Category: idiots

Rock Star Doctor Much?

I’m sitting at the computer searching for a new chiropractor.  It’s tedious work to sift through all the information that’s out there.  Most of the info is more like no info, you get that?  There’s the doctor’s name and contact information on a listing and when I click through to a website there’s very little there.  Or, there’s too much there. 

The guy I made an appointment with last week was into building up his business more than the health side, although he seemed excited about the health benefits of it.  I sat through the initial consultation and thermal spinal scan, which took forever, after waiting in that awful waiting area with a million people for an hour, only to find out that I had to return the next day.  They do an informal 2 hour info/lecture on this guy’s chiropractic method, among other things they do, and after that’s over you get to see the results of the consultation.  Well, after the first visit, when the secretary told me I had to return for this lecture and bring a family member because it was “very, very important”, I stopped dead in my tracks.  She told me this while I was putting on my jakcet and I froze, arm in mid-sleeve with a look on my face that said, “What?”  Hey, I’ve been to chiropractors before and never had to sit through an info-mercial about it!  Give me a freaking break, here!  I just want an adjustment and go home, thank you!

I know about of the benefits of chiropractic since I’ve had a couple of really good ones help me with my herniated disc and related pain.  My first doctor passed away, the other really good one is in Manhattan, too much trouble to visit a couple times a week. Besides spinal manipulation, I use something called Emotional Freedom Technique, or EFT for short, which releases negative energy by tapping on acupunture pressure points and saying affirmations.  Works really well.  The NYC doctor used Applied Kineseology which is a muscle testing technique to find weaknesses in the body.  Why have surgery if all this information is out there, and it works?

Well, this guy must think he’s a rock star or something, the way he lectured the 8 people at this meeting, for almost 2 hours!  I’ve got things to do, mister!  My eyes were rolling around in my head. I thought this was totally disrespectful of my own time.  It was such a heavy sales pitch, like Rah Rah Chiropractic! Yayyyyy!  Everyone in the room was clapping when he was done, but me.

Afterwards I waited in the hallway.  Too noisy, hot, and whatever in that waiting room.  The guy was ready and I saw him in one of the many treatment rooms.  He started going over my chart.  Well, I had to tell him what I thought of his waiting room, #1, and then his sale pitch, #2.  I explained I am well aware of the various techniques and how they can help keep us in good health.  I told him I do EFT, guided imagery, etc.  Anyway, bottom line, he says I need 65 visits, twice a week, paid up front!  Yikes!  Um, I don’t think so.  Why dump such a huge chunk of change in this guy’s hands?  What if he goes under for some reason?  What if I can’t continue?  There were so many things wrong about this.  I told him I had to sleep on it.  He was shocked!  He didn’t know what to do to keep me coming back to his practice.  Ok, so the adjustment I finally had was really good and lasted until the next day, but to pay over $4000 to him then and there?  Uh-uh.

So, here I am Googling through info.  Do I have to make appointments with every chiropractor in my area to see who is normal and not a rock star?  This is going to take time.

Had it in the Fun House. Now Where’s the exit?

It’s Monday morning and my day has been well under way for hours.  I awake most days at around 6:00-6:30AM, no later.  My usual routine is to get myself together and go to the kitchen to get the coffee started.  Must have coffee.  In an old post I told you how I like to make coffee in my old fashioned Corning Ware stove-top percolator.  Old school style, I know, but drip just doesn’t offer the aroma of perked coffee.  Sorry, just doesn’t and what’s a morning without the coffee wafting through the house?

I get the coffee going and make lunches for the Mr. and Son #2.  Son #1 is married and out so I’m down to the three of us. I bring in the newspaper from the sidewalk and read it with my coffee.  It’s the perfect time of day.  If I’m lucky I write the Morning Pages while they’re still asleep.  Most days that doesn’t happen and I write after they leave for the day when my time is my own. I write every day.

The Morning Pages, from the book The Artist’s Way, have become a lifeline, as I’ve said before.  I write the date and time at the top of the page and then all this stuff starts pouring out of my head, through my arm, the pen, and to the page. Then the fun begins.  Good thoughts and ideas, stupid stuff and dopey people wind up in the pages.  Lately the focus has been on my own resistance, and the dopey people.  Every day another block.  Every day another thing from these dopey people.  The pages are supposed to help one see where one needs the most attention.  Okay, my resistance I’m working on, but how about the dopey people?

I’m being mild here when I say “dopey people.”  I’d like to call them something else, but I’m just not that way.  How long can you excuse their actions by calling it jealousy?  This is no longer 4th grade no-clue stupid stuff, but real life adult dopey people. What are you supposed to do, hide in a cave?  In a previous post I was talking about reading Walking in This World, how other people try to fit you into how they’re used to seeing you, but they can’t now that you’ve become who you’re meant to be.  Okay, find a better mirror, but how long does it take? When will it be over and how do you get out of the fun house?

Here’s a scenario.  Let’s say there’s a young person who loves doing a thing, and someone a little older loves doing the same thing, that’s nice.  Over time they grow older, learn more, become more talented, more interested, more adept, more out there with this thing they love, and do it better than the older person.  Suddenly, the older person is annoyed, upset, surprised, and combative.  Just because the younger person grew up and became more of who they really are, and is better at the thing than the older person will ever be, why is that a problem?  Why can’t the older person say, “Good for you!  Look at how you’ve grown and what you’ve become!”  No, this previous mentor becomes the aggressor, the enemy.  We’re talking about an adult with responsibilities, children, in an adult world having a tantrum, pouting, screaming, ignoring, sulking, pounding their chest like a big ape because they’re surprised this younger person showed them up by doing the thing they love to do differently, better, new.  “Since you’re doing it like that, now I’m not going to be your friend. He has a swelled head.” Give me a break.  Who really has the swelled head?

What keeps coming up in my pages is the question, “Why?”  I know I said in the other post that people are jealous when you grow.  But, how does the word jealous cover all this dopey person’s stuff?  I can’t figure it out.  I’m hoping that in writing about the negativity it will dissipate and the morning pages will give me an answer.  I need to know how to react when I see said dopey person. Soon.