This is the article featured in the Evening Leader on September 9, 2019
Back on August 3, I drove over to Columbus, IN, to participate in a Tough Mudder. For those of you who don’t know, a Tough Mudder is an 8 to 10-mile obstacle course where you run, climb, swing, jump and crawl through all kinds of obstacles. I train all year to participate in these events and this particular one represented the 8th time I have completed one. One of the obstacles was an 8-foot wall you have to scale over. When I arrived at this particular obstacle, I got ahold of the edge, pulled myself up and tried to position my feet so that I could get on top of the wall. I slipped a little followed by slipping a lot. I wasn’t interested in falling clear back to the ground, so I grabbed on with my right arm and held on to the top of the wall. I managed not to fall and I got myself turned back around and got on top of the wall. I easily swung over the wall and lowered myself down the other side.
I figured by how my arm felt that I was going to have a good bruise under my arm and across my chest. It hurt a little bit, but it was manageable. I finished the event without too much trouble with it. The bruise never showed up; in fact, I didn’t even have a mark, but I had a dull ache in my chest. When it didn’t go away in a few days, I diagnosed myself with a bruised rib. I don’t actually have a medical degree, but I am always confident in my self-diagnoses.
I have been doing stuff like this for decades but this particular injury turned out to be one of the stranger ones I have had. I could use my arm normally and didn’t have any strength loss at all. All I had is a dull ache in my chest and I could not cough or, God help me, sneeze without feeling like I had a knife in my chest. I consulted some medical text books (meaning I Googled it) and found out that bruised ribs will heal in 3-6 weeks. I was annoyed, but I managed to live with it.
Well, last Wednesday, I had an appointment with my chiropractor, Dr Spees. We were chatting while he twisted me around putting all my bones back where they belonged. He asked me if there was anything else and I asked him about a bruised rib. He checked it out and gave that familiar thing doctors often say, “hmm.” He told me that he didn’t think I had a bruised rib but my clavicle was out of place. He manipulated my arm, gave me a few chest compressions, which resulted in some loud popping, and gave me almost immediate relief. Now I can sneeze without dropping to my knees. It is awesome.
There are three things that I want you to take away from this article:
First, it is epic that I managed to complete a Tough Mudder with only 1 clavicle.
Second, chiropractic care is miraculous (thank you, Dr Spees).
Third, sometimes what we think is wrong and what is actually wrong are two different things. You can take all the ibuprofen you want, but sometimes in order to experience true relief, you have to address the problem, not the symptom. I thought that a few pain killers and a little time and the pain I was experiencing would take care of itself. Sometimes life doesn’t work that way and the actual problem needs to be addressed by someone who knows what they are doing, in order to get things back to where they belong, before the problem is resolved.
I know, we all like doing things on our own and we want to pretend like we know all the answers. But think about how God designed us. We are meant to be social creatures, to need each other. That is because there are some problems that are bigger than any one of us, but together, when everyone brings what they know to the table, some good things can happen. But to simply decide that you can do it yourself may be the most damaging thing you can do.
Don’t be afraid to ask for help. It isn’t a sign of weakness; it is a sign of great wisdom.