Love Has No Color Fundraiser — Clinic’s Final Stage!!
The Chiropractic Clinic on Fort Peck is JUST ABOUT FINISHED! Everyone’s hard work, generosity, and belief in this project is finally paying off and becoming a reality. We can’t thank you enough for your support. For those of you who have sent in donations, we really want to recognize you. Thank you. We literally could not do it without you.
For those of you wanting to get involved or to donate, we definitely need you!! As with any building project, unexpected expenses have popped up and Love Has No Color is running on fumes.
To finish this final stage and get the clinic running, we really need all hands on deck. Support the kids. This is their one shot at health and to have an incredible role model (our TNR doc, Dr. Craig Onstott) guide them toward productive, purposeful adulthood. Without Chiropractic, that Reservation will get worse and worse…who knows how bad it could get and how far it could spread. We’re in a position to change that paradigm; to make a difference.
It begins and ends with you. Will you stand up for these kids? We’re not asking for your life savings or your firstborn here…anything and everything helps these children and gets them healthy sooner. Here’s a link to the donation form, or call us to donate via credit card.
Thanks in advance, so many of you have stepped up in amazing ways. You are all heroes in our eyes.
Dr. Kevin & Dr. Ed — Love Has No Color
Why Do We Really Do What We Do?
-By Dr. Heather Freedlund
Why do we really do what we do? That question has been ringing in my head this week. I know sometimes it is easy to get caught up in the day to day of having an office and to lose the urgency for why we are really here. My big vision entering 2012 has been to see more miracles in my practice. I know they happen in so many ways everyday and sometimes I get complacent and miss the seemingly little miracles. This last week, God slapped me in the face with a family that was an unbelievable reminder of why we are here as chiropractors and that we are the only people who can help.
Monday night, I had a message to call a patient who I had not seen for 4 years. She is the mother of a family that I adjusted from 2003 to 2008. When I first met Sarah, she was a mess. As we went through her history (9 years ago) she said, “There are some things I want you to know, but I did not write them down, because I have never admitted they happened.” She proceeded to tell me about the most horrifying childhood ever. I am amazed to this day that she survived both physically and emotionally. At this point she was a wife, and a mother to two boys. On the outside she was covering, but on the inside she was writhing in misery. It took very little conversation that day for her to know she was in the right place.
A week later, she trusted me to examine her boys Steve and Dave. They were 11 and 9 at the time. They came in after school and as we were going through their histories, they were non responsive. They sat there looking at the ground, glazed, and with their mouths half open. I did their exams and found they were living with the same misery on the inside as their mom. I finished their exams and sent them to another room. I asked Sarah, “What is happening with your boys?” She looked at me strange and said “What do you mean? My boys are living a great life.” I realized that compared to her childhood they were indeed living a charmed life. As I pushed her, she admitted the boys had been on Ritalin since they started school and it had made her life a lot easier. They took a two hour nap after school and then played video games until bedtime. We made a commitment that day to work together to help her get her family back.
Over the next 5 years, we did just that. He husband (an amazing man), started care and their lives improved to the point of being unrecognizable. All of them were off drugs, they ate meals as a family, and the boys were doing great at school. It was so great that we all started to take it for granted. We became complacent. In 2008, on the same week, both her and her husband lost their jobs. She called to say they needed to take a week off to regroup. That week went by and then another and then another. I moved on, but still stopped to pray for them when their names would come across a list. I did not hear a word from them for 4 years…until last Monday.
When I talked to Sarah last Monday, she said they were ready to come back. I scheduled new exams and a time to get caught back up on their lives. I was expecting to see the same vibrant family I had cared for 4 years earlier. As you can imagine, that is not what I saw when they walked through the door. The boys are now 19 and 21, they are grown men, but they looked like the same beat down boys I had met 9 years earlier. Sarah is not working and she has not slept for weeks. She is currently so drugged she was drifting out of consciousness as we talked.
The two grown men in front of me admitted they do not have jobs or go to school. They are currently staying up all night playing video games and then sleeping all day. Most of their day and night are confined to the basement. Their exams confirmed the misery on the inside that I was seeing on the outside, as did mom and dad’s. I took new x-rays and scheduled them for a report the next day. As I left the room I had to redirect my energy to be able to serve the patients who were there for their weekly life saving adjustments.
