Out of Alignment (Hearts & Horsepower #5)

by A. K. Evans

  We walked inside and right up to the reception desk.

  “Are you Nash Stevens?” the woman asked.

  “That’s me,” I returned.

  “We were expecting you,” she replied. “I know you’re in a lot of pain right now, so I’m going to take you right back and have you complete the forms back there. Dr. Banks will be able to get started right away.”

  “I appreciate it,” I said.

  Kieran helped me as we made our way through the door that separated the exam rooms from the waiting room. Then I was ushered into an exam room. The front desk receptionist asked, “Did you want to have a seat?”

  “If it’s okay, I’d prefer to stand,” I told her. “The ride here was miserable.”

  “Sure.”

  Reaching into my back pocket, I pulled out my wallet and handed it to Kieran. “Kieran, can you get my insurance card out?”

  He took the wallet from me, and I said to the receptionist, “This is my co-worker, Kieran. He can fill out any forms you need.”

  “Great. Did you want to follow me back out front while I get the insurance card photocopied?” she asked him.

  Kieran looked at me. “Are you good?”

  “Yeah, I’m alright,” I assured him as I rested my upper back against the wall.

  At that, he followed her out of the room. I dropped my head back against the wall and took some deep breaths. And not more than two minutes later, I wished I wouldn’t have told Kieran to walk out.

  Because a woman I never wanted to see again walked through the door.

  “We have an emergency.”

  That came from Trisha. She was at the front desk helping a gentleman, but she was talking to me.

  “I’m sorry?” I asked.

  “I got a call while you were out at lunch,” she explained. “We’ve got a new patient in exam room three. It was an emergency visit. His friend is here getting his forms completed because the patient is in too much pain right now to do it on his own.”

  “Okay, I’ll go in and get him taken care of,” I replied. “What’s his name?”

  “Nash Stevens,” his friend answered.

  Offering a friendly smile, I returned, “Thanks.”

  As I took off down the hall toward the exam room, I wondered what I would find. It wasn’t uncommon for me to have an emergency visit. I got them every so often, and more often than not, my patients typically needed that immediate relief.

  Stopping outside the door, I knocked lightly.

  A murmured ‘yeah’ came from the other side.

  Before I even had the door completely open, I started speaking. “Hi, Nash, I’m Dr. Ba—”

  My body came to a complete stop as I took in the sight before me. It was him. The guy from the laundromat. The way he was leaning his body against the wall told me he was in excruciating pain.

  Even still, it didn’t stop him from coming to the same realization about who I was. I knew this because he hissed, “You’ve got to be kidding me.”

  Yikes.

  Okay, I deserved that.

  I hadn’t exactly been very nice to him. Despite how wrong I thought he was for doing what he did, my clothes would have still been stuck in that dryer if it hadn’t been for him. Or, at the very least, I’d have been far more inconvenienced by needing to contact the maintenance people.

  “Mr. Stevens,” I started before he cut me off.

  “Nash,” he clipped.

  Nodding, I murmured, “Right. Nash.” I cleared my throat and continued, “I’d like to apologize for my behavior on Friday. Last week was a terrible week. I was dealing with one thing after another, and I took it out on you. I’m sorry.”

  “Appreciate the apology,” he returned. “But if you don’t mind, I think I ought to go.”

  What?

  He couldn’t go.

  As he attempted to take a step away from the wall, he winced in pain.

  I immediately moved toward him, hoping he wouldn’t fall, and insisted, “You need my help. Tell me what brought you in.”

  His eyes came to mine. And that was when I realized how big of a fool I’d been days ago. I’d already known the man was handsome; it was hard to miss that. But looking in his eyes up close, I saw something else. Something I missed on Friday. Something that if I had been paying attention to then, I might not have gotten so worked up.

  Warmth spread through my body at the sight of it.

  Yes. I was a fool.

  This man was someone special.

  As much as I might have wanted to focus on all of that, I couldn’t. Because even if I saw something incredible in Nash’s eyes, I also couldn’t miss the agony.

  He needed relief.

  When he made no move to speak, I rasped, “Please, Nash. Let me help you.”

  There was a moment of hesitation before he declared, “It’s my lower back.”

  Nodding my understanding, I asked, “What happened?”

  “I work in a performance automotive shop,” he started. “I was taking a tire off a car and felt something tweak in my lower back. I was on the ground immediately and needed two of my co-workers to help me up. Each step I take is painful.”

  “Okay. And is the pain concentrated to one area, or is it radiating to multiple spots?” I questioned him.

  “It’s in one particular spot,” he answered.

  “Left or right?”

  “Right.”

  I dipped my chin, held my hand out to the upright Hylo table and suggested, “How about you come over in front of the table and stand facing it?”

  I watched as Nash took a few deep breaths. Then he moved one foot to step forward while bracing his hand against the wall. There was no way I could miss just how much pain he was experiencing. He was going to have to push away from the wall at some point, and I wasn’t sure he would be able to do it on his own.

  When he got to that point, I watched as he contemplated getting to the table. Moving closer to him, I said, “You can lean your weight on me.”

