It is an exciting and interesting time in my life, as we prepare for the Grand Opening of our Springfield location. Sometimes I think about everything that has led up to this point and I get overwhelmed.
Laura supported me, as she always has done, and away we went. We moved away from Springfield, and I started working at a department which I quickly found out had a major problem with hazing. I mean a BIG problem. I quietly began looking at opportunities to take a job with one of the local ALS Services. I had years of experience working with Level 1 Trauma Centers after working here in Springfield, so I felt like this was a nightmare that I really didn’t want or need. I began to put out my resume and look for other opportunities.
And then it happened...
When my right shoulder let loose, I was pulling myself through a gable truss space and my air pack was hung up. I twisted, and I pulled, and it popped; and I bruised almost instantly down my right side, all the way down the lat. At the same time, I hit the top of my helmet on a truss, compressing my neck. I felt an electrical sensation shoot through my body. The arm was dead, like it had fallen asleep, but the pain remained. I was able to extricate myself, but the arm was not right…
This began the process of filing workers comp and placing me on light duty. Another new hire was injured badly at the same time, and he has his own story to tell. Any Firefighter knows that a modified duty assignment is not a place that you want to be in the first place, but my situation was about to get very complicated. Initially they told me it was just a shoulder sprain. I was given medicine and 6 physical therapy sessions and sent on my way, but it didn’t get better. I was sent to a shoulder surgeon who ordered a Nerve Conduction Variation Study be performed on my right arm. The needle went in, and WHAMMO!! Hot, white, searing, burning pain. Just like that day when I hurt it, only much, much worse. The hand mottled and puffed up almost instantly. I was going nuts, so the guy sheepishly pulled the needles out of my arm and told me the test was over. I would later find out that the incomplete test results would be ignored in disproving my case.
I could write for days on the terrible years following that injury. CRPS is considered the most painful form of chronic pain in existence. It is a chronic neurological condition that is brought on by a trauma, and it causes all kinds of nasty changes in the body. Especially pain. LOTS of pain! The pain is unfathomable if you’ve never experienced it. Something as simple as an elastic sleeve, or a bed sheet brushing the skin is almost enough to throw you into convulsions. Even the steady, rhythmic thumping of the fingers on a keyboard becomes an excruciating and grueling experience. Intense, searing, burning, crushing pain, that never goes away. Some things make it a bit better, and a lot of things make it worse, but it is a constant companion. Imagine for a moment, being fully engulfed in fire, but nobody believes you’re burning… That was my life.
Every day at work there would be a new and interesting way to try and prove that something which caused me intense pain didn’t actually violate my work restrictions. After a while, I just wanted to die… When the pain spread through my body, I was told that I was only allowed to receive care for my shoulder injury. They told me that my pain couldn't spread and refused to look anywhere else. I wanted to heal, and they were suggesting cutting my arm off, or cutting the nerves out of it. Yet I was left feeling like the crazy person. The mass majority of people in your life don’t believe you when CRPS is the diagnosis; and my story is no different in that respect. Even with multiple doctors agreeing on a diagnosis, I was unable to get proper treatment. In fact, I had to withdraw frequently off of hard drugs like Lyrica, because the pharmacy would fill the prescription, but it would not be approved. Then they give you this deer in the headlights stare when you decline to pay for the $700 pill bottle out of pocket. Then you get to go home and deal with the effects of not having the medication, which in my case was worse than I was before I went on the damn pills to begin with!
Eventually, I started pursuing alternative means and seeing results. It wasn’t life changing at first, but I could use my arm on low stress and low pain days. Unfortunately, in my frantic search for help, my behavior was enough for the system to deem me non-compliant. Just like that, I lost my career, my line-of-duty retirement, medical care, income, insurance, livelihood, physical capability, with not so much as a thank you for your service. I received a small settlement for a shoulder sprain, and then I was sent to collections for medical bills that “didn’t relate to the shoulder sprain.” It was a difficult place to find myself, for sure! But at some point, I had to stop and ask myself what they were really offering. Medications, surgery, amputation at one point…
I decided to go a different route and become my own best advocate. The medicines were awful, so I became an advocate for medical cannabis. It wasn’t legal in my state, but I lobbied for change because of what I learned in researching natural ways to support my nervous system and my immune system. I feel that it is an atrocity that cannabis would remain a schedule 1 substance when it clearly has therapeutic value, and I believe that everyone should have the freedom to grow cannabis without restriction.
I became an advocate for electrolyzed reduced water, because of its unique anti-inflammatory properties. Water makes up over 70% percent of the body and is involved in every bodily process; it is also the best conductor of electricity, and the body is electrochemical in nature, so good water seemed like a logical place to start on my health journey. I began to learn about research on molecular hydrogen and how it was being studied for its antioxidant potential.
I became an advocate for a unique type of exercise which is performed while hooked up to a neuromuscular stimulator to desensitize my nervous system and fight off atrophy. I now own a business that focuses on Neuromuscular Performance Enhancement through a process that is being referred to as Interactive Neuromuscular Stimulation. Taking dormant muscle and irritated tissue and stimulating it in a non-invasive way to allow for proper function. With proper stimulation in a safe and controlled environment (parasympathetic state) neuroplastic changes can take place, greatly accelerating the body's ability to perform. During the process, we can promote neuroplasticity, resulting in faster healing and rapid imprinting of correct movement patterns, by adding the stimulus of the device to corrective exercise movements, allowing us to quickly train the brain and nervous system to operate optimally.
Today, my main focus is on raising awareness for all the people who found themselves in similar situations. My wife Laura is still by my side, and we are blessed to have the opportunity to share our story and our passion with the world. I still have both my arms, and the condition that once ruled my life is kept in remission with lots of hard work and a few lifestyle modifications. And it all started with this terrible situation, at a really bad job.
A friend of mine told me recently that it is important to share our story and what we believe so that people can really connect with us. I believe that we all have free will, and that our choices have consequences. I don’t know how things would have turned out if I had made different choices, but nobody was coming to save me.
I believe that we should all be prepared to self-rescue. Beyond that, I believe that we came from more than an explosion of nothingness, and I believe that the human body has an intelligent design. I have studied it for decades… How could I not?...
I know for a fact, that the situation which brought so much darkness and horror into my life is being used to improve the lives of others, and that gives me an incredible sense of gratitude. I believe that God has a tremendous way of taking bad situations and using them for good.
We don’t focus on treating disease in our business. We are focused on Health and Fitness Coaching. We educate people on prevention and healthy practices. We look at the nervous system as the master controller of the body, and we recognize that by acting on the nervous system, we can cause the body to initiate broad, sweeping, positive changes that can be nothing short of transformative.
I hope that you will consider learning more about our true health model and the technologies that we represent.
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