Moving is living. Not moving enough is not living enough. Not moving well is not living well. And moving excessively is living excessively. There’s a sweet spot to it, sometimes we find it ourselves, and sometimes the right doctor can find it with us.
There are some scenes from our lives that live stronger in our memories than others. Sometimes it’s memories that have a strong connection out of love, sometimes we don’t know why, and sometimes there’s a strong fear connection that helps us remember these events. You’ll know which one I’m talking about as I tell this story from 3 years and 3 months ago.
I just finished a 16-hour drive in a rickety old moving truck heading from California to Washington. As I was unloading the truck at the end of my family’s journey I was carrying an awkwardly large and heavy cardboard box off the ramp. And off the ramp I went; just at the wrong place; thud! I fell off the ramp. Fortunately, maybe, I landed on my heels and saved the valuable box, but I felt this sharp pain in my back. I went about unloading for another 30 seconds and something came upon me like an anaconda in the Amazon, and like Indiana Jones, I hate snakes, and I hated this moment. I dropped to my knees and dropped to the floor and couldn’t move, could hardly breathe. My low back had seized up and every thought came through my head. “Hey at least your going to start chiropractic school in 2 weeks.” “What did I just do to myself?” “Did I break something, did I mess up my discs or spinal nerves?” “How is this going to end up?” “I hope it isn’t permanent” “Why is this so debilitating?” “Why can’t I get off the floor?” “How am I going to unload everything else?!”
I was laying there on the ground for what seemed like 5 minutes, and probably was 5 minutes. Then a thought came in, “moving is living”. I started everything I could to gently rock back and forth a half-centimeter at a time, after a few minutes of that I was able to get myself off the floor and get back to a tortoise paced work. I went to school and everyone was very excited to hear my story and give me advice and practice getting me better, that was a scary experience. But some people brought up a good point, maybe it was meant to be this way and now I can better relate to those in this pain. Good point didn’t make the pain go away, but good point. Some treatments helped almost immediately, and some things made it worse, it took a long time and many hours interviewing doctors and dusting off books in the library to really feel confident in my diagnosis and the treatment I needed.
I was the most invested person in getting myself better.
All of my treatments that worked involved my having to correctly move, both to prevent it from happening again, which was learned the hard way, and to cause my body to better heal my injury. As I learned about every different condition and circumstance I as a chiropractor would be working with, in almost every case it comes down to “moving is living”.
So my greatest mission since starting my career is sharing this, in every case under the right context, moving well is living well. If I would have changed my sitting posture and taken breaks to walk around when traveling in the moving truck instead of sitting there with tired slouched posture for 16 hours, I could have lessened the risk of 2 and a half years of an injury to recover from. Because sitting while slouched especially for so long, tires out the low back muscles and joints and tissues back there, and when they tire and are called upon to work to protect you, they can’t do their job as well. Or if I would have used a dolly with large boxes, or taken more breaks from moving too much while unloading, I might have had my wits about me a little better and stayed on the ramp when I needed too.
It’s been my mission ever since to use my position as a chiropractor in Sandy Utah, to educate; whether I am getting business from people or not; to encourage the right amount of moving, in the right places of their body, and the right time (A professional medical evaluation will be able to determine when that is). Because moving is living, and moving well is living well.
Take time to take care, Dr. Wooten, D.C.
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