  Nash looked down at me, but he didn’t do it in a way that made me think he was as disgusted with me as he’d been when I first walked into the room. Instead, he looked at me as though he was concerned for my safety. He was a big man, and I had a feeling he was worried he’d hurt me.

  “My friend is out in the waiting room,” he said. “Maybe he should come help.”

  With a look of determination, I promised, “I can do it.”

  Nash hesitated only a moment longer before he gave in and allowed me to help him to the table. Once he was there, I instructed, “You can hold on to the hand rests while I lower the table. You don’t need to do anything but allow the table to do the work. Okay?”

  “Yeah.”

  I lowered the table down until Nash was parallel with the ground. As soon as it stopped, I asked, “Have you ever had a chiropractic adjustment?”

  “No.”

  “Alright. I don’t want you to tense up more than you probably already are considering the pain, so I’ll let you know what I’m doing before I do anything. Right now, I’m just going to run my hands along your spine to check the alignment. Okay?”

  “Yes,” he replied.

  I brought my hand to the hem of Nash’s shirt and pulled it down just a touch to smooth it out. Then I placed my fingers at the top of his spine just below his neck. Slowly, I dragged them down his back, feeling a minor subluxation in the thoracic spine. I continued to examine him as I moved down his back.

  “You said the pain was on the right side, correct?” I asked him.

  “Correct.”

  Moving to the foot of the table, I wrapped my hands around his ankles and said, “I’m just going to have you bend at your knees.”

  Lifting his feet so that his legs were at a ninety-degree angle, I noted that one leg was seeming longer than the other, indicating a pretty significant misalignment. After lowering his legs back down to the table, I moved to the side of the table again and attempted to pinpoint the precise location of Na
sh’s pain. I had an excellent first guess when I pressed two fingers down and heard him groan.

  “That’s the spot, I presume?”

  “Yes.”

  “On a scale of one to ten, where would you rate your pain?” I asked.

  “With one being barely noticeable and ten feeling like someone took a hammer and chisel and drilled me right in the back? I’m going to go with twelve,” he responded.

  I wanted to let myself feel some sense of relief at his attempt at a joke, but I didn’t know him well enough to know if that meant he was softening his opinion of me. Ignoring how desperately I wanted that to be the case, I continued with my assessment.

  “Alright, Nash. So, while you’ve got some minor subluxation in your thoracic spine, the major problem here is in your sacrum. Not only is it out of alignment, but it’s also twisted. So, I’m going to try to get that back into place for you.”

  My words were met with silence.

  Did he hear me?

  When too much time had passed without a response, I called, “Nash?”

  “Yeah,” he rasped.

  Placing my palm flat in the middle of his back, I bent down and got a little closer to him. Even though he couldn’t see me, I thought it might help him to hear my voice closer. Then I offered gently, “I’ll start with the upper back. You’ll hear what people commonly refer to as cracking sounds, but I want you to know that it’s not your bones cracking or breaking. It’s just pockets of gas that you’ll hear.”

  There was silence again.

  “Are you okay?” I asked.

  “Yes.”

  “I promise this won’t hurt,” I told him, hoping it offered him some comfort and reassurance. “Just follow my cues.”

  “Okay.”

  “Good. Take a deep breath in,” I instructed as I started moving my hands into place. Nash did precisely as I said before I directed, “And breathe out.”

  He did.

  Then I said, “Okay, the same thing again. Deep breath in.”

  Nash took in a deep breath. I prepared to adjust and told him, “And blow it out.”

  As he let go of the breath he’d been holding in, I completed the spinal manipulation. He let out a sound of surprise. Keeping one palm resting gently in the middle of his back, I asked, “Are you okay?”

  “Wow,” he marveled.

  I smiled. That wasn’t an uncommon reaction for first-time patients. Before I could say anything else, Nash repeated, “Wow.”

  “Just breathe,” I encouraged him. “Give yourself a minute. There’s no rush.”

  After giving him some time to appreciate the effects of the adjustment, I slid my hand down his back and said, “Alright, I’m going to get this sacrum fixed for you here. Can you do me a favor and cross your left ankle over your right?”

  Nash did as I asked and let out a groan.

  “I know it feels terrible right now, but we should be able to alleviate some of that sharp, shooting pain,” I told him.

  Once he was in the proper position, I placed my hands where they needed to be at the base of his spine and upper glute. In one swift movement, I made the adjustment. Nash growled into the table.

  “I’m sorry,” I lamented. “I know it’s super tender. We’re going to do that one more time, though.”

  He groaned in response.

  “It’s going to get easier,” I assured him. Getting my hands into position again, I asked, “Are you ready?”

  “Yeah,” he replied.

  I made the adjustment again. Nash reacted again, but it wasn’t nearly as loud or anguished as it had been the first time.

  “Okay, you can uncross your ankles,” I said. “I’m going to get you set up with some ice and the stim for a few minutes.”

  “The what?” he asked, turning his head to the side and resting his cheek on the cushion beneath it so he could look up at me.

