health and wellness – We Only Get One Chance

DOUBLE DOWN

A common theme for the end of the year has been to DOUBLE DOWN!

There are a couple ways to navigate the holiday season and head into the New Year.

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The first is to rest on your laurels, let some of the commitments to yourself and your life slack, enjoy the holidays, partake in all the sugary celebrations and day by day become more sluggish on all levels of life.

The second way is to DOUBLE DOWN on your commitments to yourself and your health, clean up your diet and water intake immediately following holiday overindulgences and keep a steady state in your exercise routine.

Every Thursday at 1pm EST, Dr Paula Ruffin and I are live on YouTube and streaming to our social media platforms as we discuss the most pertinent topics of the week in our offices. It has been a great way to connect with all of you and continue to share the messages of health and wellness beyond the four walls of our individual offices. …and it is a LOT OF FUN!

If January 1st, 2025 were the starting line of a race, most people are standing at the starting line and will take off when signaled. If you can picture that in your mind, it is as though a HUGE GROUP of people are standing together in crowds at the start of a 5K race. When the gunshot goes off, everyone starts from that stand still.

The most recent topic has been how to end the year in the strongest way possible and be sure we begin 2025 running at full speed!

If you go strong with your commitments to yourself and however you want 2025 to go, starting right now, you will not be standing still on that starting line. It will be as though you come walking/jogging/sprinting right up to that line and bust through all those who were just standing and waiting for the time to “start”.

When it comes to our health, mindset, work, relationship, etc goals for the year to come, get heading in that direction RIGHT NOW!

Yes, still sit back and enjoy all the cheer of the beautiful holiday season we have ahead of us, but then when the Mondays roll around, clean up the weekend, clean up the body and your health and get going again.

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Looking back on even this past weekend, I had two big celebrations, one Friday night and one Saturday night. Yes I had a couple drinks and delicious food and deserts. But I woke up this morning and chugged a bunch of water, got outside for fresh air and finished the day with an hour long sauna session to sweat it out and detox.

Monday morning will also start with water, fresh air and then heading into the week of work, I stay super committed to being at the gym or yoga studio every single day. If my schedule does not work to make it to either of those, there will be time to get a good 20 minute extra walk in somewhere.

Here is the thing, the choices we make today not only effect today, they really add to or subtract from our internal resilience for the days/weeks/months/years to come. When we can put daily deposits into our internal “resilience fund” we will be able to, not only navigate the holiday season well, we will also be able to stay strong and healthy to ENJOY all the season brings!

So what if you just took this simple idea to DOUBLE DOWN and be sure your commitments to yourself stay front and center in your days ahead. You will not only benefit now, but when the starting line of 2025 is in sight, you will already be IN MOTION! ….and we all know the great law if inertia – A body in motion wants to STAY IN MOTION!

So ask yourself, is there a place in your life that you can DOUBLE DOWN??? Share below in a comment, I want to hear it! You got this!!

DOG MOM LIFE

I am not sure I have actually written much in this space about dog mom life.

It is truly the BEST LIFE!

Most of you already know that Louis came to me is a super roundabout way and I didn’t have any intention of having a dog in my life. I grew up with dogs and after having to rehome a dog a few years ago, I didn’t have time and space to have a dog in my life…or so I thought.

Obviously having Louis has been one of the greatest things that has ever happened to me. We are all certain about that!

Just over 2 years ago, I began to follow a group up in Traverse City who breeds teeny tiny dogs. I was in communication with them asking what it is like with the teeny tiny dogs in the same home as big dogs. She graciously answered all of my questions back then though ultimately I decided not to pursue one of their dogs. I did, however, keep following them and their accounts on social media.

Last September, one of their dogs birthed just a single puppy. I don’t know much about dogs but I do know that dogs have litters, not single puppies. I was curious about this little one but more curious how he was born a singleton.

Fast forward to the first week in January and the breeder posted on Facebook that they needed to help a family rehome their little dog and that he just wasn’t fitting into their home well enough. It was on my heart to reach out to talk about this pup and maybe get a chance to meet him.

During that time, I had remembered that i tuned in when this pup was born as it was the singleton from September! Apparently when a mom is done having puppies, they spay them (obviously) but when they went to spay her, she was already and unknowingly pregnant. Her body was done having puppies and so she was unable to support a full litter and only one made it to their birthday.