That night as I waited for the x-rays to be developed, my urgency grew. People are dying, and we are the only ones who can help them. When the x-rays were done, I took them to the view box and looked at mom and dad’s first, expected result, slight progression of the degeneration on their spine. I put the boys’ x-rays up and was not prepared for what I saw. The 19 year old had about a 30 degree head tilt. When asked the following day he told me he plays video games 15 hours a day in a broken chair tilted to that side. The 21 year old was the most shocking. I missed this at first because it was so unexpected. He had a level of osteoporosis that I have only seen in 80 year old women. You already know why; live in the basement with no purpose, eating one meal a day, and your body will slowly die.
As I gave them their report the following day, they felt my urgency. The reality is if this family does not make a change now, they will die. We have a whole generation of kids in basements right now dying slow deaths and we don’t even know they exist. All we can do is throw them a rope and pray they will grab a hold. The world needs chiropractic and they need your best.
As I write, I can’t help but think about some of the young (and old) chiropractors I have met in the last year. Many of them are dying in the basement. They have lost their passion for life and they are simply going through their day. I know you know some chiropractors who are stuck in that same place. We need more great chiropractors NOW. And the chiropractors of the world need TNR. They need someone to throw them a rope and say “I believe you can be great, even if you have spent the last 4 years in the basement.” Most of us were stuck in a bad place before we found TNR. This is a year of miracles for our practices and for TNR. Who do you know that needs a miracle? Call them and throw them a rope.
TNR’s CalJam Video!!
Hey everyone! We’re still high on the CalJam buzz, and that was only intensified by speaking at Pittsburgh’s Metro Group yesterday. They’re a great group of successful, hard-working, and generous DC’s. We would like to thank Dr. Mike Mills of Kittaning, PA for making that happen. We feel honored to have been able to touch those great docs. Many of them want to get involved in LHNC and you’ll probably see them on the Reservation this summer with their offices! We even got donations…talk about humanitarian DC’s…Love Has No Color is the one way we can unite this profession.
But back to CalJam…Melissa was out there accompanying Dr. Ed and rubbing elbows with the ‘whos-who’ of Chiropractic, and she caught some great action clips on film. Enjoy!!
CalJam 2012 Recap
My hat goes off to Dr. Billy D, founder of Cal Jam, and his mighty significant other Mary Jane. They have the passion and the uniqueness with this event to make it one of the biggest in Chiropractic’s history. BJ filled circus tents, and Billy D is going to fill stadiums (think domes dude, you don’t have to worry about the weather:)) To unite Rock ‘n Roll with passion and a vision was just absolutely brilliant. Everywhere you looked you saw the ‘who’s who’ of ‘Tic was there, and the soon to be ‘who’s who’ were all there, too. I think that what excited me the most was to see the passion in the eyes of the next generation of DC’s who will have to carry this torch. I recommend that everyone put it on their schedule for next year and let’s go with 100 TNR members- at least- to next year’s event. There are not many seminars you can go to and listen to that many elite speakers in a 48hr period.
TNR represented well with 9 of our members all going last-minute and once again look who represented TNR – THE WOMEN – watch out guys I think they are going to take over the world. As a matter of fact I think they were going to kidnap Billy D, steal his outfit, and take his place on stage. Good thing they can’t play the guitar or I think they would of.
I have to say this I was sooooo proud of all of you(and Paul too- he was the only dude besides me)…anywhere we went, people knew you were different than anyone else in that audience. Keep up the great work, we are making a difference and for all of you who couldn’t make it this year, let’s show Billy D some love and preregister- 100 people to sh
ow we care.
It was one rockin’ weekend I know Dr. Kevin and I will be there next year for sure!!!!
Dr. Ed
California here we come!
Dr. Ed will be the TNR rep at CalJam this weekend, and it’s our first time out there so we’re extra excited. We can’t believe this crazy group of spizzed up DC’s has been getting together for a while, and we had no idea! We’re so glad to now call Dr. Billy DeMoss a good friend and many other CalJam regulars as well.
Be sure to check out our schedule (on the website) for upcoming speaking engagements and other events. We have a lot coming up in 2012, and we’re coming to a city near you. We’re aiming to unite the profession under one vision: Healthier people = Healthier planet!
