It is so easy to blankly say, “I support the troops”. But it takes much more to actually get involved!

I want to introduce you to an organization that I am supporting and would like you to consider supporting as well.  The name of this charity is Luke’s Wings, it was co-founded by Fletcher Gill and Sarah Wingfield.  Their mission, is to connect service members who have been wounded in battle with their family and loved ones.  Luke’s Wings raises money to purchase plane tickets and accommodations for a family to travel to the Hospital or Rehabilitation facility of their family member wounded while serving our country.

Luke’s Wing’s has been providing its services to the families of our heros for just under 2 1/2 years.  They are a 501 (C) non-profit organization and rely on the generous contributions of individuals and businesses.

Visit their website, I think you will be moved to get involved, just as I was.

In a couple of weeks I am heading to Minneapolis to take my Spine certification in Active Release.  I am extremely excited about this particular credential because it will complete my full body training (Upper Extremity, Lower Extremity and Spine) in the Active Release Technique.

Although I have been treating soft tissue syndromes and injuries for quite some time, I continue to find that the more opportunities I have to be around talented practitioners, and practice side by side with them, the more sensitive and precise my diagnostic and treatment skills become.

Of all the populations we treat with ART, runners seem to be the group that are collectively the most sensitive to ART treatments and seem to respond the best. I recently came across a good article written in The Running Times by Tamara Rice Lave, Ph. D.  Dr. Lave represented the U.S. in the marathon at the 2003 IAAF World Track and Field Championships in Paris.

Later this year I will complete the Active Release Certification in Long Nerve Entrapments as well as a Masters Program with the founder of ART, Dr. Michael Leahy.

If you have never been suffering from chronic pain or a nagging injury, I highly recommend seeking the advice of someone certified in Active Release.

I miss Ray Charles.

I remember growing up and hearing stories of the 1958 performance of The Great Ray Charles on the campus of Penn State. My father often recollected about that transformative evening as he watched the legendary artist, absent of sight yet profoundly full of vision.

Over the years, I began to pay closer attention to the Ray Charles lyrics and grew to love the man.  And for reasons that are difficult to describe, when Ray Charles passed in 2004, I was deeply saddened and have missed him ever since.

Now I miss John Wooden.

It is rare to meet people who actually “get it”.  And by “IT’, I mean LIFE. As a sports fan, I have always admired John Wooden’s success as a basketball coach.  How can you overlook 10 National Champonships, including 7 in a row and 4 undefeated seasons?  If you dig deeper, you learn that John Wooden also achieved the highest level of success as a player:

-Led his High School Team to the State Championship finals 3 years in a row

-Led Purdue to the 1932 National Championship

-Inducted into the Basketball Hall of Fame as a player in 1961.

But this is NOT why I will forever miss John Wooden.

If you have a free moment, go to GOOGLE and search “John Wooden Quotes”, and then sit down and get ready to be awed!

How could one man have such depth? I never met the man, but I believe I became a better person just by reading his words.

“Be more concerned with your character than your reputation because your character is what you really are, while your reputation is merely what others think you are.”

“If you don’t have time to do it right, when will you have time to do it over?”

“Consider the rights of others before your own feelings, and the feelings of others before your own rights.”

And probably my personal favorite: “It’s what you learn after you know it all that counts.”

Are these the words of a basketball coach or a modern day prophet?

I will miss John Wooden and I have never met the man.  But I can promise you this, I am a better person because I read his words and heard his lessons.  People like John Wooden don’t come around that often, so we need to embrace them.

Sue Lowden is running for the Senate seat in Nevada.  Leading in most polls, Ms. Lowden revealed, what she believes is an innovative idea to bring down the cost of Health Care.  Ms. Lowden feels that we should consider returning to a system of bartering for health care.

Ms. Lowden says, ” “You know, before we all started having health care, in the olden days, our grandparents, they would bring a chicken to the doctor. They would say, ‘I’ll paint your house.’ I mean, that’s the old days of what people would do to get health care with your doctors. Doctors are very sympathetic people.”

