a new friend

moose and billy and i have a new friend who has set up shop in the garden. She is a yellow garden spider. Rather large one, too, she's about 2" long. Freaked me out a little. So i took a pic to look up details on wikipedia, since i'm a nerd like that. Apparently yellow garden spiders are nonvenomous Georgia natives, and are capable of eating prey 200% their size. I think we'll keep her around. I could use some help with the arthropod wildlife around here :)

post-note: my friend Alex

On tuesday, my friend Alex came to me with a complaint of pain for the past six weeks in his back, along the distribution of a mid-thorax rib, with pain on inspiration. He asked whether I could do anything about it. The adjustment was a simple move, and it went well. After I adjusted him, his pain was gone and he could take in a full breath without pain. Obviously he was happy with this :)

Yesterday I was able to catch up with him again. Alex has not had pain since Tuesday, and has not needed to take any ibuprofin since I adjusted him. Plus, he has had three good nights of sleep.

Yay, I did something good!!!!!!!!

still studying...

no letup in immediate sight. Two exams tomorrow, somehow our instructors have spanned three weeks with midterms. Considering that the term is 11 weeks, and the last week is finals, that makes 3 of ten weeks spent just taking exams. Fun, huh?

My friend Steph and I were talking about school on Friday after our Skeletal Radiology exam. Both of us came back to school after time doing other things. Both of us were encouraged by our own chiropractors to pursue this career, and both of our chiropractors assured us that we would "sail through school with a 4.0, no problem!" We figured out that either chiropractic school has become more difficult in the 10-15 years since each of our chiropractors went thru it, or that our respective former chiropractors have very selective memories :) We also both came to the conclusion that had we KNOWN how difficult this was going to be, we may not have chosen this path. However, nearly $100,000 into debt, it's definitely too late to turn around.

I still know that the end-product of this process is what I want, though, and I know I just have to plow thru a lot of crap to get there. Today some really good stuff happened: I did nine adjustments, on six people total. Three of the adjustments had the result of my patient saying, wow!! That was awesome!! Two of my patients were no longer in pain after I adjusted them. (the others were not in pain to begin with...)

THIS is why I am in school. Because in essence, I am learning how to help people not hurt, by helping to solve a biomechanical problem rather than masking its symptom with a drug to numb the pain. I am learning to help people to *function* better. We are, after all, machines!

I feel so good knowing that after six weeks of pain, Alex's rib doesn't hurt. If when I talk with him on Friday, he tells me that he was able to get a good night's sleep because he didn't hurt, I might just jump for joy. When I adjusted Kate today, she got up and walked around and turned to me and said ah, that was so good, what the hell did you do, I'm walking differently and it doesn't hurt and it doesn't feel stuck! She said it just like I did when Dr. Franson adjusted me the same way, three years ago. A wow moment for me.

It's not as simple as that, though. I'll get back to y'all about more of what restoring proper motion and biomechanics does to the body in the long run. One clue to a single facet of the answer: When you sleep deeper because you're not in pain (increased REM sleep), your body is able to heal all of its little daily insults and injuries better (via growth hormone, which is released during REM sleep...) For now, I'm headed for sleep myself - I will be getting up at 4 to study for my 9am exam and my 1pm exam. Again with ugh.........

a belly laugh from Mike Hayward

This one's SO good I have to share it!! Thanks for the laugh, Mike :) though really, it's not entirely funny..................

--------------------

> Many will recall that, on July 8, 1947, witnesses claimed an unidentified
> object, with five aliens aboard, crashed onto a sheep and cattle ranch
> just outside Roswell, New Mexico. This is a well-known incident many say has
> long been covered up by the United States Air Force and the federal
> government.
>
> However, what you may NOT know, is that in the month of March 1948,
> exactly nine months later, George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, Bill
> O'Reilly, Rush Limbaugh, Condoleezza Rice, and Dan Quayle were all born.
>
> See what happens when aliens breed with sheep?

Studying for Boards Part I

A more detailed synopsis of what it is to study for the afforementioned "Boards" - here's why things are pretty crazy for me right now. On top of my 25 credit hours and caring for four patients and a house, a yard/jungle, and a job, as well as studying for midterms this week and next, I have to review the following courses for Boards, all of which (and more) will be tested at the picayune detail level:

Anatomy and Physiology I
Histology
Osteology & Arthrology
Gross Anatomy I, visceral
Gross Anatomy II, musculoskeletal
Spinal Anatomy
Central Nervous System Anatomy
Peripheral Nervous System Anatomy
Anatomy of the Special Senses
Embryology & Organogenesis
Microbiology I, bacteriology
Microbiology II, virology and parasitology
Immunology
Pathology I
Pathology II
Visceral Physiology
Neurophysiology
Endocrinology

and oh, yeah, Biochem I and II. Thankfully that studying was fairly easy to knock off. Tho re-learning glycolysis and the TCA cycle again reminded me that studying for a test like this is an exercise in futility - it is unlikely that I will ever need, or find practical use for, 90% of the stuff that I will re-learn to pass boards.

The moment of truth, or rather, weekend of truth, is Sept 7-8-9th. Yes, they test on Sunday.

After Boards, though, I will be over the hump. (I hope?) Or at least through a really big, flaming hoop.