Just Do It. You'll never get a hit unless you step up to the plate.

Tonight I am feeling pretty good.  Maybe it's all the alone time I have had to reflect on how really blessed I am.  Or maybe it's the two beers and the best garlic knots I ate tonight.  Either way it's time to journal.  There are a few people that have shaped my path at Palmer.  One I want to acknowledge is Dr. Bill DuMonthier.  In my first two years I have had many conversations with him expressing my concerns about how hard the program has been for me and that I struggle with "just getting by".  I have always been the type of person that has excelled when it comes to just about everything.  I did well in high school and even made the Dean's list in college with out much effort.  In sports I can pick up any sport and become proficient at it in no time at all.  I had other choices to pursue in professional sports.  I was the Michigan state champ in bowling in the eight grade bowling against high school and some college amatures.  I had offers to play college football, baseball, and even played one year of college basketball.  Anything and everything requiring movement and sports comes very natural to me.  In a six month period I studied for and passed the series 7,6,31, and 3 test and became a financial advisor for Morgan Stanley.  Chiropractic College was a whole new animal in itself.  I was not prepared at all for this.  I had an undergrad background in kinesiology and biomechanics but had not really been in a book let alone research since 1994.  It was like starting from scratch in a fast paced program where I had to learn everything again.  I spent hours in class trying to stay awake only to go home and pass out, wake up at nine or ten o'clock at night and start studying till three in the morning.  A common site in my trailer park room where I lived for my first year was  to wake up in bed with a pile of books all over me and my laptop on the floor because I knocked it off the bed when I had fallen asleep.  I barely passed most of my classes and when Part I of boards came close I expressed my concerns to Dr. DuMonthier.  He had some comforting words for me then that carried me through. He said, "It is because you care so much about this that I am not worried about you.  Because you care you will do whatever it takes to pass these exams."  Now the number and all the stats compiled by the school were not in my favor.  C average students that do not take a board review course have an 80% fail rate for Part I boards.  I could not afford to pay for a board review course so I got Irene Gold and read through it over and over on my own.  There were some very smart people in my class that failed Part I, but I was not one of them. Nor did I fail Part II. So thank you Bill for believing in me when I didn't quite believe in myself.  I will always struggle when I have that feeling of just getting by.  I always desire to be the best at what I do.  Today I find myself in books learning about techniques, functional movements, rehab and core strengthening.  Medical books about diseases are my new favorite.  I do not want to be know as just a chiropractor.  I desire to be a great doctor of wellness that has chosen chiropractic to express myself through.