I knew from a young age that I wanted to be involved in health care. I wanted to help others and make a difference in someone’s life so that they in turn could help someone.
I spent many years trying to decide which avenue to pursue: medicine, dentistry, nursing, health care coordinator, but nothing had resonated with me…nothing had changed me personally so how I could I put my passion into something that hadn’t inspired passion in me. In the summer of 1999, after returning home from The University of Western Ontario, I suffered an injury to my back. I was so debilitated that my parents had to tie my shoes and put on my socks.
I sought conventional medical treatment and after receiving a brief exam of the area (brief being a generous term), I was prescribed muscle relaxants to “fix” my problem and was sent on my way. I followed all the instructions exactly and found myself in a stupor and bed-ridden for two weeks without any resolution.
It was at this point that my mother, who was a nurse, recommended that I go to our local chiropractor. I was extremely skeptical about chiropractic, but seeing no resolution to my agony I decided to give it a shot.
I went into the Riverfront Chiropractic Centre, and received a thorough and complete examination of my spine and nervous system. This was my first meeting with the doctor who would change my life and lead me to my future passion.
Dr. Kelly Kramp sat down with me and told me what was wrong with me, and he explained to me how my spine had become misaligned and was causing disruptions in my nervous system known as Subluxations. I was still skeptical about chiropractic, despite this being one of the few times in my life where a doctor had listened to me and explained to me what my problem was and how they were going to fix it. I then received my first adjustment. I was so amazed by the adjustment! It wasn’t until I had reached the front reception did it even dawn on me….I was walking! I regained all my mobility…in ONE ADJUSTMENT!
It was then I realized there was something to this chiropractic thing. I went back to Dr. Kramp, and continue to do so everytime I go home and listen intently to what he says. It was listening to Dr. Kramp talk about the nervous system and how the body has an Innate ability to heal itself that I KNEW, I had to become a Chiropractor.
Following the completion of my degree at The University of Western Ontario, I went to Life Chiropractic College West in California. I went to LCCW on the advice of Dr. Kramp where he said I would receive the best chiropractic education possible to help people. While at school, I was able to witness miracles that I continue to witness today in our office. I even had the honour of participating in a chiropractic mission trip to El Salvador where the miracles from the chiropractic adjustment were so amazing and profound, that to this day, I am amazed, and can only think back and smile.
I began practicing Chiropractic in July of 2007, in May of 2008, just a few months before Dr. Kramp was set to retire, I finally revealed to Dr. Kramp the REAL reason why I became a chiropractor. It wasn’t because of the amazing pain relief that I first experienced, it was because Dr. Kramp saved my life. What I had kept secret from so many people, as well as Dr. Kramp was that I had a heart condition where my heart would randomly stop beating, and then after a period of time, it would resume beating. This had started about 6 months following a severe concussion I sustained in hockey where I felt an electrical shock go through my neck and spine. I did every medical test possible for my heart condition, I saw countless medical doctors, and they ALL found nothing. I was literally told “I guess you’ll just have to live with it.” It doesn’t take a genius to figure out that you can’t live with a heart that doesn’t work. I cannot express to you how awful it feels to have your heart stop when you are 19 years old, nor to look at the expression on your mother’s face when she was taking my pulse and it wasn’t there.
Dr. Kramp was the only doctor who looked at the nerves that went to my heart. He was the only doctor who took the pressure off my nerves that went to my heart by adjusting my spine. I do not know what would have ultimately happened to me if I had not injured my back and fate brought me to see him, but every day I am thankful that I did end up in his office. My heart now works excellent, I have not had a problem since my first adjustment. I keep my initial chiropractic exams forms from Dr. Kramp beside me at my desk in my clinic so that every day I can have a reminder of where I started from and why I am a chiropractor. I am a chiropractor because Dr. Kramp saved my life. I love what I do, I love to see patients, I love to see the progress they make and I love to see them smile!
It is with all my energy and passion that I dedicate myself to my patients and strive every day to give them the highest quality care so that they can have the ability to achieve all their hopes, their dreams, and live life to the fullest.
“Yesterday is gone. Tomorrow has not yet come. We only have today. Let us begin.”
Mother Teresa
