotoxins, heavy metals, etc) before he would get you on his program. There are too many programs out there that just say that they work without having the scientific research to back it up.

In the end, they have a lot of great products that I would like to get into. One of them is the UltimateBodyCleanse. It's about $220, but it does everything! Improve Immune Function, Digestive System Repair, Liver Support and Repair, Parasite Elimination, and Toxin Removal. Can't wait to try it!

Facebook

I went to a seminar this past weekend that had pretty good information. They talked about fan pages in facebook, nutrition, and business marketing.

The facebook fan page generator is something that Dr. Jason Dietch created. It's really well done and what's neat is that they'll actually send out a professional videographer and create a wonderful video for your facebook page. They charge a decent price, but since I have a background in computers I decided to take a look at it.

It's pretty simple cause you just have to have an addon called static FBML. Once you have that you just do HTML/PHP/CSS to create your page. The idea is that now you can setup a landing site for your business that will be different than all the rest. With that in mind, now you can drive more people to your business and market your business.

Now I just need to do the coding and figure out what I want exactly. I already started the site called Balanced Wellness and was shocked that it wasn't taken already. I figured that everyone (including myself) is always saying that we have a hard time bringing our life into balance. Yet everyone has this drive to come into balance.

The other buzz word is Wellness. Because of the major focus on health care that's going on currently, everyone is concerned with how to get and stay well.

If anyone would like to help me out with this, please let me know.

Possible New Club?

After a seminar last week, I started to think about something that he suggested. There were about thirty of us there listening to him and he proposed a question.

"What would you guys have done if I had not come because I was unable to get the plane ride or for whatever reason? Would you have just left? If that's what you were thinking WHY?! You should instead all get in a circle and then call out someone to be in the middle. Then say, 'You have one minute to convince us about Chiropractic'."

This got me thinking about how we would do that in district and zone meetings in the mission. We would have to prepare a 1,5,10,30,45 min presentation of our lessons. Why not do the same with Chiropractic?

Today at church someone asked if there were chiropractic students there. Marsha Marie and I rose our hands. He then asked, "Why are you called alternative medicine?" I froze. So I told him to ask Marsha Marie. WHY COULDN'T I ANSWER SUCH AN EASY QUESTION? I should have been able to handle that.

So the club would have someone get in the center and we'd give them a simple question and give them 1-5 min to give their explanation. There is a club already called, 'Toastmasters' however they are more about giving presentations to a defined group instead of impromptu.

Adjusting to the New

Life has been pretty crazy the past few weeks. I ended first quarter with five A's and four B's! YAY!! We then went to Utah to bless Kimberly and see tons of family and friends. After that we came home and got right back to work with school.

It certainly has been difficult adjusting to this lifestyle. I have been the Ward Mission Leader now for awhile in my church and that in and of it's self is stressful, but then to know that I am balancing a new baby, with graduate school along with how to pay the bills have been quite tough.

Luckily I have certain activities that help me relax and refocus. I was able to play with my brother and nephew over the internet with a game called Spring. WAY fun as my brother and I dominated the first round, and then got completely destroyed the following. As far as being able to refocus, I was able to listen to a great speaker that came all the way up from San Diego. His name is Dr. Matt Hubbard.

There have been multiple people who have come in and tried to be motivational, but for some reason he has struck me the most. He is dynamic and exciting, but also passionate about what he does (just google "Hard Core Chiropractic" and see it on YouTube). I feel that he has taken the seven habits to heart and is constantly trying to push himself to do better. Those type of people get you excited and you should surround yourself with those type of people.

The biggest thing that I learned was, if you can dream it, you can do it. Don't limit your dreams. Also, if they can do it, I can! I am thinking of interning with him in San Diego and possibly start a CORE in Utah. I want to be a leader in Utah for the chiropractors and educate everyone on how great this is. The great thing is, I know I can do it.

Another Philosophy Day

I have become very fond of philosophy as it's where I actually learn about what chiropractic is all about. The science classes that I am taking are great, but it's been really nice to know why chiropractic works.

Today in class we talked about momentum, pre/post tests with objective criteria, retracing back to health.