We’ll all be out of the office on Friday (2/24), so leave us a nice voice mail to come back to on Monday! Product orders can be placed online, but bear with us as we clean up and fix our shopping cart. For those of you joining us at CalJam, see you in just a few!
~TNR
DO YOUR PRACTICE MEMBERS RESPECT YOU, DOCTOR?
Many Chiropractors have huge hearts, great hands, practice members that love them, but there’s still something missing in their practices. Referrals, payment, commitment to their adjustment schedule; these all seem to be inconsistent, and sometimes even non-existent. Your practice members nod in agreement with almost everything you say. Do they get it or are they just “yessing” you to death? Sure they love you; however, they don’t respect you, your office or Chiropractic. How did this lack of respect manifest itself, you ask? You made the mistake of not setting boundaries in the doctor-practice member relationship. Just like the teacher everyone loves because they can get away with anything.
In all relationships there needs to be boundaries. If there are no boundaries, there will be a tendency towards complacency and an inevitable lack of respect. Respect is always earned and rarely given. Look at a parent-child relationship. If the parent creates boundaries for the child, they will grow up with an attitude of respect toward themselves as well as others. Your practice members have no problem with giving you respect as long as you create an environment of respect in your office. If you allow the inmates to run the asylum, you are in trouble.
Some of the ways your practice members show you their lack of respect: decreased referrals, not attending a New Patient Orientation, lack of compliance with recommendations and payment policy. Or how about this one: incessant questions about fees. How long is it going to take? I can’t come in any longer because of my insurance coverage has dried up? These symptoms point to one thing… there is a lack of respect for the doctor. The end result will be resentment on the doctor’s part toward people and Chiropractic.
Many reading this will not be able to agree with this concept. Here is a scenario that will help you see the vital link between a practice member’s respect and trust for their doctor. Say you are in your dentist’s chair with a painful tooth. He says you need a root canal. If you have respect and trust for your dentist, you say when can you do it? You may not even ask the price. If you do not have a great relationship with your dentist, you will ask how many visits, how much, how much pain, can the tooth be saved, does insurance cover this? You get the point. Does he have your best interest in mind or does he have his own self-interest in mind? If you don’t have respect from your people, you will spend much time answering the same rhetorical questions over and over.
There are two main reasons that fuel a lack of respect in a Chiropractor’s office. The first: most people have very low expectations of Chiropractic. Number two: most people have been let down by doctors in the past. Think of the emergency room stories. There is a bad taste in their mouths. They have been taken care of by people who may not always have their best interest in mind. When they finally get to our offices, they are skeptical and very non-committal. And what do we do? We skip our patient education procedures with these practice members. Just like a parent giving in to the temper tantrums of their children. What the practice member and the child need is the same… a loving but firm boundary about acceptable behavior.
Chronic missed appointments and tardiness are also signs of a lack of respect. The more recalls you do the more appointments they miss. Why is it that some people commit to care and make all of their adjustments? RESPECT. Every practice member in your office is the same. They are all human beings. Have compassion, understanding and boundaries for all. Have the dignity and respect for them to offer your help in restoring or expressing their health. Some of your best practice members were very difficult when they started. There was a point in your relationship when you had to put your foot down with compassion.
A wise man once told us that there are a lot of people that need help. You will only get a chance to help people who want your help, not need your help. Many people will enter your office and say they will do whatever it takes to regain their health. Let their actions speak, not their words. Do they commit to your patient education procedures, or do they tell you stories of why they can’t commit. A relationship with no boundaries of respect is no relationship at all. When the symptoms get better or the insurance dries up, you have to replace yet another practice member. There is a better way! RESPECT yourself and your practice members.
Warning: These 2 sisters experienced explosive growth by helping Native Americans
It’s true!
Helping Native Americans really does help your practice. Dr. Tara Scharich D.C., and Dr. Lisa Graham N.D. (sisters!) share how Love Has No Color has impacted their offices and their lives. Giving back and helping to restore a lost culture does much more than make you feel good inside…watch the video to find out more.
And if these two glowing sisters have you sold, get involved by visiting www.savethereservation.org and learning more about Love Has No Color. This isn’t a charity hand-out…this is much much bigger than that. Find out more and get involved today. You’ll really like what it does for your practice and your life!
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