yep.

When I was single, people used to try and set me up with their friends. I guess dating the unstable doctor was on a lot of people's bucket list. Anyway, during the blind date negotiations one topic that always came up, and got danced around, was the "looks" department.

"Yeah, you should go out with her, she's smart, funny, real cute."

or

"Duuuude, she's hot, you should go out with her. Plus its the only way her friend will go out with me."

I noticed that no one ever said "yeah, she is not ugly at all."

What does this have to do with my practice members?

When you think about your health, and the health of your kids, do you strive to be as healthy as you can? Or do you just want to be "not sick". I spoke with someone this week who didn't know there was a difference. Rest assured, there is. We are taught that just being "not sick" is good enough. As long as you don't have symptoms, you're fine. This is the reason that health care (other than at our office) is so terrible. Instead of being proactive, people wait until they cannot stand their symptoms any longer before they seek health. They do this because that is what they were/are instructed to do by their health care providers, either intentionally, or by inference . Think about the difference between a heart attack and minor chest pain. How much money, pain, and suffering could be avoided if we actually taught some prevention and health in our offices. The last numbers I looked at show actual health prevention and education at something like 5% of the national budget for health care. What a joke.

The difference between being healthy and being "not-sick" is the same as the difference between being gorgeous and being "not-ugly." Think long and hard about this. Please.

Yield to me.

People ask me (since I run my mouth about it so much) what I think the answer is to fixing the health care crisis. The answer is very simple;

Come to our office, be a patient, do what we say.

Yes, I'm serious. Let me be crystal clear. I think my office is the answer to the health care crisis. Take a moment to be shocked and awed at my audacity.

2.3 billion (BILLION) in fines to Phizer last week for flat out bribing M.D.s to pimp their drugs. Was your MD involved? Don't know the answer do you? Then you have the blatantly faked studies from the professor in New Jersey regarding clinical trials of a widely-used drug. Shocker. I can't wait for the next flat-earther to tell me Chiropractic needs more research. What are we, 38th in world health? We spend how much on health-care, which is really sick care, mind you. Health care involves education and prevention. Sick care involves expensive and dangerous short-term symptom reduction.

You cannot look at how sick, fat, depressed, and addicted we are and think the system is remotely acceptable. Who has been in charge of health care (sick care) in this country for the past 50 years?

Exactly.

So, the answer to the crisis? Come to the people you pay to keep you healthy. No one works harder as a staff to maker sure you can do whatever the heck you want. That's health care baby. Get in line for the good stuff.

Is this a joke?

Yeah, life expectancies are up according to this study done by our boys down at the CDC. It's too bad we lag behind about 30 other countries.

Pretty odd that we die so young compared to countries that don't spend a quarter of what we do on drugs and surgery. I wonder why that is? I mean, shouldn't we be the healthiest and longest living country on earth, since we take so many more drugs and have such an advanced health care system?

Maybe better living through better chemistry doesn't work, as studies like this one suggest. Maybe our jobs as doctors should instead be facilitating the education of people on how to stay healthy, rather than running obsolete tests and giving drugs based on blatantly faked studies.

Nah! Not with big pharma and a mediocrity awarding health-care system pumping billions into advertising. Moar drugz plez!

Bring on your ruminants!

I've been sitting here for what feels like ages (probably 5 minutes, but I've had 3 cups of coffee) trying to figure out how to introduce this blog. I wanted to build it up, you know, a classical build-up to a story. Rising action, climax, prologue, the whole thing. Why?

Look at the picture man!

There we were. A typical St. Louis summer day at Grant's farm. It's hot, St. Louis hot. The kind of heat that starts searing you the second you open the car door. It evaporates any A/C cooled air instantly and climbs into the car to get you. You are actually sweating before you even get out of the car.

Then you walk. Oh, do you walk. Across the blacktop parking lot which is more like a tar-lot, and into the tram, packed full of smelly, sweaty, hot humans. Once the tram got moving the breeze helped. I think the tram operator knew we were all hot because he was hauling ass. No one complained though. There were about 20 people riding with their heads out the window. We musta looked like a whole kennel of dogs riding in a clown car.

