Dr. Sai-Ling Michael, D.C.
All of us at Evertruth Healing are grateful to be serving this community during this time. It is personally satisfying to be acting with purpose and professionally meaningful to keep our doors open to our patients and the greater community. We are all part of this, from health-care workers to family caretakers to people working at home to people working in kitchens, factories and transportation. The physical and emotional stressors upon us are tremendous right now, our ability to adapt to these seemingly constant changes relies upon the continuation of self-care. Good eating habits, lots of sleep, regular exercise and a creative outlet — these fundamentals should be practiced even more diligently when the normal rhythm of our lives is altered. A concept of prehabilitation is well ascribed in our practice, focusing upon the quality and well-being of a person to afford them greater resilience to adversity, whether that’s COVID-19 or a herniated disc. The care of our bodies is an evolving journey; our focus is to empower that journey.
Our practice serves to support those who have pushed too far, from too many hours at the makeshift dining-table-turned-work-desk to caring for family and patients beyond oneself. Some situations can be managed by phone consultation with a few recommended links to exercises and some DIY hacks to make that at-home work station livable. Others are serious injuries manifested by extreme physical exertion and fatigue compounded by stress, which requires active care.
Our office protocols have increased dramatically, with expected alcohol sanitization of nearly everything, gloves and masks, a great deal more disposable sanitation, and physical spacing of patients, many of whom can wait in their car until a room is available. We have also been ozonating our office daily, a very effective and safe tool to destroy viruses and other pathogens in the air and surfaces (especially for this coronavirus). We are screening our patients for symptoms and erring on the side of caution in order to minimize the spread.
We feel the love and support of the community in kind every day. In the beginning, they managed to supply us with masks. Our landlords were immediately supportive of us both financially and technically for safety protocol. Many patients have called or emailed us simply to thank us for our work or ask how they could help us. It’s remarkably motivating to be appreciated so often.
We are all harboring a sense of dissonance for an unknown future. We are all looking to each other for guidance, reassurance and clarity. This is a beautiful thing to experience. Much of our regular lives are spent without the sense of interdependence and camaraderie, instead valuing autonomy. This moment has peeled back a layer of armor of autonomy, and ironically in our relative isolation we finally yearn for that most essential component of humanity — connection.
Return to The State of the Village.