About.

On a snowy Tuesday evening, the evening we read my wife's test results, I had to try something new. For the last almost two years since I graduated Chiropractic school I have been working on building my brand. Moving between two states in such a short period of time raises the stakes a bit. After Chiropractic school I chose to move home thinking I would do my best to help pour into a dying town in Central Illinois. I found an old friend that was in the real estate business and signed a lease for a spot on the main drag. I toiled here for the next year barely enough to keep the doors open. My wife and I were recently married at the time and I had a duty to upkeep in providing for her the best that I could. I also felt a strong sense of ownership in helping my Dad with his business startup; however working with him always took the back seat to my practice. Even though I spent anywhere between 30 and 50 hours per week working with him and running my practice during the odd hours. Lots of early mornings and late nights. I was working for my Dad for $1000/mo while my wife and I stayed with them. This was a mutual arrangement. Dad needed the help, and we needed a place to stay. See at this point in life my wife was just fired from her job in Green Bay, Wisconsin. I knew I would marry her anyway so that's just what we did. I proposed in the lobby of my office on a whim with my great-grandmother's ring. I couldn't afford to buy her a ring of her own so I asked my mother for my great-grandmother's. We were on a shoe string budget as getting engaged and married within two weeks allows little time for saving. Why would you we do this to ourselves you ask? We are Christians and we try our best to practice what we preach so we didn't want to live together before being married. So this posed some logistic challenges early in our engagement. When she was fired she had no where else to go, but my family graciously opened their home to us while we got on our feet. Staying in different rooms each night for three weeks was hard but totally worth it. Right about this time my wife's eczema was really hitting its stride. She was drugging herself day and night to keep from itching herself until she was bleeding all over. I remember one particularly rough night. I opened the sliding door to the basement of my parents home to a frantic display of frustration, anger, sadness, resentment, tears and blood. Fingernails bitten to the nub to keep from making a bad situation worse, my love ferociously tore at the skin on her arms and legs until red beads formed and rolled down her limbs on every side. The sight of blood doing little to slow the need for relief. With tears in her eyes and gravel in her voice, she looked at me and said "What did I do wrong? Am I not good enough to be healed? God heals all of these other people! Why not me!? Answer me!" With my heart in my throat and stomach on the floor, I whispered back, "I don't know." You see the Benadryl wasn't working anymore and we had tried so many things. We had spent hundreds of dollars on supplements to no avail. Both of us knowing that what medical had to offer us was only short term relief. I just went to our room and got down on my knees and prayed, and prayed, and prayed. I wish I could say that she was miraculously healed but that was far from reality. In about 8 months I met with some friends from Chiropractic school at a wedding and they asked if I still wanted to work with them. I was incredibly excited. But to do this meant a move to Michigan. My wife and I prayed over it and decided that this was a great move for us because I'd have a mentor and she would have access to some of the best doctors I know. Right around this time her eczema was doing pretty well and we got pregnant just weeks before the move. Once in Michigan I told her that her job was to get better and build a healthy baby. So, I picked up a second job brick laying so she could stay home while I am building clientele. For the next 10 weeks her eczema was great. But on week 11 it exploded. It had been from about the lower thigh down on her legs and elbow down on her arms, but it quickly spread up each limb, then to her low back, then to her face. About 70% of her body was covered in it. Rent is $1,300 / month, our midwife, $500 / month, $300 / month student loans, then utilities, food, dog, ultrasound, and supplements. Money is TIGHT to say the least. I am working 6 days / week for 60 hours / week. Things are tough right now. The economy isn't great. Work is scarce. But I'm not into quitting. This isn't a sob story or a pity party. No. This, this is a war story. I hate debt with a passion, but sometimes you don't have a choice. We went to a doctor in town that is a medical doctor and a chiropractor. He isn't cheap, but he's the best. We put her care on a credit card and a month later we had an answer. Mold and a lot of it, and a Klebsiella gut infection. This is where we are on these snowy days of West Michigan. So, to paraphrase a great movie scene from The Town, "I need your help, I can't tell you what it is. You can never ask me about it later, and we're gonna [help] some people." If you're in, buckle up, its not about to be nice. It's going to be a health journey, a raw one, but a journey none the less.