Momentum is simple. We all understand it when it comes to physics class. If a car is starting to roll, and you stand in front of it to stop it, it'll take force to slow it down, stop it, and then it'll start to roll back. It's the same with dis-ease. When you are dis-eased you start to gain momentum. When you then see the chiropractor to adjust you, then it'll take a bit to slow down that process and then stop the dis-ease. Then you'll start to go back the way you came (to health). That is called retracing. If you aren't back to 100% health, that's ok because now you have momentum going in that direction. If you stopped your visits, you'd still make it to becoming healthy.

The hard thing that I am learning is that many chiropractors will be happy to take credit when something goes right, but when something goes wrong, they call it retracing. It's only retracing if you did an adjustment correctly and they don't have their subluxation anymore.

Dr. Dill told us his story. He was helping out a patient and everything was going well. The patient was getting better, but then Dr. Dill made a mistake. He adjusted her when she didn't quite need it. In the pre and post tests that he used (thermography) he was seeing that she was digressing. It was then that his human error went to ego. He felt that he could fix it. He kept adjusting her, and she kept getting worse. Finally he took his ego out of the picture and said that he wouldn't adjust her for two weeks.

He was still taking the pre tests for the patient, but didn't take any post since he didn't adjust her during those two weeks. Well, she started to get better and at the end of the two weeks, she was great.

It concerns me that chiropractors are not using objective criteria before and after the adjustment to show the patient that they are making progress or not. Going back to the doc taking credit or just saying that you're getting better and pain is part of it, there's more to that.

If you adjust someone and they throw up or have a headache (or anything else adverse) there could be two reasons. If you adjusted them correctly, then you are retracing back to health. However, if you maladjusted them, then it was the doctors fault. The way to prove it is with the post test. This is the reason that chiropractors are scared to do the post test because they don't want to show that they maladjusted someone.

I for one don't want to be one of those doctors

The last item that we talked about was about payment and chiropractic assistants. Dr. Dill brought up a great point that he doesn't have a CA because he wants to know all the patients himself, and you keep all the profits. But the other thing is that he tells the patient up front how long it'll take to fix it, and how much it would cost. Then the patient only has to make the decision once to buy or not to.

Now that I have written that, let me explain. This is how Dr. Dill runs his practice. The first day is the examination to see if he can even except the patient for care. Then the second day they'll come in and he'll explain the findings of the exam and then propose the care plan. He'll explain that it'll take this long which equals out to be this much. We can either take it all up front or through an autopay each month.

At first I wasn't sure if I liked that, but then he explained that you don't want them to have to decide if they need care each time they come in just because of money. You want them to decide once and forget it. You want to be their doctor, not having to worry about them paying for the service. There is more that I would like to explain about this, because I believe that it's really important to figure this out.

Pre-Chiropractic Clubs

Sometimes we get ideas that we have to act upon because they were given to us for a reason. This was one of them.

While pondering what I should be really doing in the admissions office, I came to the obvious conclusion I am here to help people be admitted. There are many ways to do this, but one danced out in front of me since I had the experience of co-starting the Pre-Chiropractic Club at Utah Valley University. If we can help start, organize, and help these clubs thrive, then we'll not only help bring people to understand chiropractic, but students will be more persuaded to apply first to Life West because of the involvement we had with them in undergrad.

I talked to my boss Shohreh about this idea and she loved it so much that she wanted me to write it up and give it to her so that she could give it to the President of the school (Dr. Clum). This is why I am writing this blog.

The idea is simple, the more we empower undergrads with becoming a chiropractor, the more likely they'll decide to apply at Life Chiropractic College West. There is a clear process to accomplish this task.

• If there is no Pre-Chiropractic Club started at the school, have an incentive (small scholarship) to start one.
• Once the club is started, they would have a workstudy from LCCW help them know how to run the club.
• This workstudy would work in admissions and be their personal contact to ensure that their club would succeed.
• Some ways that they would help them would be: get a list of chiropractors within a 20-50 mile radius, assist them in calling the doctors and interviewing them to see if they are willing to be shadowed, give talks, or support them monetarily or with supplies (ie: posters, skeletons, spines, etc), give a list of all the chiropractic schools in the nation, etc.
  