So its hot right, we get to the goats part, where you can feed them from the outside of their enclosure or the inside. I'm hot, pissed, and worried about my 7 month's pregnant wife. I'm not really down with going into the enclosure, thereby adding one more thing to worry about. Superman wants to go in though, and Jamie gives me the "take him in, its his first time" look. Well, I never win against that look, I am the king of doing things with James for the first time. I'm sure that will be on my tombstone.

Anyway, we go into the enclosure with the milk to feed them and the goats start swarming. I try to push them back and set James down so he can get a bearing on whats going on. They are dodging my leg sweeps though, and he is squirming so I set him down. He immediately goes to his haunches as a goat squares up about 6 feet away.

I've got the milk and I am trying to distract all the goats away from James, but this goat doesn't want the milk. He wants my kid's clothes. He starts in on James, taking slow steps, but coming nonetheless.

At about 4 feet James swings his arm out and gives the goat a big "NO". The goat pauses, then resumes his steady approach. James repeats his warning. The goat doesn't even stop this time. I'm about to intervene when my kid, without even rising up from his haunched position, slowly brings his arms and hands out in front of him. The goat walks right into the hands and James closes them around it's throat. It was spectacular. I'm not kidding it was methodical interdiction designed to put his hands on the goats throat at the furthest possible range. The goat hits the hands and jerks to a halt. James doesn't budge.

Time stopped, seriously, I couldn't believe I was watching James take on a goat, and he was holding the goat back. It was so primal, so savage, and strangely, satisfying.

My son had encountered something he had never seen before, stood up for himself, and gone mano a mano with the unknown.

No I am not being dramatic, its a metaphor, a blueprint, for how I want to teach him to take on the world.

I can't stop smiling.

two.

Superman turns 2 on Saturday, two!!

What the hell just happened? Seems like I just got done freaking out over being a father, now I find myself almost tearing up because it is going by so fast.

Is this one of the "mellowing" effects of fatherhood I'm experiencing? It is true that I am uncharacteristically nonchalant these days (as evidenced by the lack of speeding tickets and shaking fists). Suppose he starts to potty train in the next few months. If we weren't planning on having another baby (in production now, btw) that means I would be done changing diapers by christmas.

My brain boggles just thinking about that fact. The first thing that comes to mind?

Everyone complaining about diaper changing, all you "just wait until you have to do it" or "you'll see" people are serious wimps.

I took the worst of the diapers due to our friend "morning sickness" making an encore so I know diapers. It wasn't that bad. Did you people not share a house with 1000 other students in college? Now that was bad. Smelly? Gross? Show up at the bar and help me close it after St. Patricks day, you'll never drink again.

Back to more important matters. What to get him. Stay tuned.

this

The American Alligator.

Beastly, carnivorous, the subject of wives tales and reality survival shows. Mostly recently, my sons indispensible, second-only-to-dad-in-coolness new buddy. He carries a 3 foot long alligator everywhere we go. It rides in the cart with us at Home Depot, everyone who walks by does a double take.

"Baby, Allgator."

"Yes, James, that is your Alligator."

"This, this, this, this"

"This" accompanied by pointing at the object is his was of saying, "that's right, its mine, and its bad ass."

Teddy bears, fairies, overly verbose plastic dogs?

My kids toy eats them.

I cannot get enough of it.

Stuck.

Cran-raisins. The work of the devil himself.

They are small, squishy, flesh-colored and tart-tasting. The perfect storm of things you don't want your kid putting up his or her nose. They are small enough for the child to get into the nasal cavity, but large enough that once you begin running out of space, which the upper part of the nostril is famous for, you can easily get one lodged. They are squishy, they bend and shape to the cavity as they are being pushed up, once they get stuck they have compressed and tightened to the point where they are filling, and blocking off, the whole nostril. Because of this squishy-ness they are difficult to grab with a tweezers. Made even more difficult is the fact that the damn things are the same color as the nose! What the hell! Not only is the screaming, kicking child getting apoplectic as you manhandle the delicate nasal area, you can't even see what you are doing in those brief lulls between whole body spasms.

No more fruit-veggie hybrid things that are the same color as human cavity linings. Period.

I learned one or two things from the whole episode;

1) Pediatrician over ER doc for removal, they have more experience with both children and non- traumatically lodged objects in children.

2) Hold the child facing away from you sitting on your lap, pin both arms down with your one arm, then use your other hand to hold their head. Its the safest position to restrain them in. It will also make you feel like the biggest piece of crap should you be the one doing it.