I met Tater Tot, formally named Maddox and Nico, the first Friday of January, the family brought him to me so that he and Louis could meet.

It wasn’t an instant match, but it was a fun playmate that Louis took to right away. I knew that both Louis and I would need a bit of time to get used to the idea of having this 3 pound pipsqueak around AND I also knew in my heart that it was the right thing to do in that moment.

So this little one came home with us that day.

3AM in the morning, I woke up with so much anxiety…HOW ON EARTH IS THIS TEENY TINY 3 POUND BABY GOING TO SURVIVE THE STAIRS IN OUR HOUSE?1/!?!?!?!!!!!! My house has 4 full flights of wood stairs and there is just no way around it. In my mind, there was just no way that he would be able to manage going up and down that many stairs when he was smaller than the stair itself!

I wrote to the breeder and also the family to let them know that I made a horrible mistake! I am still not sure that either of them appreciated a 3AM email but sharing this concern was the only way I was going to be able to go back to sleep!

I awoke to an email from the breeder assuring me that all their little ones eventually learn to work with all the stairs in all the homes that they live in.

Little did I know that the big guy would also be teaching the little one so many things, including going up the stairs within just a couple days. Louis would go up to the top of the steps and wait for Tate to do the same. He would sit at the landing wagging his tail and of course I was there being his cheerleader too.

He mastered going up the stairs in 2.5 days and another couple days, he mastered going down too.

For those reading this who live in Michigan, you may remember the weather through those winter months. To be honest, it was very difficult to bundle up 7 times each day to take this little one out. I also knew that when I took him home on that Friday that I was signing up for that for the season no matter what was happening. I also had faith that the commitment to that this year would be tough but wouldn’t be every year.

The biggest concern of all was being a single mom to two dogs. What was I even thinking? Would I be able to make that happen? Would I be able to manage two dogs? Would it be overwhelming to have eight little legs and feet running around the house? Will I have enough time and energy for both of them? Will they figure out how to eat next to each other?

YES TO ALL OF IT and SO MUCH MORE!!!

Having the little one has brought new life and fun into Lou’s world, as well as, Lou teaching Tate so much about life and living and listening (well we are still working on that last part).

They aren’t the very best of friends just yet but day by day they are growing and evolving together. I also take them on adventures together, and very different kinds of adventures separately.

So the question that everyone has asked, “WHEN IS TATE COMING INTO THE OFFICE???”

That is NOT our plan. Although you would all love him so much, the office would be more of a dog party than a chiropractic office. And more importantly, he want to be in the mix of it all and he easily become a trip hazard for me…and also for all of YOU!!! There are just too many moving parts inside of our days to make that happen. For a long while anyway. We will see once he is maybe a couple years old to see what kind of temperament he evolves into.

If you are still reading this, THANK YOU!!! It has been wordy however both of their stories deserve to be shared as this DOG MOM LIFE is the VERY BEST LIFE EVER!!!!

FIVE YEARS

What started as a dream way before I even went to chiropractic college, is now five years old!

Five years ago today, June 14, 2018, I purchased this beautiful big blue building and converted it into a sacred healing space. I did have the image that it would get to the point that it is today, however being in the “real-lifing” of a dream is…well I am not sure there are really words for it all.

I remember when I first saw the listing on Zillow. I took a quick screen shot of the listing and sent it to my realtor with the message “What is up with this?”

His quick response, “I don’t know but LET’S GO TAKE A LOOK!“

…and so the due diligence began.

It was quite a process that went day by day collecting information, paperwork, getting inspections done, discussing with my personal “board of directors”, getting contractors eyes on it, and on and on.

A process that began the end of February 2018 came to a close on June 14th and I got keys in hand.

The cool thing was that I had a sidekick at the time. The cooler thing is that said sidekick left and it was all me and has been that way ever since. What makes that the “cooler thing” is that it drove me to spend many days and night figuring things out on my own. The “cooler thing” is also that I drove me to make lots and lots of incredible connections with great contractors – too numerous to list – that still help me to this day. I have become someone that people turn to when they are needing a trusted and reputable contractor for their projects and I am always happy to share those connections.

After just a few months, I was able to move my chiropractic office here and open our doors. Within just a few months I was able to begin to host other tenants doing health and wellness work and the Peabody Center for Well-Being took off!

People often ask, “What do you do with all that space?”