• Once they have started calling these doctors then LCCW would send some supplies to the club president to put up in the school to drive more students to know about the club and chiropractic.
• Every year we would then send out a recruiter from LCCW and a student (preferably a Talk the Tic person) to talk with the club and make sure that they are succeeding as a club and help them get donations so that they can come to an Open House.
• We would give them more than the typical recruiter talk because we are mainly wanting to get them excited about chiropractic and not just the school. We would share success stories and maybe an alumni that lives close to them. Also, we would give them a list of technique classes that are offered here and give a short explanation of how each works.
• Any sort of documents or visual aides that we supply to them will all say, "Provided by Life Chiropractic College West", in the bottom corner. This will help them know that we are that constant guide that they can always rely on.

I am sure that if this was implemented at my school we would have had not only a better club, but we would be more excited and ready to become a chiropractor and thus bring in more students.

Maximized Living and Limitation of Matter

Last Thursday a couple of student representatives of Maximized Living came in and gave us their sales pitch. They are a coaching program that helps Chiropractors know how to setup/run their business. They seemed very enthusiastic and one could tell they had tasted success already even though they are just starting in clinic.

I was captivated with what they had to offer because it felt that it was inline with what I believed in. They focus on five different things in order to achieve health. They are: Mind, Nervous Supply, Nutrition, Exercise, and Toxins. I am unsure what they say when they talk about mind, but the others have always made sense to me.

It only makes sense that if your spirit can talk perfectly to your body and if your body can talk perfectly to your spirit then you will be able to fix just about any problem you face. This is the idea of Chiropractic that if you remove interferences with the nerves then you can allow for perfect communication. Why doesn't this fix all problems? Because there is a couple of limitations.

Limitation of Doctor - Maybe the doctor doesn't have the science, philosophy or art to fix you.
Limitation of Patient - If the doctor puts you in alignment and you go snowboarding really hard and fall down a few times... quite possibly you just made yourself go out of alignment.
Limitation of Matter - (This is my favorite that nobody talks about much) When the body has an imperfection in the quantity, quality, or arrangement of matter.

For example: if a disease is growing faster than you are able to repair, then you will continue to have that disease. However, if you increase the rate of repair that your body is doing (by whatever means) to the point that it is now faster than the rate of growth of the disease, then your body will eventually be cured.

This is what I believe that people forget about when they are trying to "sell" you on chiropractic. There are multiple things that go into healing your body. Of course you need to make sure your nervous system is working right, but if you only feed it McDonald's are you really going to be healthy? Of course not.

It's important to understand this principle because just because you were just aligned by a chiropractor doesn't mean that you can inject yourself with the black plague and feel that you won't get infected. Even with your body in alignment you still have the limitation of matter.

To help bridge the gap that's between health and disease there are a few more other things you can do to minimize that limitation of matter. That's where nutrition, exercise and detoxifying comes in. You want to give your body the best chance possible to be healthy. These are things that can lower that limitation, but not close it. Genetics can not be changed. If you don't have a stomach, you won't be able to function at 100%.

Sufficient to say that Chiropractors don't heal anyone. All we do is take away the subluxation or misalignment between bones and allow the nervous system to work again. We are doctors of the nervous system, not low back pain doctors or even spinal doctors.

Anyway, the reason that I am bringing all of this up is that I did some research on Maximized Living and saw a few things that I liked and disliked. I am still unsure if I want to join them yet, but I do like a few things about them and I don't like others. I want to see it from a patient's perspective and as a Doctor to see if I would like to join them. I would rather not write down right now the things that I have concerns with because I haven't researched it out enough.

Mid Terms

This week has been very hectic as mid terms hit us with full force. Memorizing galore and attempting to understand philosophy has been difficult. However, each time we get to a test, it seems easier than expected. We study hard and expect to get C's or D's on the test, but then while taking it we feel confidence. That is very comforting as that tells me that I have internalized this information and know it without even knowing it. How comforting to me to know that when it's needed, I can pull information out that will help out others. I hope that I continue to see this trend.

