The Profile of a Recent Female Graduate

 

Editor’s Note:

 

Although all of our TNR Declassified stories are based on actual people and true events, we are not disclosing the names of the DCs as respect to their privacy. The events discussed took place during some of the darkest days of their lives. To publicly relive them for the world to see is a challenge too hard to bear for some.  However, our members believe that if their stories can relate to someone going through the same struggle and gives them the strength to better their lives, well the story will be for the greater good. 

I can recall that New Year’s Eve when my friends and I were sprawled out on my couch, our cheeks red with drink as we celebrated the start of 2011.  This is our year, we cheered as we clinked glasses.  No more ramen nights or the sinking feeling in our stomachs as we opened our bank statements.  We were going to be doctors.  Doctors!  We played with the word as we discussed whether we’d go by our first or last names.  How wonderful it sounded on our tongues.

And then came the day we were working so hard for.  Graduation day.  I smiled as I took the diploma from the dean’s hands and continued smiling as the photographer snapped my picture.  But my feelings did not match my outside enthusiasm.  I was scared.  I was chained to a $200,000 weight and had no idea how to get rid of it.  The economy had squashed my dream of starting my own practice and I figured I’d just become an associate until I was stable enough to give owning my own business a go.  As we broke into the crowd my family found me and my father gave me a pat on the back.

“You’ve made it,” he said.  But the diploma, my ticket to success, felt like ordinary paper in my hands.

Fast forward one year.  I was back in my hometown still living with my parents.  What happened to my future husband, my partner in crime as we adjusted hundreds of patients in our very own office?  Gone with my dream of owning a business.  It was a bitter end, but looking back I’m glad we never took the next step.  Now I was flying solo, still battling my school loans as I wasted my days away in a dead end associate job.  My patient numbers were embarrassing, and yet I was seeing plenty of my boss’s patients.  The result?  Working sixty plus hours a week with a paycheck that could match a part-time employee.  When did I sign up for this?

You know how you can pinpoint some moments in your life and say, “Right there, that’s when everything changed.”  Well I’m about to tell you one of those moments.  The turning point.  It wasn’t anything out of the ordinary, just one of those days playing the role of a CA where I ended up surfing the net.  I eventually found my way onto my Facebook newsfeed.  It was here that I came across something that immediately sparked my interest.  Someone who I went to school with me posted an album of her trip to a Native American reservation.  There she was, all smiles with her hair spray painted purple, carrying a child who was proudly holding up a Dora the Explorer backpack.  I suddenly felt my heart squeeze.  We graduated from the same class.  But written on her face was joy, like someone who knew her exact place in life.  And there I was, chewing on a Twizzler as I spun around on the CA’s computer chair.  It was at that moment that I decided to make a change.

And that change started from a simple Facebook message:

Hey I don’t know if you remember me…I think we took Anatomy together, but I just wanted to ask how you got into this mission group.  It looks like something I’d like to do.

Minutes later she replied:

Yes I remember! You were sitting in the front row, right?  Actually it’s not really a missionary group.  They’re a coaching group called The New Renaissance and this is their world project, Love Has No Color.        

 

And that’s how it started.  Our messages grew longer as we shared all of our woes from being new graduates.  I wasn’t the only one who struggled, but unlike me she took action and found herself a personal mentor to guide her every step of the way.  Now she had the lease to her very own office and was living the dream I wanted.  And I could still have, I thought as I dialed the number for The New Renaissance.

I found myself spilling my whole life story to a Dr. Kevin.  He wasn’t my classmate’s coach who went by Dr. Ed, but by the end, I didn’t care because from one phone call I felt like I had a breakthrough.  But despite his striking ability to pry apart my problems and get to the root of the issue, I was still unsure about joining.  I wasn’t ready to add to the harrowing debt on my credit card.  Then came a reassuring phone call from one of the TNR members.  Believe it or not, she was worse off than I was.  So I thought, well if she can do it, then I could too.

So I joined.  I joined for a Chiropractic coach but what I got was a family.  No longer was I alone.  If I fell, there were a bunch of DCs to pull me back up.  I was given both advice and criticism as I faced each obstacle head on.  And you know what I ended up with?  An office of my very own!  Sure, with 125 patient visits a week I’m not setting any records, but it’s a start to a prosperous future.  One that involves caring for patients for life, instead of the usual patients that sought only musculoskeletal pain.  And to my relief, I don’t have to become a salesperson to find these patients.  Instead, I am garnering great relationships without the need to make deals in order to gain their friendship.  I am respected, and that is a beautiful thing.  How I wish I had someone in my corner sooner.