What space?!?!? I don’t have any extra space as it is filled with incredible people doing incredible things! When you walk into the building, you can feel the good mojo in here! I purchased the building for the community. Of course, it is a great investment personally, that is without a shadow of a doubt, however, this place is a community center and BIG BLUE holds the community well!

So my questions to you are:

HAVE YOU BEEN IN YET?????

DO YOU SEE SOMEONE IN THE BUILDING YET?

DO YOU OR SOMEONE IN YOUR FAMILY NEED HELP WITH INPROVING YOUR HEALTH?

WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING FOR?

When you pull into our parking lot, you will walk down the sidewalk just off the parking lot and into our Center. Upon entering the building, if you turn your gaze to the right, you will see an info wall. There is a DIRECTORY there in the info center you can grab and see everyone in the building. You can also grab yourself some business cards and get in touch with individual businesses that you are interested in.

You can also find everyone on Facebook at Peabody Center for Well-Being (<— click here).

You can find the Cafe of LIFE Chiropractic Center on Facebook or me personally at Dr Erica Peabody Facebook or Dr Erica Peabody Instagram. I am very active and also respond to direct messages all the time. If I can help, I want to!

Okay, now that all of that is said, I just wanted to say THANK YOU! All of you! If you are reading this, know that I am grateful for your support big and small inside of this beautiful BIG BLUE building! It seems absolutely impossible that it has already been five years but here we are…and SO MANY MORE TO GO!!!

I love you so much. Thank you.

BE MINDFUL

I am hoping that you are connected with us over Facebook, but if not, HERE IS THE LINK to go straight there. You can also look me up individually and follow that way. I have been doing some live shares over facebook as I drive and think and the last one was a warning to BE MINDFUL!!!

…and here is why that came up.

Last Wednesday I was in my practice and a woman came in that had been under care in the past but had to take some time off to heal from a fall where she fractured a vertebra in her neck. She was carrying a box down a set of stairs and stepped off the side in a bad way and hit the back of her neck on a steel handrail resulting in a fracture. She has healed well and is ready to get back under regular chiropractic care (some of you may be curious at this point that I can even adjust someone with this kind of injury. I want to remind you that I have a lot of tools in my bag of chiropractic techniques that allows me to work with and around all kinds of injuries as each person’s care is tailored for each individual and their needs).

I see a lot of people with injuries which probably goes without saying. Some of the stories make my stomach churn as the phrase that follows is always “WOW! That could have been way worse!!”

The next patient that same day was up north and cleaning up the kitchen and tripped over the dishwasher door that was out of her line of sight. This resulted in yet another conversation that went “Wow! That could have been a whole lot worse!” The final one that day was a slip and fall while getting into the car and sliding right underneath the vehicle…which “Could have been a whole lot worse!”

Our lives are super busy these days. I have to be honest, I am trying to do too much at once, carry too much at once and my brain is filled with all kinds of running thoughts also!!! I am in that same club however when I get to see these kinds of injuries, I take note of the theme. The running theme of all of these injuries…trying to do too much at the same time. Me too!! Me too.

Be mindful. Easier said than done often. What I notice for myself is that if I can slow down my mind to focus on the task at hand, I am so much safer, healthier and happier.

Being mindful wouldn’t necessarily have prevented these injuries however, we can’t know for sure, it may have. It is always hard to say at the time and easier to reflect backwards to see situations retrospectively.

I was getting ready the very next day and listing to a podcast or making a video for a friend AND curling my hair at the same time. Without looking down at my curling iron, I didn’t realize that it had spun around and was facing the other direction. When I reached down and thought I was grabbing the handle, I was actually grabbing the hot barrel, resulting in burning the pads of my thumb and two fingers.

When that happened, my first thought was how easily that would have been avoided by simply being present, looking up and then looking back down. I am notorious for trying to do too many things at once. As I navigate through my days, I notice just how many things I drop and realize that is a strong indication that I am not fully paying attention.

Look around in your life. Where do you find yourself trying to do too many things at once? Have you stumbled as you were trying to do something else? How many different directions do you think the mind can handle going in and still pay attention?

Be mindful.

Being mindful is much easier said than done however I am hoping by just having this brief read and reminder, it is more in the forefront of your mind as you navigate through your days.

I am not minimizing any of the things I mentioned before nor am I saying that they for sure could have been avoided. I just wanted to share this theme of the week so that you can be mindful too.