Baby Kimberly

This weekend was full of excitement and stress. Mixing grad school mid terms with having a baby is an equation for disaster. Thankfully God sends us angels at these times. People from the ward, school and family have all pitched in to help us out. Even people who don't even know us, would give items like blankets to someone who did know us to give to us. I just find it incredible. I was able to get back to my feet in less than a week.

Kimberly Lynn Beadle came into our lives on Friday Jan 29th, 2010 (4:29am) weighing 6 lbs. 11 oz. at 20 inches. It was a short labor at only 3 hours thanks to a walk around a marina, yoga to open the hips, chiropractic adjustments, and acupressure points. We don't know what made it go so fast, but we are happy that it was that quick. Monica and I actually made a documentary of the whole thing, but it's about 45 min. If you really want to watch it cause you are just dieing to have us tell you the story as if we were with you, then I'll send you the link. (we still haven't uploaded it yet).

I mainly just wanted to write down how grateful I am to people who willingly and selflessly gave us help. I am also so glad that Kimberly is healthy. I love to watcher her eyes look at our world. She is just so cute and I love her so much. It's hard to put her down. I run home from school because I just want to be with her. I hope that I'll be able to continue to be a good dad and support her throughout her life. I am also SO proud of Monica! WOW! She is a trooper! She has not complained to me at all about anything! She is an amazing woman and I am honored to have her by my side. I wouldn't want anyone else.

Week Four: Philosophy - Innate vs Educated

A lot of people don't like Dr Dill because different reasons, but I like him. I feel that he talks from a view that isn't brained washed with the bay area and chiropractic. What I mean by that is that when you go to grad school everyone starts to talk the same and believe in the same things. If you were going to become a dentist, then they would say that they were in the best profession in the world. Well, so do all the other schools.

This week he talked about a few things that really struck me. We have been talking about innate intelligence/brain/body vs educated brain and body. Basically as I see it (and I may be wrong),
innate intelligence is the light of Christ;
innate brain is your spirit;
innate body would be your autonomic system aka heart rate, digestion, etc;
educated brain is your higher consciousness (voluntary actions and thoughts);
educated body is your physical body listening to both innate body and educated brain for instruction.

As it's explained, innate intelligence is a portion of universal intelligence (power of God) and is in constant communication to your innate brain (spirit). Your innate brain uses your nervous system to talk to your innate body (autonomic system and educated brain (conscious thought). Your body both innate and educated are also in constant contact with your innate brain.

We'll explain this using three examples.

Example one: heart beat.
Innate Intelligence tells your innate brain that it needs to beat the heart at a certain speed. Innate brain then will send a message to innate body to beat the heart. All we can see is that there is an electrical impulse from the brain to the heart, but can never tell what the information is that is stored within that impulse.

Example two: flexing of the bicep.
Innate Intelligence tells your innate brain that it wants to flex the bicep. Innate brain then tells educated brain that it wants to flex the bicep. Educated brain then sends the message through the nervous system to tell educated body to flex the bicep which it does flawlessly.

Example three: touching sensation.
When you touch something with your hand, educated body is sending impulses to educated mind that it's being activated. Educated brain then is able to interpret the impulse as hot or cold, hard or soft, etc. Your hand didn't "feel" the difference. It just applied pressure somewhere. Your brain actually made the connection what it was that you were feeling.

Week Four: Cell Physiology Test

Well, the whole group has been studying every day for this test and I believe that we aced it. We'll see when we see our results on the "wailing wall" aka "wall of shame".

Week Three: Class Notes

Grad school is a little different when it comes to text books. The teachers will print out the required texts, but then the first day will tell you that you should just check it out in the library and to buy the class notes that the teacher created. I loved this as it would fundamentally be cheaper and I would only have to learn what I would need to pass the class.

