Onward and Upward

Wednesday, June 9th — I had another re-exam today. After going through the usual repertoire of motions (“restricted… slightly restricted… still restricted…”), which were noted by one of Dr. Klein’s bevy of wonderful assistants, I was able to see my most recent graph on the screen of the laptop as soon as David was finished adjusting me. Let’s hear it for the Age of Technology!

This is a big step ahead of waiting till somebody had time to feed the information into the computer and then let the program do the calculations to figure out the percentages and draw the graph. And even that was pretty impressive.

And what awaited me, when Jenny went over the graph with me today, was SURPRISE! Only about a month ago, I was (depressingly) only at 55%. That meant I had recovered 55% of the Objective Findings Dr. Klein had noted originally. Today — WOO-HOO! — I was at 67.4%!

The last time I was at 67.4% was in January of 2009.

Looking at this information on a graph puts it all into perspective for me. For the first four months of my Journey with Chiropractic, back in the spring of 2008, the line rose startlingly fast, at a nice sharp angle. I was nuts to think it would continue that way, but I did, optimist that I am by nature.

The fifth month it sort of leveled out. That meant that all the immediately fixable problems had been dealt with; now we had to get working on the longer-range disorders.

After that, for several months the progress was upward, but painfully slowly.Tiny increments… and this was with being adjusted three times weekly.

Then, in February 2009, I had the fall that put a cell-phone-sized gash into my right lower leg, and began the long, long healing process that included first three-times-weekly visits to a wound care center at a downtown hospital, and then later, twice weekly. There were a couple of months when I didn’t get to Seaside Chiropractic at all. Then for a while I went once a week — better than nothing, I thought. Meanwhile, the hole in my leg got gradually, gradually smaller.

Needless to say, the graphs of my chiropractic progress plunged dramatically downward. It was very disheartening, but only logical. My body was working very hard to heal the wound, and not so hard any more to loosen up my long-standing subluxations.

Since the beginning of this year, I’ve been seeing Dr. Klein twice a week, regularly. Although the wound is still not completely healed, it’s close to it (I hope!) and I’m getting around at almost my usual level of energy. Working from home, editing manuscripts for online clients, means I can set my own hours, take a nap and elevate my leg when I need to, and do my yoga exercises here at home as well.

So I’m back at 67.4%, and that looks mighty good to me! I still have the intention of eventually reaching 90%, and the determination to continue with chiropractic adjustments to that point and beyond.

Thanks, David Klein, and Roseanna, Jenny, Caitlin, Sarah, and Brittany too, for all your morale-boosting and excellent adjustment. I couldn’t be in better hands.

Thanks for reading — Betsy