Are you filled with HOPE 
This is a message that is near and dear to my heart because it’s something I’ve experienced personally – the concept of Hope Dealers versus Hope Stealers. I’m going to generalize this as we talk about different kinds of doctors because I know that there are all sorts of amazing doctors in different professions. But what I’m referring to is not their initials or training.
I’m talking about how they approach patients, and this conversation called hope.
Oliver’s Miracle Story
First off, I will tell you my story. After our son Oliver was born – who is now 13 years old and winning cross-country running races – we were in the NICU with him because he had cardiopulmonary severe life-threatening issues. This major birth trauma meant his heart and lungs were not functioning and that affected his brain. We were dealing with brain damage, brain injuries, and were looking at all sorts of nasty findings on the MRI and EEG.
Whichever system you want to look at – his heart, lungs, and especially his brain – he had a diagnosis and a beginning of life that didn’t leave much hope. If we had accepted the standard path, given up hope, leaned into that despair, and let his diagnosis dictate his future, then he would’ve had the same outcome that most kids have with his original start. He’d be full of seizures, asthma, medications, and constant struggle.
What we did and the number one strategy I could ever teach you, parent to parent, is to never give up hope and find a doctor, community, and tribe who will double, triple and douse you with it when you may be running out of it yourself. I desperately needed those people when I was in that seat with Oliver.
Don’t Listen To a Hope Stealer
What I know about the traditional, hope-stealer kind of doctor in the medical world is that when you take hope away from families by giving a diagnosis that comes with a supposed predetermined outcome, you protect yourself from two things. Number one, what caused it in the first place, and number two, the outcome. Those are the consultations and conversations I have with parents all the time in our hope dealership, they say, “well…I have these goals for my child, but all the traditional doctors say they have autism”.
As pediatric chiropractors, we give them an alternate perspective because hope is the literal first part of the healing process for these kids and families. The only medication that has withstood the test of time and comes out with pretty decent responses in every study with every condition is a placebo.
If we pause right there and think about what certain naysayers would say about this – “oh, you’re going to say that what you do is placebo, and if you give people enough hope and inspiration, they’ll be fine”. That is not at all what I’m saying. It would be absolutely ridiculous to not deal copious amounts of hope to a parent when you know that the product, protocols, and clinical care you’re about to deliver to a child can deliver upon the results that they are building hope around.
When you label a child, what we’ve always known is that you can limit them significantly and we just refuse to do that.
If a parent or child loses hope in their ability to get better, the effectiveness of whatever you do to help them get better is limited.
The Power of the Nervous System and Our Mind
The most powerful component of our nervous system is our mind. Our nervous system has energy to it and more power in the way we think than in what we eat or how we move. Now, I love healthy nutrition, exercise, fitness, and overall well-being, but the power of mental fortitude and resilience is everything. If I hadn’t had God, my prayers to him, and answers to those prayers when Oliver was in the NICU, and, if I hadn’t had God put the mentors, doctors, and other people in our life who built up our hope and confidence that he could truly be a miracle story, we wouldn’t have taken the actions that facilitated the miracle.
So here’s my net thesis, you need both. You need hope, answers, and then action steps. If you take either away, they’re not as effective. So with pediatric chiropractic, we train our PX docs on how to deal hope and then deliver the clinical protocols. They aren’t different or separate, they are one and the same. We don’t just deal hope to the parents, we get down knee to knee with those kiddos, we get down into those struggling teenagers’ lives and we let them know they’re going to be alright.
God never promises us smooth seas, but he’s always there listening and saying – here’s your guide, your mentor, here’s the boat, here’s the way out.
I’m actually in a season of life right now where my own miracle son Oliver is literally winning cross-country races… I look back and think about all the things we were told he wouldn’t be able to do, what he wouldn’t become and what he wouldn’t experience, only to see him absolutely thriving in life today.
I am so passionate about getting the message out that you as parents and your children deserve copious amounts of hope. Then the answers and explanation steps, then the help and action steps to get the job done. If you have been losing hope or your child’s diagnosis has left you with this despair – I’m telling you children especially, are the ones who are designed to defy all expectations. The results we see every day blow me away and are honestly even hard for me to believe.
If you’re new to this conversation of pediatric chiropractic, talking about the nervous system, and it sounds too good to be true that somebody’s coming around you saying, expect miracles and deal hope – please give us a chance and don’t give up yet. Lean in and reach out to us for more information. Check out our directory to find a PX Doc near you. Find your tribe, and find a doctor who is not about diagnosis, limiting, and despair, but is about dealing hope, listening to you, partnering with you, and delivering upon the hope to get your child the results that no one else thought they could get.
Believe it or not, it’s called my job every single day. I was already doing it when Oliver arrived in our life and I was able to do it for him after medicine saved his life. We have the utmost respect for medicine and its life-saving capabilities. It’s just not always hope dealing and life-restoring. We need a healthcare system where each individual doctor does their defined job.
Hope dealing and unbelievable neurological restoration results – that’s our job as pediatric chiropractors.🌟
