Des Moines Chiropractic Newsletter - November, 2014

Compass Chiropractic November, 2014 E-Newsletter

Saturday hours available this fall!

Raking injury?  Slip on slick leaves?  Bonk your head and hurt your neck while going through a haunted house?

We've got you covered this fall with Saturday hours available two to three weekends a month from 10:30-1:30.  Call us to check availability.

The Books We're Most Thankful For

In the spirit of the season, we are asking our patients and friends to contribute to our annual list of things we're most thankful for.  This year we again want to know what book or books you're most thankful for!  It might be a favorite novel.  It might be a nonfiction book that changed your life.  It might be a spiritual guide.  It might be your most cherished childhood book, that you now get to read to your children or grandchildren.  Whatever book you're most thankful for, we want to add it to our list!

We'll have clipboards at our office where you can write down your one to three books.  Additionally, you can email them to compasschiro@gmail.com or message them to our office through Facebook.  A list of books will be included in next month's newsletter and I highly recommend you check this out.  Three years ago we did this activity, and the books I have read based on our patients recommendations such as the Power of One and Sarah's Key have been phenomenal.  Below Anne's introduction I've asked our team to share the books we're most thankful for.

Meet Anne

I feel fortunate to work for and with Dr. Krohse and every Compass Chiropractic client because it fulfills me to be part of the integrative, pro-active, and preventative healing process of Chiropractic, and because I admire Dr. Krohse's skill, compassion, and integrity in particular.  I also enjoy being inspired by people- something that naturally happens amidst conversations in any genuine therapeutic environment.

Before and after supporting Dr. Krohse as a Chiropractic & Rehab Assistant, I cherish my moments with my boyfriend, Aaron, and our four felines and two pups; you might hear me refer to them as "our babies".  (Yes, I'm one of those... laugh.)  I also crave personal time to work on art and indulge in music.  Much loved, too, are get-togethers with friends and family, especially at movies, art and performance functions.  It is important to me to contribute to organizations who expand my connection with the world, like Iowa Public Radio, and whose champions are my concerns too, such as local no-kill animal shelters (Furry Friends and Animal Lifeline to name a couple.)  Many people know me to be very choosy about my financial purchases, sustaining companies and commodities that are in line with my ethics, such as certified organic foods.  In fact, it's easy to "put my money where my mouth is" since we have a scrumptious vegan cafe standing tall in downtown Des Moines- New World Cafe!

I tend to perceive things as "healthy" or "destructive" instead of "right" or "wrong", perhaps shaped by my studies in psychology and anthropology at University of Iowa and in Mysore, India, where individual well-being and the diversity of cultures aren't always best explained through a set classification of analysis.  I also experienced my first restorative "encounter" with Chiropractic in my college days.  I'm thankful to be a part of Compass Chiropractic and look forward to bearing witness to all of you feeling "tiptop"!

Sandy's Books

I’ve never outgrown my love for children’s author,  Dr. Seuss.  I especially love his book, Oh, the Places You’ll Go!  It’s a great send-off for young adults, a good message for children and, quite honestly, pertinent to people of all ages.   Dr. Seuss addresses life’s ups and downs with wonderful humor, rhyme and illustrations, while never losing sight of encouraging his readers to find their own success.  His message is timeless and ageless.

Night is Elie Wiesel’s horrific autobiographical account of his survival as a teenager in the Nazi death camps. Though difficult to read, this book is inspiring, captivating and emotional as Wiesel draws you into his journey.  It’s a real life story of survival under the most horrific circumstances, well narrated, unassuming and with vivid descriptions.  This book should be required reading for all students as it relates the horrors of the Holocaust.  And as an adult, I like to re-read this from time to time, so as to never forget the horrors of past events of man’s capacity of inhumanity.

Of all of the books I own, none are more treasured than the family cookbooks that I've received as gifts or that have been handed down to me from my mother, grandparents and great-grandparents.  Over the years, I have  acquired quite a collection of old cookbooks and family recipes.  Every holiday gathering will include a recipe or two that was prepared by relatives from years ago.  It's my way of keeping their memory and traditions alive.  I get great joy in cooking from a book that has my grandmother's handwriting in the margins, with pages stained and tattered.  And let's face it, some of those old church fundraising cookbooks are chock-full of delicious tried and true recipes! 

Amy's Books

The Outsiders by S.E. Hinton :  I first read this book in JR High and it has been one of my favorites ever since! I also had to read it in HS for one of my English classes and it was fun to read again and I have read it several times since. It was also made into a movie in 1983 which was the beginning of great acting careers for many “big name” actors such as Rob Lowe, Patrick Swayze, Ralph Macchio, Tom Cruise, Matt Dillon, Emilio Estevez, Diane Lane, C. Thomas Howell, Leif Garrett- just to name a few.

S. E. Hinton was 16 at the time she created this story. Everything flows smoothly, and with so much detail. You get to know the characters so well it’s hard to believe the story just covers one week of their lives. This book is extremely hard to put down.

