Playing Doctor…

July 29, 2016 ~ Meg ~ 63 Comments

A look at my other life…

I don’t talk about my “real job” very much. But I had an interesting and very different week from normal this week. So let me tell you about it.

I am a chiropractor. And while most people think of chiropractors as the doctor you see when you have a sore back or a stiff neck, it’s really way more than that. Chiropractic is a science, art and philosophy. A philosophy? What does that mean, exactly?

Without going into exhaustive detail, it means that this profession was founded on principles that remain true to this day:

The human body has an innate ability to heal itself.
It can do so perfectly if there is no interference to those systems that the body utilizes for healing.
Interference can manifest itself as a vertebral subluxation – an impingement of the nerves leading from the spinal cord to all the organs and systems of the body.
This impingement can occur when the bones of the spine, the vertebra, lose their proper position in relation to their neighbors above and below. Again that is a simplification. The physiological effects are much more complex. But think about it, your brain and spinal cord, the central nervous system, are the primary communication system by which our beautiful brains tell the rest of the body what to do, how to respond and so forth. How can a body heal itself if it can’t get the message from the brain or to the brain from the periphery?
Chiropractors assist in removing this interference when they adjust the spine, restoring the vertebrae to its proper position.

So obviously, I have a love and reverence for my primary profession. I attended a Continuing Education seminar this week that focused on this “inside-out” principle. I had a wonderful time hanging out with my colleagues, exchanging ideas and sharing stories.

I am rather isolated when it comes to my current practice. It wasn’t always that way, however. After graduation in 1993, I went to work in a busy multi-doctor office and stayed for ten years, until the primary doctor retired. Then I joined another single doctor who wanted to expand his practice and worked there for another ten years. Both of these practices were about an hour away from where I live. The commute started to get old. So at the end of 2013, I walked away. Left the busy office behind and started seeing patients out of my house. The change was a relief. But there were other consequences…

As a solo, small office, taking no insurance, having no staff to supervise…. All good. However, my financial contribution has significantly diminished. Being able to work from home gives you a feeling that you’re not really working at all. It’s weird. And I am not happy with not “pulling my fair share” even though I contribute in other ways. Nevertheless, I have also begun to realize that I am a domestic failure. If I’m home, I take care of the house, right?

Well, truly, there is nothing that makes me more miserable than housework. As a result, the laundry sits in the washing machine until its moldy because I forget I threw a load in. We run out of silverware all the time. The dry cleaning sits in the back of my car because well, that goes right out of my head the minute it hits the trunk. (And wow, I’m totally getting off topic…) But I should be able to handle this, right? What the hell is wrong with me? Maybe I have vertebral subluxation….. Just about the only thing I take joy in is cooking. The rest of it? Meh.

Ok, back on topic. The other out of the ordinary thing I did this week was return to my old practice an hour away. I covered my former colleague’s vacation this week. It was fun and tiring. When you drive an hour each way, have a ten hour day of patients in between, you come home cross-eyed. Oh and by the way? It’s a very physical job. Those of you who see a chiropractor know what I mean. I’m on my feet all day, moving bodies, sometimes big bodies, around to adjust their spines. It requires a lot of exertion on the part of the doctor. I drove home the other night acutely remembering why I gave it up.

And yet…

Yes, I have more free time. Yes, I get to write and blog and interact with you lovely people throughout the day. And I do see a nice group of patients here at the house. But…

Sometimes I feel like I’m not doing anything well. Personally, domestically, privately, professionally… And then I feel like I’m just playing doctor. I don’t know if you all noticed but I even changed the way my name appears when I comment on your posts. It used to read drmegsorick. Now it reads Meg Sorick. Subtle but telling, no?

Microfiction

July 29, 2016 ~ Meg ~ 30 Comments

Even the wind stilled, as if the world was holding it’s breath.

I wrote this for #1linewed, a twitter event every Wednesday sponsored by @kissofdeath. Since today’s prompt for The Daily Post was “wind” I decided to share it.

The Silent One (by Ivor Gurney)

July 25, 2016July 25, 2016 ~ Meg ~ 26 Comments

Who died on the wires, and hung there, one of two–
Who for his hours of life had chattered through
Infinite lovely chatter of Bucks accent:
Yet faced unbroken wires: stepped over, and went
A noble fool, faithful to his stripes– and ended
But I weak, hungry, and willing only for the chance
Of line– to fight in the line, lay down under unbroken
Wires, and saw the flashes and kept unshaken,
Till the politest voice– a finicking accent, said:
‘Do you think you might crawl through, there: there’s a hole’
Darkness, shot at: I smiled, as politely replied —
‘I’m afraid not, Sir.’ There was no hole, now ay to be seen,
Nothing but chance of death, after tearing of clothes
Kept flat, and watched the darkness, hearing bullets whizzing–
And thought of music– and swore deep heart’s deep oaths
(Polite to God) and retreated and came on again,
Again retreated– and a second time faced the screen.

Image courtesy The Daily Mail.

About Ivor Gurney…

Born in 1890, Ivor Gurney was the son of a tailor and a seamstress. He showed musical ability and sang as a chorister at Gloucester Cathedral, from 1900 to 1906. Gurney began composing music at the age of 14, and won a scholarship to the Royal College of Music in 1911. Gurney’s dynamic personality was tainted by mood swings which appeared during his teenage years. They were significant enough to impact his work at college, eventually resulting in breakdown in 1913. He withdrew to rest, after which he seemed to recover and was able to return to college.

Nevertheless, college was once again interrupted by World War I. Gurney enlisted as a private soldier in the Gloucestershire Regiment in February 1915. At the Front, he began writing poetry seriously, sending his efforts to his friend, the musicologist-critic Marion Scott, who worked with Gurney as his editor and business manager. He was in the midst of writing the poems for what would become his first book Severn and Somme when he was wounded in the shoulder in April 1917. After recovering, he was returned to battle, still working on his book and composing music including the songs In Flanders and By A Bierside. Meanwhile, Gurney was gassed in September 1917 and sent to the Edinburgh War Hospital where he met and fell in love with a VAD nurse, Annie Nelson Drummond, but the relationship was doomed to fail. There is speculation about the possible effects of the gas on his mental health, even though Gurney had demonstrated the signs and symptoms of a bipolar disorder since his teens. After his release from hospital he was posted to Seaton Delaval, a mining village in Northumberland, where he wrote poems including ‘Lying awake in the ward’. Severn and Somme, was published in November 1917.

Gurney died of tuberculosis while still a patient at the City of London Mental Hospital shortly before dawn on 26 December 1937, aged 47. He was buried in Twigworth, near Gloucester.

On November 11, 1985, Gurney was among 16 Great War Poets commemorated on a slate stone unveiled in Westminster Abbey’s Poet’s Corner. The inscription on the stone was written by a fellow Great War poet, Wilfred Owen. It reads: “My subject is War, and the pity of War. The Poetry is in the pity.” A memorial to Gurney was erected in 2009 near Ypres, close to the spot where he was the victim of a mustard gas attack in 1917, and a blue plaque on Eastgate Street in Gloucester, commemorates his life.

(Source material Wikipedia)