I was working the breakfast shift which was always the best tip time of the day to work.  I stayed very busy because I waited tables and had to go to the register when someone was ready to pay.  That’s when it happened.  I had taken a customer’s money, put it in the cash register and turned to take a step.  When I put my weight on my right foot, it wouldn’t hold me.  I fell to the floor.  I tried to get up and that was when I realized that the entire right side of my body was not responding.  My right arm and right leg simply did not work.  After being rushed to the local emergency room, the doctor on call determined that my vital signs were stable and released me.  You read correctly.  He released me even though I could not stand or so much as raise my right hand to scratch my nose. He did suggest that I go to the teaching hospital in Memphis, TN where they had free services for uninsured patients.  

While that sounded like a great idea for saving money, how was I supposed to get there when I couldn’t even walk, much less drive?  Fortunately, my employer took me to Memphis and dropped me off at the emergency room.  I will stop right here with the play-by-play and finish this up with saying that after fours days in the hospital, I was sent home with no diagnosis, pain killers and muscle relaxers.  Oh, yeah, and I still wasn’t walking.

 My customers learned of my situation very quickly. I had worked at the full time job for about 9 years and many of my customers were my friends, as well. One of them owned the local health food store. He designed an agressive treatment program consisting of several vitamin supplements, aloe vera juice, a detox program and distilled water. I am certain that it was quite expensive but he would not accept any payment for it. Within days I was walking with a cane. In about 5 weeks, when I was able to work again, I was hired as a chiropractic assistant by a local doctor. As if by magic, every day after I started receiving chiropractic care along with my nutrition program, I was getting better and better.

My doctor in Memphis was shocked when I went back to him for an eight week appointment. He told me not to get too excited about the recovery. He really felt like I would have a relapse at any time and be in a wheelchair by the time I was forty. Remember, I told you I was thirty-three years old when this happened. I was so caught up in the conventional medicine way of thinking that I had known my entire life that I lived in fear for months. I was afraid to do simple things like roller skate or play on the slide with my children because I might get hurt and be in a wheelchair.

About a year after the initial incident, I saw a sacral-cranial chiropractic specialist in Hot Springs, Arkansas. After I received treatment from him, the fear was gone, too. A miracle? Not at all. It was a simple case of the correct therapy being applied and the desired result was achieved.

Obviously, I am a strong advocate for the Alternative Medicine approach. Alternative Medicine works better if you use it as an on going program to stay healthy.  Would I go to an M.D.?  You bet I would.  If I am ever having a heart attack, the ambulance driver had better not stop at the health food market on the way to the Emergency Room!  I guess the point I am making is that there is a definite need for both.  Alternative Medicine providers readily acknowledge the need for conventional medicine.  When it’s the other way around, not so much.