Passion

2 Comments November 14, 2016 drworobec

I talk (write) a lot about passion. I’m an emotional person, so I think it stands to reason that I have many passions for many things. That’s always been the essence of my blog; passion. Authenticity. Genuineness. Transparency.

When I started this blog in May 2012 (234 posts ago!) my reasoning was that I wanted patients to learn about the real me. As a chiropractor, my profession is very much based on trust, and I want my patient base to understand who I am as a person, which will hopefully help them to understand who I am as a practitioner. I think I’ve done that. I’ve bared my soul here, week upon week, Tuesday upon Tuesday, draft upon draft, post upon post. My audience has grown exponentially, and I now have several hundred of you following along weekly, liking (or not liking), sharing, discussing, and helping to spread my words through the tangled mess of the internet. WordPress, the host of this site, regularly sends me readership data, and many Tuesdays I get a notification that says “your stats are booming.” These alerts are satisfying, because they mean that I’m engaging my audience and making people think. And the fact that you’re thinking about topics that come from my passion is the whole point.

But I’ve decided to take a step back.

You see, I’m noticing that words are becoming harder for me to find. My posts are not writing themselves, in my dreams and on my runs and on my yoga mat, as they once did. I feel like my passion on this blog is being diluted and that defeats my entire purpose. My purpose here is passion.

So my posts are going to shift slightly, ever so slightly, to maintain that high degree of passion that’s so very important to me. This isn’t meant to be just another blog, not just another health-tips site, not just another social media tool. Not to me, anyway. This is meant to be me, online. I’m not here to drum up business, I’m not here to grow my Facebook Page, I’m not here to grab page views and link clicks. I’ve built this online platform as much for me as I have for you, and so I must keep my standards high. I want to be proud of each and every post and make my honesty and authenticity and yes, passion, glaringly apparent through your screens. “I love your blogs,” someone said to me this weekend, and I hope she meant “I love your passion,” because that’s my end-game.

For now, instead of a new post every Tuesday, you’re going to get one every second Tuesday. Not a big shift, perhaps, but a big shift for me, and a recognition that taking a small step back doesn’t mean failure or quitting, labels I’d previously imposed upon myself; it simply means adaptability and not-going-to-settle and hopefully, excellence.

Today you get post #235. I hope you like it, and I hope you understand my reasoning. Thank you for your support thus far, and I plan to keep writing with passion well into the years ahead.

***And if you’ve missed some of my passion over the years, here are my favourites:

Come With Me.

She was there.

Make the trade.

Blizzards and Accomplishments

What they Wish they Would’ve Done

April, May, June

The Search for Skinny

Break the Silence

Sarah Happened

I am a Chiropractor.

Plugged in

Leave a comment August 3, 2016 drworobec

I bring my kids with me to the gym often, especially in the Summer months, when my teacher husband is home and he and I get the chance to do a workout together. The kids are very used to this drill and part of the routine involves watching iPad videos. There’s a great front foyer at my gym; a large, open area overlooking the workout floor but separated by a half-wall. They set up their chairs, I set up the Netflix, and they don their headphones and lay out the snacks. For one hour, three or four days a week, they get an hour of iPad time and my husband and I get an hour of fitness and friends.

But I wonder about the judgement.

We almost always bring the iPad to the gym. They almost always use it for the entire hour. I almost always wonder if we should bring books and scooters instead.

Here’s the thing: we are pretty strict about screen time. My kids each get 20-30 minutes per day. Usually my son chooses an iPad game and my daughter chooses a Netflix cartoon, and in the Summertime, they often use their screen time right after breakfast. On CrossFit days, they use it at the gym. We are an active family with a busy life and we throw in a family afternoon movie once in a while and watch nearly all Jays games in their entirety. TV is a part of our life, but not a big part, so why do I feel so guilty about plugging them in while I work out? Perhaps it’s because of my worry about public perception or perhaps it’s because of the contradiction between their physical inactivity during my physical activity.

Whatever the reason, I’m trying to adopt my husbands stance on this (and on many things), “we do what’s right for our family.” Yes, we do. And this works for us.

The truth is, I’m not a huge TV person; my screen of choice is my phone. But I do enjoy decompressing on the couch at the end of the day, nearly every day, with my husband, the TV in the background and my iPhone in the foreground. My blog post last week talked about my need for daily solitude and downtime, both of which my kids deserve to have as well. And if that downtime is sometimes done in front of a screen for sixty minutes, then so be it.

My kids love coming to the gym. They love flipping on the rings, hanging from the pullup bars, swinging the kettlebells, and having their iPad time. And when they grow up and look back on Summer childhood memories, I know that an iPad screen will not be a major player. “We do what’s right for our family.” 3-2-1-Go.

“Today is a bad day for backs.”

2 Comments July 19, 2016 drworobec

“Just so you know, today is a bad day for backs.”

That was the text that one of our reception team sent to me last Friday morning. Three new patients had called in that morning, a much higher number than most Fridays through the Summer months, and all three had a primary complaint of back pain.

That part is not atypical; back pain is far and above the most common condition that I treat in my practice, despite us being a full-body, sports-based clinic. The stats don’t lie, and in fact, up to 85% of working people can expect to experience lower back pain in their lifetime. Couple that with the word “spine” in our clinic name, and it makes sense that a lot of low back pain walks into our office.

And guess what? We are really good at treating low back pain. Really good. We can make a big difference in a short period of time, and while I don’t have a randomized controlled trial on my patient’s improvement levels to present to you, I can say that our success rate is very high. We are good at what we do, and a large part of what we do is treat low back pain.

I will go a step further and tell you that what patients do outside of my office (things like following rehabilitation exercises and modifying activities appropriately) are far more important than what they do inside my office, on my treatment table. The hands-on, manual therapy part is a small piece of the puzzle in a lower back complaint. My most effective roles become those of educator (why does my back hurt?), ergonomist (what positions should I modify/avoid?), and personal trainer (what movements should I do to feel better?). My ultimate goal with a lower back pain patient is to avoid a reoccurrent episode down the road; the cycle of lower back pain is all too common. Again, education, ergonomics, and personal training come into play.

The point? Lower back pain is very common, NOT normal, and very treatable.