This week two seniors came in and gave us a sale's pitch that at first I didn't even bother to listen to... till I saw their product. One of their classmates had rewritten and created her own notes of every single class starting from day one till the end. They were typed with pictures and diagrams. This was the real deal. I couldn't believe how much effort went into this thing. This would equate to about $500 worth of notes we would have to buy anyway from the bookstore. They were willing to give it to us for $10 on a DVD. It has about 1gb of info on it.

The thing that sold me was not the price or even the massive amount of valuable information that was to be found within it, but what the bookstore said about it. The school likes it so much that they are going to sell it for a lot more in the bookstore instead of having the class notes from the teachers themselves. Yeah, that was a no brainer.

Week Three: Anne Marie's Birthday

Anne Marie is from Congo and is a peer. She barely speaks English as it's her second language. Also Anne Marie is from the convent. While she is shy, she knows her stuff. When we have study groups, she knows the answers.

Well it was her birthday this week and it was the first one of the group. Gabriella brought some cake and we all went into the admissions office where I work and surprised her. Her face was priceless. She didn't know what to say. She didn't even know that it was tradition to blow out the candles :) It was very tender to see tears in her eyes knowing that she didn't have family to celebrate with. I just love the dynamics of this group and hope that we don't lose anyone else.

Week Three: Patient Exams (Physicals)

We finally got a physical to start getting adjusted here at school. It took about two to three hours to answer all the questions and to go through all the tests. Some might see that and think that is a long time for an exam, but I didn't. The reason being is because I truly felt that my intern really took the time necessary to make sure that my body is working.

It made me start to ask the question of, why do you get a physical? I feel that you get one to make sure that overall you are ok. It's not specific to any one thing, but detailed throughout your body. Maybe I didn't know that there was something wrong with me. I would hope that the doctor would be able to find that out for me. Having the stark contrast of having a quick physical versus a longer one helped me realize that while it takes more time, I felt assured that my intern now knew just about everything that could have been wrong with me at that moment in time.

Monica even got her exam done and she has had tons of physicals done for her running that she did for UVU. She noticed right away that this was more in depth and was shocked that in order to get that treatment she had to go to a beginning student. I hope that I'll make sure that I take the time needed to ensure that my patients feel that I cared for them.

Week Three: My First Test Ever: Cell Physiology

Cell Physiology doesn't sound like it would be hard, but you would be surprised. I remember learning about a cell back in Biology 1010 at UVSC. I passed without even studying. Now I am starting to regret it. I am having to relearn what others just remember. It's not tough material, just a lot to take in. Not only that, it's not just memorizing because it's how it functions. That's one reason that I love anatomy so much is because you just have to memorize a name, not what it does in relation with other material in the body.

In any case, the whole class is studying like crazy because about a forth of the class that's ahead of us flunked cell physiology. That worried us because that was the only class like that. We'll see what happens when we take the test on Thursday.

Week Three: My First Chiropractic Seminar (Pediatrics)

Because of the politics that were involved with the school, there was a lot of confusion with this seminar. I wasn't even thinking about pediatrics until I saw an ad for the club. It all of a sudden hit home since my first little girl is on her way. They moved the seminar to an office of one of my teachers named Dr. Patti Gonzalez. She is a very sweet and tender person who is also a doula (a coach for pregnant couples).

The office was just two rooms, an office and a room in the back with a table for adjusting. It was cozy and had a very nice feel to it. There were only about 7 people there and Monica was the only one that was pregnant. That was great for us because she has been having lower back issues and now they would be able to help her feel better.

They talked about a lot of things that went over my head because I am just starting out, however I did learn a lot. They went over how to assess an infant or child for subluxations, how to adjust an infant and a child, acupressure points for mothers and craniosacral therapy. A few of the other things that we learned was how to stop hiccups and menstrual cramps.

Overall I was impressed with the presentation and was very grateful for the information. I still don't know how I'll practice, but I know that I would like to have the cozy feeling that was present there. I also know that I loved working with children as they are the ones who respond fastest to adjustments. Ear aches and chronic crying could simply be because of a subluxation. When I get my notes I'll write down some of the points and step by step procedures.