FOUR YEARS

So many things can happen over the course of four years. Four years ago today, June 14, I purchased Big Blue. Some people say that I should have started referring to it as THE CENTER or something more “on brand”. But honestly, Big Blue was mentioned at one point and stuck and so here we are.

I share this story a lot but I first saw the building on Zillow. My Mom and I are always looking around at real estate on that app just to see what is out there. When I saw the building, I sent a quick screen shot and message to my realtor. “What is up with this place? What is the story?”

His response, “I don’t know but let’s go and take a look!”

It used to be an assisted living facility so when we initially walked through we had to pretend that we were “looking for a spot for family members to live”. A sale like that that had to be that way due to the business and employees and how the sale was being concealed.

Prior to going inside, my Mom and I said to each other, “let’s take a look but more than likely this place will smell weird, be weird or be unrecoverable from what it had been through.”

Half way through this 10,000 sq ft beauty, my Mom and I both looked to each other and said “Wow this place is amazing and already set up for what I want to do.”

And so the due diligence process began. That started in February of 2018 and I finally closed June 14.

When patients visit us for the first time, they look around in awe of the beauty that is so natural to Big Blue. Even after 130 years, it has the original woodwork, original wood stain color and craftmanship that is not seen in current day construction. It is absolutely beautiful and feels like working inside of a museum. If only the walls could talk, I can only begin to imagine the stories they would share.

The purchase of Big Blue has not been without its downfalls though. As most of you know, I had a very serious “life sidekick” when I began this project. That didn’t last like we had planned which threw life through a loop…but here we are still standing and thriving inside this space.

We have many businesses join us over the past 4 years, incredible practitioners helping to increase the health and wellness in and around our beautiful community. The services offered inside Big Blue include: chiropractic care, massage therapy, supplements, acupuncture, family therapy, psychotherapy, speech therapy, esthetician, life coach, reiki master, photography as well as connection with hypnotherapy and functional medicine. As you can probably imagine, there are a few more business partnerships in the works for the future.

The practitioners that are currently in our building have taken great pride to enhance their office spaces and I will share a sneak peek into their working spaces in the near future so you can get a feel. I feel fortunate to have business owners taking such pride in beatifying their office spaces.

There is a “special something” in the air at this spot that is inherent to the building itself. Although the business prior to us did well, a revived energy to Big Blue has been a welcomed addition to the center of our growing and bustling downtown Fenton.

People often say “I have driven by this building thousands of times, I am so glad to be able to finally see inside!”

There is a long, beautiful and thriving future for this building and we are so happy to be just the ones to help make that happen!

Swing in and say hello! Or get in touch with one of the providers inside of the building and experience for yourself. I am in awe of the first four years, I can only imagine what the next four years will bring!

EXPANSION

As we were navigating a busy day at the office, a patient began to ask questions that led me to share a bit about what is currently happening in and around the Cafe of LIFE and the Center for Well-Being.
As I answered the questions, he said, “WAIT! You are expanding your office during a GLOBAL PANDEMIC?!?”
“Yes, I guess I am.”
As we have navigated this crazy year, there have been many opportunities thrown my way. And although I had so much on my plate already, I began to step, SLOWLY step, in the direction that has gotten us to the point we are at today.
Which is truly just the beginning.
I wanted to take a moment just to clarify all the things happening in and around the Center for Well-Being and also the Cafe of LIFE.
In the spring, Dr Navpreet Saini-Conn reached out to me to share that, after working 2 years in Brighton, she wanted to move up to Fenton and open a practice.
We sat down to a few conversations and it turns out she is a great fit for our office and she has joined us. She will be building her own practice alongside what we already have here and the great thing is that THERE IS SPACE for her to do just that. She joined us at the beginning of October and she will be sharing more and more as the time goes on. We won’t be seeing each other’s patients but there is possibility for us to fill in for each other, if ever the need arises.
We moved Dr. Nav into the rooms that you are all used to our massage therapists being in and so we have moved them on to BIG AND BEAUTIFUL rooms in another section of the building. Many of you have already had a chance to experience this new massage therapy area and have given us lots of positive feedback of how peaceful and cozy it is.

