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.........