  “Stim,” I repeated. “That’s technically short for electrical muscle stimulation. We’re applying a mild electrical current to enable fast contractions of your injured muscles. The ultimate goal is to help reduce pain and inflammation while promoting healing, but it will also fatigue the muscle and allow it to relax. Right now, you’re probably feeling only a smidgen of relief, if any at all, since the injury is so recent. The ice will reduce the swelling while the stim should get some of those endorphins, or natural pain relievers, released.”

  “That makes sense,” he replied. “Thank you for the explanation.”

  “You’re welcome, Nash. Just hang tight a minute, and I’ll be right back.”

  Getting questions about chiropractic care from new patients and even people I met outside the office wasn’t uncommon. Many people didn’t believe in it, so I always tried my best to be as thorough and reassuring as possible when I had a new patient in the office. Chiropractors often got a bad rap, and it honestly made no sense to me. Instead of filling our patients with unnecessary drugs in many scenarios, we used our hands to correct the problem. People loved massage therapy, and yet they still didn’t agree with chiropractic care. It blew my mind.

  Though he might have been a first-time patient, Nash seemed to be receptive to receiving care. I only hoped he would soon reap the benefits of his decision to come in. Of course, in thinking about that, I started to wonder how he found me.

  How much of a coincidence was it that we’d seen each other for the first time on Friday, and now he was here only days later?

  Realizing there was little I could do about it now, I left the room to get the ice and other items I needed to get Nash set up on the stim therapy machine. When I returned, I set the ice off to the side, lifted the hem of his shirt, and curled my fingers around the waistband of his jeans and underwear on his right side.

  It was then it all hit me.

  Just days ago, I had scolded this man for touching my underwear when he’d only been trying to help me out and do something nice. And now I was here doing the very same thing for him. The only difference was that he wasn’t attacking me and saying unkind things.

  It made me feel awful.

  I wished, more than anything else, that things would have gone differently that night at the laundromat.

  I attempted to swallow beyond the growing lump in my throat. Then, as I grabbed the leads and put them where they needed to go, I explained, “I’m just putting the electrodes on the affected area here. Then we’ll put the ice on and turn on the machine.”

  Nash didn’t respond and allowed me to do what I needed. Once I had him all set up and had gotten the machine turned to a setting that was tolerable for him, I said, “We’re going to let that do its thing for a little bit. You try to relax, and I’ll be back as soon as you’re finished.”

  “Thank you.”

  For the next ten minutes or so, I went to see another patient who was one of my regulars. As it turned out, the vast majority of my patients were those who liked to come in for routine preventative care. Much like individuals who took their cars in for tune-ups to keep them running at their best, my patients wanted to do the same with their bodies.

  I walked back into Nash’s room, saw that the machine had turned off, and asked, “How are you doing?”

  “Very sore, but a little less tense,” he replied.

  “That’s good,” I returned as I removed the ice from his back. “Let me get you upright again, and I’ll go over what you’ll need to do moving forward.”

  “Okay.”

  After setting the ice pack aside, I lifted Nash’s shirt again before pulling back on his jeans and underwear waistband so I could remove the electrodes. Once I got them off and set them aside, I said, “I’m going to lift the table again.”

  “Sounds good.”

  The two of us remained quiet as we waited for the table to get to the fully upright position. “Just be careful stepping off the edge,” I advised.

  Nash moved slowly but came off the ledge for the table on his own. His eyes widened as he marveled, “Wow.”

  “Wha
t’s that?”

  “I still feel horrible, but I can at least walk on my own,” he explained the reason for his reaction.

  Offering a smile, I noted, “Your sacrum was really out of whack, so I’m not surprised you were having such a hard time. That said, you’re going to feel pretty lousy for the next few days. It should start to improve, and your mobility will return as everything begins to heal. Moving forward, I’d like to see you back here on Wednesday and Friday this week.”

  “I have to come back?” he asked.

  I nodded. “It’s a process that takes time. I recommend you return to make sure everything is staying in place and healing as it should. You do have some lumbar adjustments needed, but with the injury being so fresh today, I think it’s best we take it easy and give that some time. Within the week or so, we can see how you’re doing and get everything else aligned properly.”

  Nash just stared at me for several beats before he replied, “Okay, I’ll be back on Wednesday then.”

  “Good. For today, I’m going to recommend that you ice your back for the next several hours—twenty minutes on, twenty minutes off. You can take some Ibuprofen to help with the pain and inflammation, too. And I’d recommend elevating your feet as often as you can when you’re lying down. It’ll help take that strain off the lower back,” I advised.

  “What about work?”

  “You work on cars?” I asked.

  Nash dipped his chin.

  Offering a sympathetic look, I suggested, “I’d recommend taking the next few days off. You’re going to be sore tomorrow.”

  “I assume the same goes for exercising,” he guessed. “Lifting weights is probably not allowed either, right?”

  I shook my head. “Not unless you want to come here and see me every day,” I joked.

  Something changed in his face, and I realized I’d gone too far. This man was coming to me in hopes that I would help him. I needed to stay professional. And though that statement might not have been such a big deal in any other situation, I knew that was not the case for us.