3) Remove everyone from the room who is not essential to solving the problem.

4) Keep telling yourself that hopefully this will be the worst thing to ever happen.

5) Ice cream for everyone afterwards, and lots of it.

solo tip

I just realized I'm on no one's team. I complain about the cult that is modern medicine and it's mockery of real science. At the same time I admonish (excessively, perhaps) other chiropractors when they break down and call me for advice. For some time now I have felt like there isn't anyone else doing what we do so well at the office.

I mean, I have always known that there isn't any other office actually working to give great health care as passionately as we are, an office where getting patients healthy is just the start of what we want to accomplish. Lately though, I have felt like anywhere I go, or speak at, or consult at, that I am the singular one of my species as a physician. It's not just that I feel like no one else is as driven (crazy), I feel like no one else is even trying, like I'm the only one who is even attempting to deliver heath care in our model. That means one of two things doesn't it?

1) The current healthcare model for my part of the world is wrong or;
2) I'm wrong

Well that's sobering.

everywhere signs.

I saw this sign at the dermatologist's office. Wow.

I realize that with insurance reimbursements dropping that doctors need to see more people in order to make the same amount of money (they do anyway, we are still seeing only the people we want to see), but this is grade-A malpractice. How the hell do you (the patient) know what is important or not important each time you go to the doctor? Is that a mole or a carcinoma? Is Timmy's cough nothing to worry about or TB? Are you putting on a couple pounds or is that a giant sebaceous cyst about to burst on your dinner guests? You don't know! You aren't the doctor so why in the hell shouldn't you be asking these questions.

But the doctor doesn't have time to answer all my questions!

Then find one who does! Jeez, get some respect for yourself and your health. Find one who hasn't built his practice around a failed paradigm and can make time to speak with you rather than treat you like you are a waste of time.

But you see people quickly, how is this any different?

Not quickly, we see people the quickest. Chiropractic lends itself to consistent, rapid visits. This lets us stay up to date with your health concerns. How? Because we see you more often you don't have to ask us a bunch of questions, we answer them as we go. If something more important pops up, then we do our job as doctors, find the answer then follow-up with you at a scheduled time. It's a beautiful thing.

This is the problem with the wait-until-it breaks-then-try-to-fix-it or if-I'm-not-in-pain-then-I'm-healthy paradigms. Most of them cannot/do not operate at anything resembling efficiency, but in this economic environment they are being forced to. How do they feel about it? How is it affecting the business of health care? Who knows, they aren't the one paying the price (pun intended).

You are.

anonymous

We had a young guy in the office with eczema today. I get a lot of questions about how/what we do to fix it, and why it works. I can certainly understand how people new to chiropractic or who harbor some antiquated ideas (backcrackers) about what we do having some confusion. I probably don't help the situation either. If I'm in public with a mixed group of people (chiropractically mixed, I mean) and someone asks about eczema, asthma, or some other malady that is really not associated with chiropractic I will typically respond with:

"Yeah, we punch 'em in the neck, then they get better" or "I throw them down the stairs, then bill you for it."

Why do I do this?

I have no idea. I guess I just have a chip on my shoulder because not everyone recognizes how good we are at keeping people healthy. The bottom line is that I know we should be the first stop for keeping kids healthy in all of St. Charles and we aren't yet. That irks me. The fact that people don't know about us irks me. People don't send me cars, cards, baseball tickets, or get my name tatoo'd on thier arms, I guess that irks me too.

There is nothing worse than being fantastic and no one knowing it.

braggadocio

You get healthier when you come to Fink Chiropractic Centers.

Whether you like it or not, whether you care or not, you get healthier. You don't have a choice. Why? Because your state of health is the product of your knowledge of health. Think of it this way, if you really understood what was in soda I guarantee you wouldn't drink it or give it to your kids, even to shut them up. If you knew how that sugary b.s. was pounding your pancreas, depressing your immune system, and throwing rocks through your windows you wouldn't even think about eating it, no matter how good it tastes. The problem is that so many people make so much money off you being fat, sick, depressed, and addicted that they can fund ads for hours and hours. These ads mislead, misquote, and confuse you as to what is healthy and what is not. Better yet, they make their product seem "not that bad". Meanwhile your gut and spine are rotting while you cover up the symptom of back pain with pain killers.

