Humankind throughout the ages has wished for, longed for and prayed for good health. Some of us have a "magical" perspective with respect to being healthy. Some think we can live our lives as crazily as you can imagine, and still be healthy. Some of us have a "medicalized" perspective with respect to being healthy. Some think we can find a pill for every ill, or a potion for every emotion. Some of us have a "predetermined" perspective on health. Some think their health is not up to them-it's in their genes. Fortunately, or unfortunately, there is a degree of accuracy in each perspective. Some people will do the craziest things and remain healthy into their 90s, others will use any and every medicant they can get their hands on to live to their 90s, while others will throw their hands up, saying it is beyond their control, and yet they too will be healthy. Then there are the rest of us. Those whose behaviours, choices and attitudes will in fact dictate the quality and quantity of the life we enjoy. This book is for us! Most of us will experience illness, pain, discomfort and dysfunction at various times throughout our lives. Many of us will employ various strategies, ranging from self-help, to non-invasive strategies like chiropractic care, to invasive procedures such as drugs and surgery to respond to our problems. Sometimes, we will use all three! This book focuses on the stories of those who have made the use of chiropractic care a central and important element in their strategies for well-being. It speaks to the circumstance and situations of people who were told there was nothing else to do. It speaks to another way to assemble the facts to arrive at another conclusion and another approach that may hold promise in overcoming problems. It speaks to the idea that there is the possibility that there is more than one way to respond to a health crisis or debilitating condition in our lives. More importantly, what the authors have helped to crystallize through this effort is the power of hope. Hope is different from positive thinking or optimism. Hope is clear-eyed and realistic. Hope sees the obstacles and looks through them, past them, over them and around them for a possible path to a better future. Hope marshals the poorly understood and the even more poorly appreciated "stuff" of the human being that we all can bring to bear on a problem or condition. Hope isn't about wishing things were better. Hope is about pulling from deep within us the will to live, the will to be better and the will to go on. The goal of this book is to inspire. It is to remind you of your inborn, innate capacity to heal. Ultimately, in its most extreme application, it is about bringing you to a position of being healthy in the midst of a terminal illness. It is about letting you live as fully and as gloriously as you desire to live, without regard for your circumstance. As you read each of the vignettes gathered in this book, know that every person writing or being written about had a choice; a choice to see potential and promise where others do not. My thanks to the many authors for reminding me of this choice, for providing me with wonderful examples of the application of this choice, and for affirming once again that the choice is mine to make.