We have added 2 more massage therapists to our team to accommodate the demand on our schedule and you will be seeing Rachael and Anna in and around the office. They are incredible and are both talented in their work and enjoy being part of our already established team of great therapists, Stephanie and Laura.
We have had Lauren Lay, MSW, a family therapist, renting space on our second floor for the past year and she has MANY RAVING FANS! If you are looking for a good therapist in the area, she is a really great place to start!
Many of you have seen Michigan Community Holistic Health, Sabrina Bastian, who has been offering acupuncture and other services in the other part of the building. Throughout the last 18 months, her patient base has expanded and she has added 3 more treatment rooms to what she was already doing!

We have a commercial kitchen in the back part of our building and if you are looking for a great meal prep service, Feed Me Michigan is prepping meals through the weekend and we are a pick-up spot for those who have ordered ahead of time! We have additional days available inside our kitchen space in case you are someone you know are in need of certified commercial kitchen space.
A couple other businesses we have teamed up with are Optimize Hypnosis and an incredible functional medicine practitioner in the local area.
I remember when I purchased the building 2.5 years ago…the constant mantra of all those around me was (just like the Field of Dreams) “if you build it, they will come.” It is incredible when I really look around at what has happened in the past 2.5 years and just how much the Center for Well-Being has come to life, THEY REALLY DID COME!!!
This building is an ongoing project, 10,000 sq ft of space and half of that being 130 years old, it is naturally always going to be a project. I have an incredible team and am bringing more staff on board to help as it grows and evolves. I have a continuous checklist of stuff that needs to be done, but to be honest with all of you, I am happy to be the one that the Universe sent to take care of this place.
As I was busy designing our new massage suite and expanding our adjusting space and spending a lot of after hours time doing the work, it reminds me back to the beginnings (the initial help has moved on in life, thank goodness) and how it feels like a big playground for creation. All in all, it has actually been a lot of fun to repurpose.
As I stated before, this is only the beginning and the natural attraction to the building, location and charm has let us become the “go-to” spot for all things health and wellness for the entire family.

MIDLAND DISASTER RELIEF

Inside of all the ways that life is crazy and busy and shifting on a daily basis, imagine that your home or place of employment was washed out by major flooding and you lost some or everything you owned. Some of the residents of Midland, Michigan experienced just that and I was able to join the Midland disaster relief efforts.

The Michigan Association of Chiropractors put out an email a week ago asking for volunteers to offer their time and services to the disaster relief workers and also the residents that have been effected by the flooding. There is a tent set up at Calvary Baptist Church and School in Midland and volunteer chiropractors are going to be manning the tables there on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays 12p-2p indefinitely. If you are in that area, please look for the burgundy tent that is set up and stop in to get your spine checked!

I have had a lot going on in my personal and business life but honestly that stuff never outweighs the LASTING PURPOSE that lives inside of me. Lasting Purpose is a principle that the chiropractic profession was based on and it means “To Give, To Love and to Serve out of our own sense of abundance.”

Many people have asked how I come up with the energy to donate my time like that, my own Lasting Purpose drives me to do it all.

I shared in a couple FACEBOOK LIVE videos a little bit about what is happening up in the Midland, Michigan area. It is truly devastating to know that our “neighbors” have not only dealt with the global pandemic that has been happening and sheltering in place due to executive orders, but also watched as severe flooding was heading their way and trying to rescue items from their homes prior to the damage.

Many of the homes and businesses will never be the same. There were disaster relief workers from all around the country there helping people restore some sense of order and assist in repairing and rebuilding their homes.

It is nice to be a helper and it is extra nice to help the helpers. It is nice to be of service to the community giving the chiropractic adjustment to allow for things inside of their bodies to settle and help them to integrate stresses. It is nice to be barefoot in the grass with my table, my hands, a smile on my face and a couple colleagues by my side helping others. It is truly the magic in this life.

Many have asked how they can help. If you are a chiropractor, grab your portable table and drive up to the tent and set it up and open up your heart. If you are a contractor, I am sure there is someone organizing efforts and so maybe contacting the Calvary Baptist Church would be a good place to start. If you just want to go up and help clean up, I am sure if you just showed up at the church, someone would take you onto their crew. I wish I had all the links to hand out to you and how to get involved. I honestly don’t have the personal bandwidth to find out much more information except I sought out my own way to help.

I have had so so many inquiries about this service mission I just wanted to share. I would encourage you to find some way, even if it isn’t up inside the Midland disaster relief work, to help people.