Not here though, nope.

In our office, you get an education, and an adjustment. Nothing formal, no classroom style stuff, but every single time we see you we explain a different facet of human health. Because we usually will see you more often than medical check-ups we can build on your education. Naturally, you begin to make healthier decisions.

Because, if you don't, I ask you why.

If your medical doctor gives you recommendations and you don't do them, what happens? Doesn't much matter does it? You won't be seeing him again for months. You are much more likely to follow my recommendations because I'll be seeing you again on a shorter time table. This creates accountability, which I know is the second biggest problem with the current medical paradigm. No one takes any accountability for your health, and no one holds your ass accountable for your decisions.

No one, that is, except us.

You cannot argue with our methods or our results. 1000 spines a month, 6 years and I can count on one hand the number of people we couldn't "fix".

Bragging? Hell yes I am.

Why do it?

Your staff will betray you, sooner or later they will meet someone on myspace and leave your ass with a full patient load and no one to run scans, help with rehab, or route practice members for adjustments.

Your insurance company relationships will be a joke. They don't want to pay, they don't acknowledge chiropractic, they make it as hard as they possibly can for you to get reimbursed. All this despite the documented fact that you are saving them millions with every full day of adjusting.

Your personal injury cases will go to hell. Money will sour your patient relationships, bargaining and re-bargaining will make you feel like an expensive prostitute.

M.D.s? Please. You will be as much colleagues as the Cubs are to the Cardinals. Same game, different breed of player.

Long hours, stress, bills, all factors in your practice as a chiropractor.

So why do it?

Because you are a friggin' doctor man. Because some crappy Thursday while you are stuck in the office someones mom calls the office and she is out of her mind. She has called every doctor in town and been to the ER twice. Her kid can't breathe well and the drugs aren't working. She heard from a friend of a friend of a friend that you help kids and hopes you can help. You put off lunch to wait while she races to the office. When they get there you can tell she is absolutely losing it, fully caught up between having some witch doctor crack on her baby and the long, labored breathing of the child.

You begin to talk about what it is chiropractors do but she isn't there, she can't hear a word you are saying. Her kid is in trouble and she is dying on the inside. You abandon the formalities and begin the assessment. Once you are done with your assessment you tell her what you think you should do and you deliver the adjustment of your life.

Ka-boom.

The skies open up, angels descend, junior's soft, dilated pupils snap to focus sharply on you. Suddenly, the kid is there. The mother cannot believe her eyes. The accessory muscles in the neck go soft and the child takes a breath as deep and long as spring.

It is a long, long time before you can stop smiling. That's why I do it.

dude. whatever.

Big big meeting in D.C. this week. Health care is getting a reform! A big old single payer, multiple payer, how do we stop the crushing costs, extravaganza! Ayeyiyiyiyiy! Yip Yip!

Looks like everyone is going to be there throwing in their two cents about what is wrong with American health care. It'll be like lollapalloza but with suits. Instead of Eddie Vedder they can have the surgeon general leading the wave across the rotunda. In a way I think that is long overdue, but ultimately, they aren't going to accomplish much. Not the wave part, I mean the open discussion, seeing a bunch on congressmen do the wave would be wicked cool.

American health care is not health care, it is focused on "sick" care. The paradigm looks like this: You do nothing until you feel sick, then you go to a doctor and get a pill. If your symptoms go away then you are "healthy" again. Oh sure, they want you to come in once a year to get a check-up. Once a year? And you can only talk about one topic with the doctor per visit? How do these people show their faces.

Here is the deal, I just want to say this now and get it out there, that way in 10-15 years when my patients are the only ones left in this country who are actually healthy I can say I told you so.

Health care in this country will continue to suck until we:

1) EDUCATE children on nutrition and make it cool to eat healthy. I say children because adults are too hooked on sugar and other "my mom gave it to me so it must be healthy" foods to change. It is this current generation of kids that need our help and will still listen.

2) Stop performing untested, dangerous pills and surgical procedures as the main form of health care. There are so many other, better ways to provide actual health care than teaching people to pop pills and get cut open.

I know this won't happen. Too much money is being made on Americans being sick, fat, depressed, and addicted for the idea to blossom. I just wanted to make sure I put it out there so that I can say I was right.