The Outsiders is about a gang of “greasers,” or underprivileged teenagers, living on the east side of Tulsa, Oklahoma. They are constantly under attack from the rich west-side Socs, and have parties and rumbles all the time. The narrator, the orphan Ponyboy Curtis, pretty much knows what to expect from his day - school, track, homework, football at the lot - until one of his friends takes the greaser-Soc battle too far. From that point, Ponyboy can barely keep track of what is happening. He goes from hopping a train to escape a crime scene to being in the newspaper as a juvenile delinquent hero. Everything seems to move too fast to handle. To find out the whole story, read the book! If you like symbolism, this novel has plenty, but the main one is to “stay gold.” The book has a strong message of staying young and innocent. It teaches us not to create a shell to block emotions and the importance of friendship. This is one book you definitely will not want to skip.

Tuesdays With Morrie by Mitch Albom: I read this book in my college years and it really touched me emotionally. With all of the ALS ice bucket challenges that have been spreading like wildfire lately this book seems appropriate for the times. In this book newspaper sports columnist Mitch Albom recounts the time spent with his 78-year-old sociology professor, Morrie Schwartz, at Brandeis University, who was dying from amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS).

Albom, a former student of Schwartz, had not corresponded with him since attending his college classes 16 years earlier. The book is all about Mitch and Morrie’s visitis together every Tuesday where Mitch to listens to Morrie's lessons on "The Meaning of Life." Their rekindled relationship turned into one final class: lessons in how to live. This is a chronicle of their time together, through which Mitch shares Morrie's lasting gift with the world.

Anne's Book

One book I have great appreciation for is Zora Neale Hurston's novel Their Eyes Were Watching God (1937).  It is an intimate tale of transcendence, an expressive exploration of identity in which Hurston's character Janie Crawford, a young black woman, emerges into adult experience and individuality.  Their Eyes is introspective, instinctive, and descriptively sultry, like the disclosure of a deep-rooted secret.   It is also innovative, especially for its time- an intricate and supple depiction of Janie's emotional self.  "Janie stood where he left her," Hurston wrote, "for an unmeasured time and thought.  She stood there until something fell off the shelf inside her."  A remarkable writer and personal hero of mine, Hurston (1891-1960) was also an anthropologist, playwright, and activist, intrinsic to the socio-political and artistic movement of the Harlem Renaissance.

Dr. Krohse's Books

A couple books come to mind when I think "what book am I most thankful for?"  The first is The Five Love Languages by Gary Chapman.  For years, I've appreciated Gary's simple concepts of the ways you can show and receive love.  According to Gary, there are five main ways love is shown and received.  The five "languages" are physical touch, quality time, words of affirmation, gift giving, and acts of service.  Most people have certain languages that are more important for them to feel loved.  Further, most people have main languages that they use to show love to others.  Problems will inevitably arise if a person finds his or herself in a relationship where the most important languages are not being shown.
 
One of the reasons I've appreciated the Five Love Languages so much is because the concepts have been so helpful in my relationship with my girlfriend, Val.  Though we connected instantly when we met three years ago, we have very different love languages.  Her most important language is gift giving while mine is quality time.  The Five Love Languages has given us understanding in how to best love each other, and for that I'm incredibly thankful.

While romantic relationships may be the first place to apply the ideas of this book, I have found that it can apply to all important relationships from family to friends to business associates to patients.  I even make it required reading for all of our team so that the ideas can help us create a positive, appreciative healing environment for all who come to Compass Chiropractic.

The second book I'm most thankful for is actually not a full book.  It's just a simple booklet that changed my life.  It's the Standard Process Purification Program booklet.  At the end of 2009 I was about 30 pounds heavier than I am currently.  Like so many, I tried to out exercise the Standard American Diet but never seemed to make any progress.  Additionally, I was having severe year-round allergies that would cause me to have puffy eyes, itchy throat, constant nasal congestion, and bouts of 20 plus sneezes in a row.  I had decided I must be allergic to both dust and mold since they never let up.  At the time I was just thankful that daily doses of Zyrtec and nasal steroids would keep the symptoms from taking over my life.

After seeing a peer who had experienced a body transformation from pudgy to lean and mean I read the Standard Process Purification booklet and decided to give the 21 day program a try.  I lost 15 pounds in those 21 days and my allergies disappeared!  By the end of it I needed new, smaller pants and could breathe through my nostrils without medicine for the first time in years.  Over the next five weeks I added just cottage cheese and eggs to the Standard Process program's recommendations and dropped another 10 pounds.  From March, 2010 on I've maintained that weight or less with the knowledge I gained.  Quite simply, the program showed me that personally I need a lower carbohydrate, higher vegetable diet in order to be healthy.  Prior to the purification program, I had never been able to run over 10 miles a week.  Dropping weight enabled me to take my running, cycling, and triathlon activities to the next level, with numerous accomplishments such as qualifying for the Boston Marathon, high finishes at HyVee, and winning numerous Strava King of the Mountains resulting.  Additionally, I discovered my chronic allergies were directly caused by gluten.  As long as I don't have too much gluten, I don't have to take any allergy medicine.  I am so thankful that I read the booklet and tried this program!
                                                                         
Here's a link to the booklet or we do have hard copies available for free at our office if you'd like to learn more.  You can read my blog posts about my experience here.
 

Dr. Krohse's dog, George, & the Headless Dogpumpkin