“I don’t know what your destiny will be, but one thing I know: the only ones among you who will be really happy are those who will have sought and found how to serve. ” –Albert Schweitzer

COVID CHAOS

I am writing this from inside some massive COVID chaos! I don’t even know exactly what to call it anymore except for that. (And when I refer to it this way, I am not talking lightly about it. This has been and is very serious as many have been very sick and even lost their lives. This is written from a safe place at home in good health with deep respect for the severity of it all.)

COVID chaos is one of the reasons that this blog has been on delayed because I didn’t know the best way to go about getting a new laptop anyway. I know I could have just ordered one and had it shipped to me but I am such a “hands on” (pun intended from this chiropractor) person and I like to touch and feel things prior to purchasing.

Best Chiropractor Fenton Michigan - Dr Erica Peabody - COVID chaos

So as I mentioned in the previous blog post, I got a great recommendation from a very knowledgeable person and just pulled the trigger. The experience with Best Buy was seamless and here we are.

So one week later I was noticing that my phone battery would hold a charge for a few hours and then I would have to plug it back in, I would be charging it 2-3 times per day. THEN, last Sunday morning I went on a kayak tour with my niece and nephew and put my cell phone in the “dry” compartment of my kayak…quotes intended. Well turns out it wasn’t dry and it sat in there while I did a few more errands in a bit of water unknown to me.

I put it in a bag of rice and later that day I accidentally dropped it and smashed the screen. On the computer with Verizon for 2 hours on Monday morning through their live chat section…they would say “Well just call us and we can handle it over the phone.” “Call you? With WHAT?!?!?!” Two hours later I have a new phone to be picked up at the local store, or so I thought, until I got an email with shipping information and tracking…now they decide they will ship to me.

Of course they try to deliver to my office during my lunch hour yesterday and missed us so they were going to try again today…Friday, when nobody is there. SO, now they will hold it where it is this morning and I will attempt to go and pick it up at the UPS location…except for I have done this before and they ask for an ID. Which is fine but they usually need the ID address to match the shipping address, except for it doesn’t match because the address on my driver’s license is my home, and this was headed to the office. This should be interesting.

I have seen many patients this past week and it seems this kind of chaos is happening all over. We are all ready to be released to a life of a bit more freedom and some familiar places and processes. The frustrations are high and the quarantine has gotten the best of many.

We are almost there. When things do open up, many will return to some old patterns and routines, and some have taken on an entirely new existence where the radius for desire for daily travel is reduced a lot and each of those is perfectly fine and well.

I have been in solitude for a good portion of the quarantine when I am not at my work. I enjoy the quiet of life, I always have, but I will also enjoy the more “hands on” experience of some of the things we took for granted prior to all of this.

We have all become a little more innovative with our personal and professional lives through this incredible time. The important things have bubbled up to the surface of our awareness and the people that are the most important inside of our lives are front and center. When it all boils down, a laptop and a cell phone are truly “first-world” problems and I realize these are insignificant problems compared to what others around the globe are dealing with and these are not real problems in the grand scheme of things, just using them for examples.

The COVID chaos has been eye-opening, everyone taking a “time out” from their normal lives has been challenging but good. It is going to be nice to get back to SOME of the things we enjoyed about the conveniences of life prior to all of this and NEVER taking any of it for granted again. Our freedoms are broad and wide in this time and place. I hope you and yours are safe and well and I will continue to pray for those who are sick and suffering.

NEW

WOW!! Is life crazy or what? It feels all brand new. But not like the super great brand new that we have been wanting and looking forward to, more like a new that hit us smack in the face, shoved our noses into it and said “Here!!! FIGURE IT OUT!!!”

I know we are all in this same kind of boat although we are not navigating the exact same waves, I know that for sure. Some are working from home while also learning to teach school. Some are displaced from life or work or family or whatever it is…but we are all out here doing our very best with the unknows. It literally feels like most of life is filled full of unknowns.

Best Chiropractor Fenton Michigan Dr Erica Peabody - New

You haven’t heard from me through this format in a long time as navigating it all has pushed blogging to the back burner. One other stumbling block is my laptop was on its last leg for a few months. I would begin writing here or inside of an office newsletter and in the middle, prior to be able to save it, it would kick me all the way back off and discard all that I had written. Life has taken a lot of extra energy lately and so trying to deal with that as well was just plain frustration.

So I ordered a new laptop and braved the curbside pick-up they had set up and honestly it was seamless and rather delightful!! So I now have a brand new machine to communicate with you better. I am excited to move forward with this blog and creating other content as we all learn to navigate this brand new life.