Busy.

People ask me when/if I ever get to sleep. I guess they wonder what life is like running a wildly successful chiropractic office, getting a book published, speaking several times a month to businesses about health topics, burning dinner, etc. so I have included several snapshots of this past month.

1) The good old days.

My son loves to watch videos of himself. That's right, my 20 month-old son likes to watch our homemade videos of himself when he was just a couple weeks old. Don't ask, every time I talk about it I feel ancient. In this shot you can see one of the videos on the TV as I chase my tiny man through the room. Also pictured are the 3 year old toys that James is tall enough to play with. Can you feel me beaming?

2) Staff Meeting

One of our staff meetings at the office. We meet for a hour once a week to make sure everything is running smoothly, iron-out kinks in office flow, figure out why we left a patient in the re-exam room for 90 minutes, etc. As you can see, dancing is highly encouraged at the meeting, that is Dr. Mawer rocking a sweet robato in the background.


3) Bribed.

This is Jerry, he won the Fink Chiropractic Center pick' em league for 2008-2009. We gave him a trophy. We give out lots of trophies. Why? Are you kidding? Who doesn't want a trophy?!

I'll show you cheap

I love all the attention that is being paid to how much we, as Americans, are spending on healthcare. Finally, the wasteful and unproven b.s.-ery that occcupies "healthcare" will be examined.

Why am I so happy about it?

Because chiropractic kicks ass, thats why. Even the most flat-earth, pill-popping, pin-headed, technophilic people out there must bow to our numbers.

What numbers?

I'm glad you asked.

An insurance company looked at people over age 75 and compared people who get adjusted with those who do not. The result? People getting adjusted reported less time in hospitals (21%) used fewer drugs, better overall health, and were more active than those who did not.

Another company surveyed people who had been using chiropractic care for more than 5 years. It turns out they spent 31% less than the national average for health services. That is a very big, very significant number.

In a study of more tan 2818 respondents a strong connection was found between those persons getting adjusted and a higher quality-of-life. So much so that 99% of the persons surveyed wanted to continue care.

Going to the doctor for costly, unproven, dangerous emergency care is a fools game, and always has been. It is time for the medical model of better living through better chemistry as the mainstream method of choice to be put where it belongs.

In the trash.

vehemence

Have you ever looked at the "comment" section on places like the USA today or AOL story pages. What a bunch of jackasses. Where are all these Internet tough guys coming from? I cannot believe some of the reasoning behind most of the comments that are made. It looks like this:

Comment 1 : Random comment loosely based on story, suspicious statistics
Comment 2: Sharp attack on comment 1's logic, assertion of superior logic with equally flawed statistics
Comment 3: Weak attempt to poke fun at comment one and two
Comment 4: Vicious rant with clear relationship issues and/or poor typing indicative of inebriation or "angry-type"
Comment 5: Pacifistic comment completely unrelated and generalized to the point of blandness
Comment 6: Personal attack on the mothers of commenters 1 and 2

Viva la interwebz!

told you so.

http://www.courier-journal.com/article/20090119/MOMS/90119016


Not a bad article, except for the zany parts where they ask medical doctors what they think about chiropractic care. In all the medical doctors I have spoken with (that is, the ones who actually return my calls when I try to discuss patient care with them) I have encountered 3 that actually have a grasp on chiropractic care. Normally, I wouldn't care, but isn't it their job to know the best possible treatments for their patients?

If I thought a patient needed surgery, I would recommend it at the drop of a hat. In fact, it is one of the first promises I make to my patients when I meet them. Our allopathic colleagues have the same responsibility. Period.

Ranting aside, we have been seeing 20-30 kids a month for several years now, getting them healthy and keeping them healthy. We do this through hours of education and research on how best to keep these tiny titans bulletproof. It is our greatest responsibility.

Also, their expression is fun to watch when I tell them I am going to sell their spleens.

snow day

Early 2009 Rumination.

1. How in the world do they do the dancing animations for the Backyardigans? I would love to see an episode where they break-dance fight.

2. Will I ever speak with a medical doctor who has any clue what it is I do?

3. You cannot exercise and stretch your way out of significant subluxation. Period.

4. Sometimes you have to shove health down people's throats.

5. 2 year molars, we hates them.

