- Dr Rob Meadows

DID YOU GROW UP LIKE ME?

Growing up, I remember well going to the “medicine cabinet”.  I don’t mean that little shallow one in the bathroom, hidden behind the mirror.  Ours was different.  Ours was in the kitchen, with two of the shelves FILLED with over the counter drugs!

Growing up I remember getting sick all the time, at least two major times per year.  Always once in the spring, and again in the fall.  It always started out the same, as a little allergy type thing.  You know, the ones that are “no big deal” a little sneezing, a little stuffy nose.  Eventually that sinus congestion would travel down into my lungs, and I would get bronchitis, occasionally pneumonia.  It would then take about 2-3 months before I was well again.   If you add up those months, you’ll see that I was “well” again just in time to start the sick cycle all over again.

DRUGS, DRUGS, AND MORE DRUGS:

 It isn’t that I was denied medical care, actually I got to know the receptionist and doctors at the local medical office quite well.  Sometimes I would get a different intern, and he would flip through my chart briefly, listen to my lungs, take my pulse, and then offer up yet another prescription. One time sticks out in my memory as I had gone to the doctor’s office early to “head it off” as my mom put it.  (a form of “prevention” - trying to take the drugs early to keep from getting as sick as I usually did).   Of course I still got sick, it still progressed, and that season I had been to the same doctor’s office 6 times, and each time I had been given different medications.  Decongestants, Antihistamines, Cough suppressants – some with expectorants, some with codeine, inhalers, and antibiotics.  As the intern offered me yet another little scrap of paper, I had to inform him we had already tried that drug. He offered another, to the same response from me “Already tried that Doc, got anything else?”.  Two in a row!.. he furiously flipped through my chart, had to “be right back” (Now I know that is Doctor code for “I’ve got to look this one up in  the book”).  Finally he produced a new drug I had not used before and I left.

 Well, obviously that drug was the one that did it, which is why I’m writing this today!  Ok, I’m kidding of course.  That drug did the same as all the rest, they attempted to resolve a symptom, but did not get to the problem of WHY I was getting sick so often for so long.

CHIROPRACTIC FOR MY ALLERGIES AND LUNGS?

 As I attended Life Chiropractic University.  I learned how spinal adjustments were able to help people recover from numerous conditions.  I began learning about many techniques and specialties that chiropractors practiced.  I started studying upper cervical chiropractic care which works on correcting the Atlas bone on the very top part of the spine.  I never imagined that by specifically adjusting this little bone how my whole life could change.  Each month my body began to get healthier and healthier in spite of my poor college eating habits and the tremendous stress of the doctorate curriculum.  My desire to learn more and more about this took me to many chiropractors’ offices and seminars from Atlanta to Oklahoma. 

MY LIFE WAS CHANGED:

The next spring, I can remember it vividly to this day.  I was walking home from class, to my apartment in the campus dorms.  It was a bright, sunny, blue sky day.  Birds were chirping, and flowers were in bloom. I walked to the top of the hill, and saw a large bush in full bloom with white flowers reaching up to the sky. Normally this was just an ordinary green bush, but in the spring it was full of tiny flowers. I stopped, wondering with amazement at the beauty of a simple bush, and took a deep breath.  It was at that EXACT MOMENT that I realized I could smell… I had taken a breath through my nose, and I could smell the flowers!  This was the first time in my life I could remember smelling the sweet aroma of flowers in springtime.  I can not tell you how that feels.  To this day it still touches me that my life was changed in such a major way through such a small thing as an adjustment.   It was then that I dedicated my life to learning upper cervical and associated chiropractic techniques and helping as many people as I could the same way that my mentor doctors helped me.

That previous fall was the last time I have ever gotten sick like I had my entire life.  I can now run if I feel like it without having my lungs close down.   I picked up about 20 pounds, and look like a different person now from the skinny, sickly kid I was growing up.

This summer I plan to complete the Peachtree road race, which has been a goal of mine for sometime, something I never could have even dreamed of accomplishing before.

 I found out from my mother sometime later that I was delivered with forceps, which the doctors used to forcibly pull me out by my head.  I believe it was this initial injury which caused my first subluxation, impacting my entire life up until the time I had it corrected and my body had time to heal properly.

This is a picture of my son Dempsey. I checked and adjusted him myself no more than 10 minutes after his birth (which I supervised to insure no additional stresses were placed on his tiny spine).  I want to insure my son does not have to endure the same health problems I had.  I KNOW the importance of being subluxation free, and I will do everything in my power to insure he lives a healthy, happy, subluxation free life.

I look back now and wonder . . . I wonder what my life would have been like if I had been adjusted when I was younger, when I was a child, or even an infant.  I could have played sports with all the other kids instead of feeling left out because I could not run for long without my lungs shutting down.  Mostly I look back at wonder in God's plan for my life, that I was guided step by step into chiropractic and then towards my specialty in chiropractic . . . An I can now see a glimpse of the good that will come of it, as I will be used to help other families so they can all be healthy and happy.

Thank you Chiropractic, for giving me my LIFE, and my HEALTH!

Dr Robert D. Meadows Sr., DC, CCEP
NUCCA Chiropractor