I take solace in writing and sharing in this manner and hopefully it remains interesting and entertaining as I share tips and trick, but probably more brutal honesty as we move through the stories of life: mine, my practice, friends, colleagues, being a dog mom, my family….on and on we will go. Check back here regularly and of course all of these posts will be shared on my social media platforms.

Years ago, I named this blog “We Only Get One Chance” and I still live and eat and breathe by that tagline in my day to day. Maybe now, more than ever before, others have really increased their awareness around that as well, that we really do get only one chance. It is time to make the very best of it!!

New computer, new life, many unknows and a new commitment to sharing and helping in any way I can. Stay tuned!!

WHOLEHEARTED

I am living wholehearted.

I am nine weeks post heart surgery. It feels crazy to even be able to say something like that and it has been an incredible shift in my life!

Best Chiropractor Fenton Michigan - Wholehearted - Dr Erica Peabody

14 years ago I was diagnosed with what is called a Patent Foramen Ovale, a congenital heart defect that is present in twenty percent of the population. Many go un-diagnosed and often the first sign is stroke. I feel very fortunate to know this info and I also feel really fortunate that I didn’t have to have a serious incident in order to get this information.

Playing sports growing up, there was clearly something wrong but they just lumped it into the group called “exercise induced asthma” and “when you start gasping and wheezing (which was happening all the time on the soccer field especially) take this inhaler.”

The inhaler never worked, never made a difference except just to make me shake…and be more frustrated because I still couldn’t catch my breath. I continued to play sports and excelled regardless.

When I was 12 years old, I started getting migraine headaches. I can remember my very first one as I woke up around 2am one morning and told my parents “It feels like a bowling ball hit me in the side of my head.” At 12, those were the best words that I could come up with to describe that pain. The migraines have happened anywhere between 2-10 per month since then.

I am sure there are some migraine sufferers out there reading this that know the kind of pain I am talking about, debilitating to say the least. I learned through the years just to deal with them and after the first few years, I still had the same level of pain but I never let it stop me. Life, school, tests, finals, patient care…nothing stops just because I have a headache and pushing through all of it has always been the way I handled them…and most other things in my life.

Best Chiropractor - Wholehearted - Dr Erica Peabody — they made me lay on my back for 8 solid hours following my surgery which was the hardest part

Shortness of breath upon exertion and migraine headaches, combined with numbness into my hands (which would come and go since my late teenage years) are the classic symptom group for Patent Foramen Ovale and I tested positive. To top all of these symptoms off, chronic hypoxia (lack of oxygen) was the over-riding theme since the blood would just skip the trip to the lungs altogether. On a scale of 1-5 for the size of the hole, I tested as a 4.

I scheduled to see the cardiologist 14 years ago and was looking forward to having all of these things improve for me through a surgical procedure where they inserted a patch in the heart. His exact words “I make a lot of money doing these patches but we do not have the research of what happens to the current devices 30-40 years down the road and so if you are not suffering every single day, don’t do it.”

I was bummed because I was truly looking forward to a shift for me, but I was going to listen to the expert.

I revisited the idea and the tests and all of the procedures this past fall. When I went back to the same cardiologist he said “We have the BEST devices now and so YES!!! …considering how you test and just how compromised you are, lets do it!”

I know what you are thinking out there, “How compromised is she? She has done all these things with a hole in her heart, long distance running and biking, hot yoga, taught aerobics classes for 10 years, even climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro! How is that possible?”

I am (well was) VERY compromised but was going to do all the things anyway because that is the fabric I am built from. I do my best not to let anything slow me down.

November 21, 2019 I went under the knife. This is the procedure they did.

The cardiologist wanted me to take on Thursday off work to have the procedure done, stay the night, go home Friday and head back into work on Monday the 25th. Unbelievable to me in the moment he had said that but that is exactly what I did, and I probably saw many of you that day!

I didn’t share much about this ahead of time for the simple fact that the words “heart surgery” freak most people out. I wanted to get through it, survive it and then tell the story when I can really share the details.

This post is getting lengthy and so I will leave this info here for now and then I will share more in the next post.

When you take a moment to do the math of chronic hypoxia my entire life and never slowing down, to getting full amount of oxygen moving forward, you can see how great of a thing this is and the how freakin’ incredible the medical profession is to be able to develop a fix like that video I shared. Literally I am now finally living wholehearted.