Week Three: Loss of a Classmate

Courtney is a classmate of ours that sadly is no longer with us. No she didn't die, but she did have to postpone her education as a chiropractor in training. Unfortunately she never took anatomy and she was able to finish her undergrad with quick classes. In class she was lost and even the reviews were new information to her. I am glad and sad that she has had decided to go back to undergrad, but worry that she won't come back.

We all wish her luck. Grad school isn't easy. It does remind me of a quote my dad always told me, "the things we persist in doing become easier to do, not because the nature of the thing has changed, but our ability has increased." There is a reason you have to take those seemingly unrelated classes in school. It all comes together beautifully when you are at grad school.

Week Three: Voted President of the Class

I forgot to mention this last week, but there was a vote that was cast last week to see who would represent us as President of the Class. Three people actually nominated me which really surprised me. I had never have been in student council, but I have always been impressed with a memory back in 2nd grade. There were two people trying to become president and giving their speeches to the body. I only remember this because the one that I voted for said, "If you vote for me... I will make sure that chocolate milk will come out of the water fountains!" I am sure glad that America wouldn't vote for someone would make promises that he couldn't keep...

Week Three: Taste of Politics

On Jan 23rd there was supposed to be a pediatric seminar setup as a fund raiser for an abroad program to Ghana. Everything was going smoothly till Dr. Patti Gonzalez realized that she needed to reserve a room at the school. She did that two days before the seminar was to happen and it was then that I saw the wicked face of politics. Because it was meant for a fund raiser for a study abroad, there could be no advertisements, meetings or seminars on the campus. I don't know why they have this rule, but I am sure that there was a reason to implement it. You could tell though that she was upset with the decision.

Another thing that has been bothering me was with the health clinic. They had mentioned to us that we would be able to be adjusted from day one, yet I still haven't been adjusted. Monica had to go through a huge ordeal to get adjusted. Something just doesn't feel right with that. When I was in my meeting with student council there were a lot of issues that students had with the health clinic. I wonder what's the issue.

Week Three: Overview

Three whole weeks have gone by in school now. There are some great highlights that happened this week. Got a taste of politics, voted president of the class, loss of a classmate, my first chiropractic seminar (Pediatrics), my first test ever: cell physiology, patient exams (physicals), Anne Marie's birthday, and getting class notes for all the classes from freshman to senior.

The Second Week

Today was the second week of chiropractic school. To be honest there was one class that I was really looking forward to. There are three aspects to Chiropractic, art, science and philosophy. Today was my first class of philosophy. It was done by a man named Dr. Shawn Dill who has an interesting story that I am sure you could see his blog about, but he talked about what patients really need and want. When they come into a chiropractor's office, they are already expecting something. Do they want to be cured of pain? Do they want to be more healthy? Do they want to be well again?
If they want to be cured, chiropractics is the wrong answer altogether. We don't cure anything. All we do is take out the interferences in the spine and allow the body to heal it's self. What about taking away the pain? Dr. Dill answered it best, "... if you want the pain to go away, I know of a bar around the corner that we could go to and I'll buy you a drink and I'll guarantee you that your pain will go away. Or if you don't want to drink, I know of over the counter medication that will drug you up and take away the pain. Yet I am sure that is not the reason you came here."
Once you get to the real reason and which is that their pain is causing emotional issues. They can work through the pain, but there are emotional problems that are very real for these people. They can't hold their children, sing in the choir, or play sports anymore. This means that once you identify why they are here, you ask them how would it make them feel if they didn't have that pain anymore and what would that mean for them. They'll cry. That is what you base your success each session with them. It's not, what's your pain level? but instead, were you able to hold your grandchild? Not only do you make a deeper connection with them, but they won't just keep telling you that their pain is a level 6 when they don't know what a level 6 pain is.
I loved this idea since I really want to help people feel better. I would love to take away their pain, but I know that there is so much more than that. People all around me are having miracles because of chiropractic care. I actually told Dr. Dill that even though my family believes in chiropractic, they can't afford it so they can't go as often as they want. He kindly pointed out that if they had a choice between going to the movies or getting adjusted by the chiropractor, which would they choose? It's pretty obvious if they choose the movies that they don't understand the value of chiropractic care. It made me sad to understand that. I know that there are people who should get care at a discounted price if they don't have money, but I also know that can be relative. Even though my family loves chiropractors, they don't truly understand the value of it. I now need to find out how to reeducate myself to take that doctrine out of my mind and find out how to do the same for them.
Before I go on to the other classes, I did want to write down three websites that Dr. Dill wrote down: thatsomething.net, kaizenwell.com, and worksitewellness.net. These are three of his businesses dealing with wellness and chiropractic.
The other classes weren't as exciting. It was PNS Neuroanatomy and System Histology. While we learned about connective tissues, it was mainly a review and took awhile to get through. I did learn some interesting things though that might actually get me to go more organic. I won't rehash old information that anyone can just do a quick research on nutrition on processed food and learn about, but I will write down a few ideas.
One main one was an idea about diets. "Eat food, not too much, mostly plants," (In Defense of Food, Michael Pollen). That is plain and simple which I like. Food however is subjective, so what is food? Anything that your grandmother would see and easily tell that it's food. Anything processed, has more than 5 ingredients in it, and has anything that has a funny looking name in it, is not food. As my dad always said, "Eat live food." Course he also said, "Eat every bean and pea (pee) on your plate.”
My problem has always been money and quantity. I love food and I am poor. That typically means that I can't control myself when I get free food. It also means that I am a cheap skate and will get the cheapest food I can get. Today I realized that if I bought the right foods, then I would not only eat less because I would get fuller quicker, but I would also enjoy the food more! Real food just tastes amazing! Not only that, but since I would be eating less, I would be able to buy less (even though more expensive) whole food. The idea would be that it would cost the same.