As a health care provider, I agree, doctors ARE very sympathetic people. In fact, many offices, including my own, often make accommodations for patients who may not be able to fully afford good care.  But providing solutions for those with financial hardship is not what Ms. Lowden is proposing.

Ms. Lowden is proposing an alternative form of payment for health care.  Instead of working to improve an inefficient health care system, a system that serious people on all sides of the debate agree requires improvement, Ms. Lowden is proposing the American people pay their doctors with poultry! 

In the words of the great orator Popeye, ”I’ve had all I can stand, and I can’t stands no more!”

Ms. Lowden’s proposal is so ridiculous, I feel compelled to introduce a bill myself.  I propose that doctors be allowed to open-hand slap any person who offers them a bucket of chicken as payment for their health care.

To be clear, this is not an endorsement for violence, this is an endorsement for common sense.  I am probably as much in the dark about the politics of this heated Health care debate as the next person.  I have my personal feelings, but like most Americans, I think the extremes on both sides are way out of bounds.  I don’t know what to make of the Obama Bill, but I’m certain it is neither the “Magic Pill” that will save America, nor is it our Armageddon.

Butthis much I do know;  If somebody doesn’t stand up against this chicken idea or “Catfish For Care” or “Mutton For Medicine”, hundreds of well intentioned people will be getting open- hand slaps in doctor’s offices all across this country!

There are several obvious reasons why this country no longer uses a barter system as a viable means of commerce:

1.  This barter system was common in the 1800′s and early 1900′s, right around the time doctors were using leeches and a shot of whiskey as regular courses of care. We have evolved as a people, and in 2010 are better than that.

2.  Bartering requires the person receiving the commodity, me, to want what  you have to barter.  No offense to the bucket of chicken, but I don’t want your chicken.  And lets not overlook the obvious, I don’t want the next 40 patients to enter my waiting room with their finest bucket of chicken (or catfish or whatever).

3.  Bartering almost used to work when the exchange was of equal value.  And that’s the real issue in this discussion.

How much is your health care worth?

-How much is Heart Surgery Worth?  A full picnic dinner with all of the trimmings?

-When your spouse wheels you into the doctors office, because your back pain won’t allow you to walk or stand up, are you saying that the value of the doctor who gets you back on your feet is worth a rack of ribs?  A plate of collard greens? A Nintendo wii?

I stand firm that the most valuable thing you have is your health.  I don’t even think it is debatable.  How important is that new car, or that job interview or even your Lotto ticket, if you were diagnosed with a terminal disease, or were having an apparent heart attack.

I don’t have all the answers to the health care debate, but I do know this.  We have completely lost our way as a society, when smart people, even leaders in our community think that ones health can be worth roughly as much as a meal at Applebees.

And worse than that, we still have this thing called Health Insurance which was designed so people could get good care, doctors could get paid to do good work and everyone could walk away happy in the end.

So here is all that really matters.  We have to agree:

-Our Health Care system needs to be improved, so fix it.

-We desperately need everyone involved in this discussion to get engaged and present good ideas.

-We don’t have time for insulting, crazy talk like “Bring your doctor a chicken” to pay for your important health care needs.

-We are better than this, and I have already given this politician and her craziness way too much ink…

Dr. Booker here … just want to share with everyone that I am about to take a 2 week vacation! Awesome, right? I gotta tell you, I have never taken such a long vacation, and so the self-inflicted mind games are a bit distressing. Certainly, I am consciously aware that both my treating and administrative staff will be far more productive without me breathing on their necks. And even though I am certain that Debra, Tiffany, Beth, Patricia and Shanna, have already dusted off the Margarita maker, I still feel a little weird.

I am appreciative that Dr. Beck, Barb and Lyn have at least been polite enough to smile, while blatently lying to me, about much they will miss me while I’m gone.

As it turns out, this long vacation was more or less thrust upon me, when my children’s school decided that they would be having a 2-week spring break, for the first and last time in the school’s history. (Don’t they have days to make up after all of the snow this past winter?)

