MY PATH TO GRATEFULNESS

Has there ever been a time in your life when your world toppled upside down, nothing was going right, and you felt like you were on the fast track to hell?  Have you ever found yourself in a place that seemed so hard, claustrophobic, and PERMANENT?  As if nothing you did was going to make a difference?  That you were destined to live this life FOREVER?

Fifteen years ago, I was in that place.  I lost my military career to a neck injury.  I was struggling to find my new place in the world, but barely able to hold on because I was in so much pain EVERY SINGLE DAY.  I was a capable person on a downward spiral, grasping for anything to keep me from tumbling further down.

Then it happened…

I was rear-ended one day in downtown Olympia, Washington.  A man going 35 miles per hour, not paying attention to his surroundings, changed my life forever.  That seemingly simple event was far more than it looked.  The damage to the vehicle I was driving was minimal.  The damage to me—life changing.  In that moment, my life simply stopped.

I had whiplash.  I also sustained a traumatic brain injury that damaged my frontal and occipital lobes.  I lost my job and couldn’t take care of myself.  I went through two years of therapy to regain brain and eye function.  In that time, I lost sight of my purpose in life and was not completely sure how I would do life going forward.  I felt like I was losing everything.

Today, I am a chiropractor.  I help people every single day bring themselves from just the same depths that I had once lived.  It is my passion, it is my purpose, it is what I do best.  And everyday I seek to be better.

How did I get here?  My chiropractor, Dr. Karen Koep.  

Before my wreck, I thought chiropractors were quacks.  I believed the media, which had spun a story of swindlers peddling snake oil and potentially causing irreparable damage.  But when I had my wreck, a friend took me to Dr. Koep.  I was not in a place to argue.  To my surprise…she was more of a doctor than any medical doctor I had ever seen.  She took time with me, listened to me, did many tests, and, most importantly, gave me hope.  I saw her a lot in those first several months (almost every single day), and she gave me all the time and repetition I needed to heal.  She was a healer.  Through her, I found all the other doctors and therapies that helped me recover.

Doctor Koep saved my life.

I realized my purpose when my wife, Tonya, said, “You believe so much in chiropractic.  Go to chiropractic school.”  And I did.

I often reflect on that season of my life.  I recall my prayers and wishes to slow down and take a break from life—just for a while.  The pain I was in was slowly eroding my life, and I felt stuck, hopeless, and broken.  That car wreck gave me exactly what I needed—a break.  It forced me to slow down, to re-evaluate, to heal.  It was not the horrible event I thought it was.  It was the beginning of the next, amazing road toward my purpose.

I realize now that seeing my chiropractor did not just make me feel better.  How I felt was important, but I knew that I could “feel better” on Vicodin and Tramadol…and that was not going to give me the life I wanted.  Doctor Koep saved me from a life full of missed experiences, lost moments, and empty memories.  By addressing the root cause of my problems—both from the wreck and from the chronic dysfunction in my body—I experience now, the highest level of health I could imagine.

I am thankful for that wreck and the path my life has taken since then.

This is the reason I am a chiropractor.  My life’s purpose is to bring health and healing to those in my community who want it and need it.  To give those the hope necessary to realize their own life purpose.  Everyone deserves this.  It is my mission to help those realize they have a choice; they do not have to live a life of less.

Today and every day, I am grateful for my practice members.  I have my life’s purpose, but I could not realize it without them.  Each day, I pray that I bring to each person more health, more energy, more good days—MORE LIFE.  

To each of my practice members, I thank you.  I am a better chiropractor—a better healer—because of you.  To those who are not yet a part of our Rising Chiropractic Family, I already feel blessed for the journey we will have together.