First Week

Well the past couple of days have been crazy. Yesterday they had an orientation for all us freshmen and while it was pretty boring as far as the speakers it was informative. It was sad though because there was only one other married person there, yet she wasn’t living with him while going to school. Another guy named Ric is at least engaged, yet he is about 40! Kind of crazy.
I have to admit that when Monica and I got home, it started to dawn on me how hard this was going to get. It was at that point that I realized what a sacrifice this was going to be on Monica. I had never really thought of it before like that. I had always thought that it was just expected and nothing really challenging for her to do. But now I realize that she’ll sacrifice just as much if not more than I will be doing for the next three years. I also realized that at that point, how much I really loved her and that she was irreplaceable.
Today though was another crazy day. The teachers talked and talked about being on time and how to study. We were all bored. We did have a couple of fun things happen though. We were in a commercial for Life West. It was pretty cheesy, but just neat to be in a commercial. Sadly the teacher didn’t know that we were leaving from class to do this and she got mad and wanted everyone else to know about it. All the commercial was us listening to an advisor talk. There was no audio though so it really didn’t matter what she was saying, so I asked a question, “Why is that highlighted in Green?” I thought that it was funny, but everyone else asked real questions about financial aid… oh well .
The other thing that was nice was that we had a little thing about how much we’ll have to pay back in financial aid… it wasn’t pretty. However they did give us pizza and since I knew the people presenting, they gave me a whole pizza to take home!
The last class was Palpation. It looks like it’ll be a great class, even though I’ll have to be taking off my shirt! We are going to be learning how to palpate others and learn the landmarks of the back. I am excited that we’ll be able to learn right away about something kinetic. We had to practice being doctors while another student was a patient. At first we couldn’t stop laughing, but then we were able to calm down and be professional.
After all the classes and such I went to get some books and then went to admissions to relax and get internet so I could email everyone a list of our names, phone numbers, and email addresses. I couldn’t connect to the internet for some reason, so I talked with Nika for a bit. She gave me the down low on what the students do as a network. They have a website were once you are invited, you are able to see all the class notes, past tests and other useful information. I was so excited to get it since it’ll lower the cost of books and time in studying.
I then was able to come home to a wonderful wife who loves me and I love her. She is so dear to me. I only have a seminar tomorrow so I’ll be able to study a bit and then be with my wife! (Monica did so much today! Holy cow! Cut the lawn, paid the rent, talked with neighbors, cooked dinner, and so much more!)