6. I miss my barbecue pit.

7. Health is not the absence of symptoms, corollary to that; pain is not due to an absence of drugs or an excess of organs.

8. I drink too much coffee.

bring me your huddled masses

New dads, I have heard your pleas. I know the depths of your pain and am here to offer you the way out.

These are the things you need to do when you want to get your newborn or toddler to sleep through the night (or just go to bed).

1) Make a routine and stick with it no matter what. This is the hardest, but the most important. Little brains are busy shaving off white matter and gray matter and organizing new connections, its an awesome sequence of enzymes and catalysts. What does this have to do with you? You can develop a habit or pattern in those young minds by using the same environmental cues at the same time each day. Give the baby a bath, turn the lights down, read to him or her (no t.v.) in the baby's room. As much as you can, recreate the same scene every night. This is difficult for new parents who may still be used to the 'stay up till whenever thing'. Those days are gone. You traded them in for your bundle of joy.

2) Put the thermostat down and slowly back away. Most of the parents I speak with about this react like I just deleted their TiVo. I completely understand the desire to make sure the child is comfortable, especially when you won't be in the room. Understand that most humans will sleep better in a colder environment. It induces the sleep reflex. If your child is flush while sleeping, you may have too much heat for their sleep to be relaxed and uninterrupted. In general, if you have the room temperature below 70 degrees (F) you are in the ballpark.

3) See you in hell! Placing a sleeping baby in a cold bed will not work well for you. Especially when you think you've almost got the baby down. Using a warm towel or flannel sheets to warm that bed up or keep it warm will work wonders for you.

4) Just 10 minutes more, please. Drapes, shutters, black paint, anything but those airline eye patches to keep the room dark. This will buy you time enough time in the morning to get to the coffee pot, thereby saving everyone a rocky start.

4) Fight on! At first, the new routine will be annoying for both of you. Stick with it, over time the pattern will take effect, you will notice your baby getting sleepy as soon as you begin the routine.

5) Act cool. Any mom will have this information because they have already researched it 1000 times. What scores you monster points is then you know this information. Don't tell her I told you, act like you knew it on your own. She will be reassured that she selected you as a mate.

Let me know how it goes, and good luck out there!

assignment of blame.

"Dr. Fink, my doctor said I have pre-hypertension, he said I will need to start taking drugs."

"Tell him you are pre-death as well, ask him if you should be taking drugs for that. Also mention that you are pre-prostate enlargement, see if he will give you an exam. Ask him if he has any drugs for pre-high cholesterol so that you can eat whatever you want completely free of any physical responsibility. See if he has drugs that will let you spend whatever amount of money you want whenever you want and never have to pay it back. Tell him you are glad he doesn't take on the responsibility to educate you on the 7 ways that are more effective at reducing 'pre-hypertension' than just shotgunning drugs into patients. Ask him if he wants me to call him and give him a brief overview of human nutrition. Ask him if he thinks people get sick because they have a shortage of drugs in their system."

"Dr. Fink, you scare me."

"Yeah, I know. Doctor who cares right? That must be terrifying."

you stop it.

When you are driving down the road and the little red "check engine" light comes on, what do you do? Do you put tape over the light so you don't have to look at it?

If you don't talk to your wife for 1 month how is your relationship going to be?

Going to the gym once per month? How are those abs gonna look?

Walking once per lunar cycle? How is that going to impact your heart health?

When I in school I had a friend who could cram for tests like no other, the guy would eat books whole, then puke 'em out during test time. His grades were pretty good too and this was biochemistry we are talking about. It was impressive. My father in law has a large farm, on one part of it we have corn and winter wheat. How well do you think that wheat would grow if we just ran out there the night before we wanted to harvest and planted and watered the crop. Would it grow overnight? Is it possible to cram growth and development? Do you you think your health is closer to a cramming for test situation or a growing crop situation?

Stop with the b.s. about your health. You know it and I know it isn't going to work any other way that for you to eat right, sleep right, and get some damn exercise. Diets do not work, they never have, they never will. I don't care about the 3 or 4 people they plaster all over the magazine covers who used some miraculous diet.

Your body works on a universal set of principles similar to the principles that make corn grow. It can't be rushed or tricked. That is the truth, and you know it.

