Story Book Meadows Faith Based Equine Assisted Services

This is my story. For those of you who know me well, you know I suffered a bad head injury in August of 2003. A horse trailer drop down window dropped down on my head causing a compression of the C-5 vertebrae of my neck. For months I was fuzzy, incoherent and unable to do my daily chores of looking after 40 horses on my thoroughbred farm. Then on December 24th of that same year I was riding (you can’t keep a horse woman on the ground) when my horse let out a huge buck (my error) and I endured a total whiplash. The pain of all 44 muscles in my neck being torn (I was unable to hold up my head without support), was indescribable. So I took a lot of pain meds and had to close down my business. By selling part of our farm in 2005 and rebuilding on our existing acreage, the next two years went by in a blur of constant work I couldn’t do, pain, non-stop chiropractor appointments and several trips to neurologists to try to find relief from my neck injuries.

Although the whiplash had healed, I was always in pain, sometimes severe enough that I would spend days on the couch with ice packs, and other times just an annoying ache that never really went away. I couldn’t lift anything anymore (this coming from a woman who could unload 40 bags of feed from her truck alone in about 5 minutes), I couldn’t clean stalls or hammer boards or do any of the things I’d always done around the farm. I could no longer lead a thoroughbred because if they pulled, my right shoulder and neck could not take the strain and I would have to let them go. I couldn’t ride anymore because the pain would last for days afterwards. I had spent hours and hours going for chiropractic treatments and thousands of dollars to get relief that would only last a day or two but never really got to the problem. The neurologist said my neck was perfectly normal for a 48 year old. (I looked at him and wondered how any doctor could say that with a straight face to someone in as much pain as I was). I spent thousands of dollars more on acupuncture treatments that would help ease the pain enough that at least I could do normal daily chores. But the worst of this journey of injury and pain was the depression.

As a Christian, I knew my hope was in Christ but I had to wonder where He was. Each morning I would wake up with severe depression and tears running down my face. I would pretend everything was okay to get through the day but the hopelessness endured. Through all of this, I could hear God’s calling for me to start a ministry with horses and I tried. I would take the steps of obedience but the depression would catch up with me. I thought it was hormone imbalance, I thought it was from the pain. I thought I could just read God’s Word and get over it, but it was still there each morning. I asked the doctor for help and they prescribed anti-depressants which I threw away. I knew that wasn’t the answer. I spent many sleepless nights watching the clock all night long getting no sleep at all then having to go through the next day. I put on several workshops and welcomed guests to the ranch having had no sleep at all the night before. I went to the doctor for help and they prescribed sleeping pills. I tried those because I was desperate to get some sleep but they didn’t keep me asleep through the pain throbbing in my neck. So I went back to the doctor and explained they weren’t working because of the pain and they prescribed Celebrex for pain. So I took them and the pain was reduced enough to sleep but my stomach got upset and my depression worsened. I could no longer welcome friends to my home because I never knew when I would have a good day or a bad day. My husband stood by me and took on all of my work through those trying times but he never truly understood what I was going through. Neither did friends and family. There were days I no longer liked myself.

I was ready to quit so many times. I wanted to close down Story Book because I couldn’t do it alone in this state of health. But I could hear God telling me NO that there were trials we had to endure and our faith had to grow. He was with me yet I couldn’t always find Him. So I spoke words of defeat and felt defeated all the while knowing I still believed Jesus would deliver my healing. But I am not a patient person so I would study patience knowing that was my lesson to be learned at His feet. So instead of quitting Story Book, I signed up with iPEC Coaching to become a Life Coach knowing I wanted to help others with the trials they would go through. I wanted to be equipped to Empower, Engage and Evolve others through the teaching of the horses and the Holy Spirit here on the ranch. I struggled through the training still in pain and with cloudy thinking many days. I knew I couldn’t go any further until I found the healing that Jesus promised each of us.

Previously I had begged for healing, I had cried, I had been very pitiful. But this time I got on my knees and told God I was angry at him. He could heal me but He wasn’t. At 51 was my life really over? Was this all that was left for the rest of my life? I wanted a miracle. I wanted the parting of the Red Sea. I wanted my life back. I wanted to use the horses to help people. I wanted to share the Blessings God had given me with others. But I needed healing first.

But His miracles never come about in the way that we expect. And my miracle was there waiting for me all the time through all those years of pain and suffering. He just had to lead me there in His timing. In May of 2009 we had started holding Fellowships at the Pond through our church and because of that gathering I met another wonderful Canadian woman, Micheline, who had also had a neck injury falling off a horse a few years ago. We bonded, as people who have shared in the same type of suffering do, and became friends. Over the next year we shared our stories of attempted healing with chiropractors and she continued to look for an answer. Her symptoms were somewhat worse. Although she wasn’t in the pain I was in, she would suffer seizures and stroke like symptoms and her life, like mine was unpredictable because we couldn’t count on our health. Then one day she told me about a different type of chiropractor, one that was trained in NUCCA which is the National Upper Cervical Chiropractic Association. She went for a free consultation and found out that this technique involved adjusting the C-1 Axis (the top bone of the vertebrae) and that once it was adjusted, the rest of the spine just fell into place. It sounded too simple to be true. So she went for her initial x-rays to see where her neck was deviated. When the chiropractor studied the measurements of her C-1 he found she was out and twisted by 1 1/2 degrees. He adjusted her while I watched and I observed Micheline’s miracle. By moving and untwisting her C-1 that little amount, the pressure was taken off the nerve and she has since not been back for another treatment and has not had another seizure. She bought a motorcycle and is now living her life to the fullest!

With new hope in my heart, I booked an appointment for myself. When he took x-rays of my C-1 he found it twisted to the right (where I carried all of my pain) by 8 1/2 degrees and also twisted up on the left side so I was not level. Whether it was the trailer door falling on my head, the whiplash, the time I fell off a motor scooter and got knocked out without a helmet on, the fall off a galloping horse when I was in my twenties and got knocked out again with no helmet on or the very first bad fall off a horse when I was sixteen, I don’t know how the bone in my neck moved so far. But with a ten minute adjustment and a day of reaction to the bone moving that far back into alignment, I was finally free of pain. The C-1 bone is the base of the brain stem so not only was it realigned to relieve the pain, but the cloudy thinking, the depression and the inability to reason at times was also completely healed. It has now been two weeks since my miracle. Dr. Thomas has been in business for years. He was there all along. It just took God’s intricate leading to get me to his office.

HOW AMAZING IS OUR GOD? I want to dance in the streets and yell from the mountaintops that I am healed. I will have my life again and continue the calling on my life using horses to help people find truth. I’m sure I’ll knock that bone out again, but now I have the answer to put it right back in.

If you have suffered with neck pain or injury, please don’t hesitate to go and see Dr. Thomas. He is a Christian who is working God’s miracles on a daily basis. His office number is 352-245-6169. His procedure is very non-evasive and gentle.

As for me, I’m ready to go forward with God’s Ministry here at the Ranch. There is a miracle just around the corner for each and every one of us. It just takes faith, truth and persistence to watch it manifest in your life. NEVER GIVE UP, there is always hope. Watch for future emails and blogs about upcoming events, workshops and ways to help at-risk teens here at Story Book Meadows.

We love you all,

Trish & Gary