But as I try to finish up the last minute packing, my mind is slowly starting to process the details of the really cool adventure we have ahead of us. Here is a summary of the itinerary:

• Friday March 19th, 2pm:
  Board the Autotrain in Lorton, VA to depart at 4pm.
• Saturday March 20th, 9am:
  Wake up, having arrived in Orlando, FL. Spending one day at Sea World, hoping my children don’t witness another episode of “Killer Whales Gone Wild”
• Saturday March 20th 8pm:
  After shoving some food down the little people throats, jump in the Minivan and head to Miami, checking in that evening.
• Sunday March 21st-Weds March 24th:
  Hanging out in lovely Key Biscayne, FL. We have found out that there will be a couple other families from my kid’s school in that neck of the woods, while we are there. (Good to know I just found my babysitters, too bad the other families don’t know what is in store for them.)
• Weds March 24th:
  Depart back to Orlando, where I will be completing a 4 Day Active Release Technique Seminar of the Upper Extremity, while my wife and kids visit large stuffed animals, such as Black and White Mice, talking Ducks and Goofy Dogs.
• Sunday March 28th:
  Leaving Orlando and driving 4 hours to Hilton Head/Savannah, GA. Very excited about this part of the trip. Getting a chance to see the Old South and in particular, eat large quantities of the Famous “Low Country Cuisine”.
• Weds March 31st:
  After 3 Days in Hilton Head/Savannah, we hop back in the Minivan for a short 2 hour journey to the beautiful Charleston/Kiawah Island, SC area. Again, as luck would have it, some friends of ours, and coincidentally friends of Capitol Rehab, the Dalier’s, will be in area the same time as us. 2 more days for me to eat alot of really good food. I should probably mention that I have given absolutely no thought to what the rest of my family will be doing while I repeat the cycle of drinking and eating and passing out, just to wake up and begin drinking and eating again.
• Friday April 2nd:
  Arrive in Myrtle Beach, SC. We are very familiar with this part of the world as my in-laws are orignially from here. But it would be a mistake to assume that I have any intentions of breaking my very successful gluttony of eating/drinking/passing out and repeat. 2 days in the Myrtle area, culminated with an Easter dinner with the family in Tabor City, NC, 30 minutes northwest of Myrtle Beach. After dinner, maybe the hardest part of the trip, the 6 hour return.

Somewhere along the way, I hope to actually relax and enjoy the trip. More importantly, I hope I actually find out that I still like my family.

I will be in touch and hopefully look for some posts from the trip.

See you soon!

Dr. Booker and Dr. Beck unite to co-author this new article for Capitol Rehab of Arlington patients and others interested in the topic of Active Release Technique.

Active Release Technique: Runners Injuries & Plantar Fasciitis

Plantar Fasciitis is one of the most common causes of foot and heel pain. It involves pain and inflammation of the tissue that runs along the bottom of the foot connecting the heel bone to the toes. Plantar Fasciitis is caused by biomechanical flaws in the foot that eventually leads to repetitive stress or micro trauma of the plantar fascia.

Dr. Booker breaks down this exercise into three phases:

• the Bent Leg Side Bridge
• the Straight Leg Side Bridge
• …and the Straight Leg Side Bride with Rotation

Perhaps the most well-rounded spinal stabilizing exercise, the side plank has been widely studied by the top spinal biomechanical experts in the world. This one movement trains all of the primary stabilizers of the abdominal wall, and can be modified to be more challenging to even the most athletic individual.

I’m kicking off a weekly video effort, aiming for Wednesdays, to demonstrate and share exercises, stretches or body movements to mitigate pain and/or improve mobility.

This week’s video showcases three (3) therapeutic home exercise you can easily do at home to help alleviate upper and middle back pain.

The exercises featured in the above video are called Cat/Camel, Modified Sphinx and Advanced Sphinx and will reduce pain and stiffness in the middle and upper back.

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