Is it inconvenient? Hell yes. Is it worth it? Ask someone who isn't healthy what they would give to be in your shoes.

skill sets

Lately we have been seeing a lot of new dads in the office. It's gotten to the point where I know the wife/girlfriend/co-conspirator is pregnant solely by looking at the man's face. I gotta tell 'ya, it's pretty brutal to look at sometimes. I have made it a point to pull them aside (the man) and issue several edicts that, if they follow, will make their (the man) transition into fatherhood that much easier.

1) Learn to get dressed in the dark.

If you wake the baby or the sleeping mother you fail and will be disparaged like the other scrub fathers when the moms get together. Your goal is to be the shining dad at these contests. Being able to get up, get your stuff, and get out without waking anyone up is a trick you should have mastered in college. If you did not, take the time before your baby is born to perfect it.

2) Hold the baby every chance you get.

One of the biggest fears that new moms have has nothing to do with junior. She is terrified of you. After many conversations with new moms I can safely tell you that she has nightmares that you will run away, cheat, become disinterested, or fake your own death. Holding the baby will reassure her that you aren't going anywhere (if you are going somewhere you really should have thought this through better) which will ease her anxiety. Believe me, you want her anxiety eased, it makes life better for everyone.

3) Get your kitchen organized and make room for the bottles or formula on a low shelf near the 'fridge.

Since babies only want food/drink once you are asleep this will prevent you from going insane and/or injuring yourself when trying to make a midnight bottle. That way, when you wake up and hear the call of the hungry child (piercing wail) all you have to do is go to the one place you were probably going to go anyway. Make sure this shelf with the baby paraphernalia stays neat and tidy. It will save your life. For God's sake, don't be a scrub and make her get the milk/formula. She is most likely breast feeding every 3 hours for the first couple of weeks if not months, when its time to bottle up, grow up and be the errand boy.

4) Arthas can wait.

When you have your first baby, you will not believe how much time you wasted screwing around everyday (when you have your second, you will not believe how you found time to conceive). You must be able to focus and schedule effectively despite the lack of sleep. If you try to fit in all the things you used to do (WoW, Halo, Parcheesi) and raise a baby you will destroy yourself. Do yourself (and her) a big, big favor and pick the thing you do to relax the most and focus on that. Besides, your progeny is way more interesting, I promise.

I find your lack of faith disturbing.

Witness the firepower of this fully armed and operational battle station.

we still got love for the streets.

What's this thing you ask?

Its a trophy. Given to us by a group of our practice members.

Why?

Because I wasn't one of the "40 professionals under 40" award recipients. Despite the fact that my office completely dominates health care in our community through free public lectures, a book that I published, our spinal care class, my T.V. interview for the city on backpack safety, our office philosophy and physical layout with patient care at center stage. Not to mention that we are a referral only practice with a week long waiting list just to get in the door.

Yeah, we are awesome. We work harder than anyone else to make sure we are awesome. There is a reason why over 90% of the people who come into our office get/feel/are better according to a self reporting questionnaire we gave out in the fall.

But that's cool, I'm sure the chiropractor who did win has done a lot for the community, right? I'm sure his patient care model has revolutionized patient care, completely changing the failed paradigm of symptom-based tomfoolery.

Wrong. I'm not going into it here, but what a crock.

Apparently, word has gotten around our patient base about this brazen oversight. Yesterday we received this trophy.

I know doctors who can't get their patients to show up for an appointment, much less care whether their doctor wins recognition. If getting a trophy for not getting a trophy doesn't tell you how good we take care of our people then nothing will.

Also, whoever designed the city musuem downtown should get a trophy of thier own. That place owns.

It's what I do.

I don't make New Years resolutions.

Not that I think I'm perfect or anything like that (ish), I don't make them because I spend the majority of my time helping other people accomplish theirs.

I want to lose weight.
I gotta get back in the gym.
I want to live longer for my kids.
I'm going to stop looking and feeling like an old man.
I need to look better naked.

All valid New Years resolutions, and all well within my sphere of influence.

Tomorrow when we open our doors we will be in the New Year's resolution maelstrom. From January to February we dispense more health advice and (this is the kicker) it gets followed better than any other time of year.

We answer every single question, we follow up with our practice members, we design work-outs. It is an awesome sight.

So yeah, I'm not doing resolutions for myself. I'm too busy making other people's come true.