started feeling much better overall. My energy started coming back and my mood once again became more pleasant. The adjustments started holding longer too

Spring came and I eagerly did a lot of gardening. Lifting very small amounts of dirt at a time, I dug a wading pool for the children. I was feeling so much better. I still had my periods of anxiety, cross-eyes, nonfunctioning brain feeling and other symptoms, but now I could use one of my home remedies and relieve them most of the time.

It is amazing the effects weather had on me. Damp weather made me feel very badly. Weather conditions immediately before an electrical storm would practically send me into hysterics.

The humidity was quite high during this spring and several times my head would feel very odd. It was not like dizziness. The most similar thing that I can think of to describe it is like on t.v. shows when they have a data processing machine throwing out all the cards wildly. That was the way my head felt. Everything inside seemed to be jumping and going haywire like an electronic machine.

Once when my husband used an ant killing spray in the house, I had the same feeling after smelling it.

With all my terrible reactions to heat and humidity, my husband bought an air conditioner. Since the creditors were calling us frequently, it seemed asinine to buy more, but I believe I was near collapsing when I got these feelings. The air-conditioner gave me much relief.

With all these symptoms of pressure in my head and clogged ear, I wondered if I had, in some way, pressure on the right eustachian tube. Many incidents such as the change in atmospheric pressure at the hospital, when I became ill and quit work, the infected ear after having the Caloric test done by the Ear, Nose and Throat doctor, and the effects of heat and humidity made me think so.

During the summer a small growth came on my left lower eyelid. There was some redness on the inside of the eyelid. I did not have it diagnosed medically as this problem was the least of my worries.

More dermatitis came about two or three inches below the left armpit. I did not have this diagnosed medically either.

If the pain was on the right side of my head, I knew (in my case) that I probably had tension on the atlas. If my left side hurt, I knew that, most likely, the axis was causing the problem.

When my thumbs hurt, I knew there was tension in the shoulder area. If the legs hurt, I knew the tension was in the lumbar area. I had different home remedies for many of these complaints. Certain exercises relieved some of them. Some times lying on my abdomen in an extended position on the exerciser would relieve the axis pain. Sometimes a simple thing like a good stretch would relieve the problem. Other times, I would place the vibrator on the spot in the spine creating the problem rather than where the pain was itself.

Quite frequently I had an ache behind my right ear. I also noticed a small lump there. I asked Dr. Toman about it and he said it was probably a muscle. The lump was fairly firm, but had no tenderness. The ache was in the general area, but did not seem to be especially related to the lump.

One day it had been aching quite a bit. This and the clogged ear were constant annoyances. I asked him as I had on almost every visit, "When are you going to move the atlas?" He had not moved it since that day several months before when he seemed very frustrated and made that especially hard adjustment.

I guess he was beginning to get a little angry with me. He said, "Pain or no pain, I am the kind of guy that doesn't adjust unless there is tension." There was very little I could say after that. I gathered from that firm statement that adjustments are made only where there is tension. The adjustment that day was made in the thoracic and lumbar vertebras only, but it relieved the ache behind the ear.

I expressed my happiness about him not having to adjust the neck. He said even though he did not adjust it that I still had a problem there.

After leaving the atlas practically stationary and the ear being clogged for six months, he finally moved it in August. This adjustment was different than his previous atlas adjustments. It seemed to be more of a rotating one. This cleared my right ear immediately. After this adjustment, I had a distorted face feeling. It also made an odd feeling in front of my left ear. These feelings went away after two or three hours. Also, I found the high pitched sound that I always thought was a normal head sound was really an abnormal noise. It now went off and on. Also, for one day, my left ear had an echo-type sound in it whenever I talked or was talked too.

It is almost unbelievable that a person does not realize she has certain problems. The ear sound was only noticed in a quiet atmosphere and I thought it was because I was used to so much noise all the time. Our house usually has the television going with the record player, radio and two kids adding to the bedlam.

The same thing is true about hearing. Until the hearing test was taken, I had no idea my hearing was not normal. Once Dr. Toman told me I had a very strong back, but not a very flexible one. I said, "Is that right?" As the treatments progressed, I found I did become much more flexible.

It was only at this time that I realized why he had not moved the atlas for six months. He had allowed the spot in the thoracic vertebras to heal and recover from that bad complication. Whether or not the disk had ruptured I don't know, but one thing I do know is that it has taken me many, many, months to get over it.

If I had realized that he was allowing the atlas to stay stationary to allow the thoracic vertebrae to heal, maybe I would not have complained so much to him about the clogged ear.

After having a fairly good summer and having so much relief from the rotation of the atlas, I made a comment to Dr. Toman about how well I was feeling. He rarely spoke of the next part of my recovery, but this time, he said "Now, we have to do the ____________ (I didn't catch the word) and that's the hard part."

This statement was like a warning to prepare me for what was to come. Once again, I found that he was so right. For starting in December I was to undergo as many (or more) difficulties as I had the previous winter.

Several times during October, November, and December I would get a click in the neck and would start having an ache in the left side of it at the base of the skull. This pain was not intense, but rather it was a deep, penetrating pain that made me feel nauseated. Nothing that I did would relieve it. Empirins gave me no relief, the vibrator did not help and my exercises had no affect on it. I had to always go to Dr. Toman and have him relieve it by making an adjustment.

I told him it felt as though two bones were pressing against each other. He said that was what was happening. On one of these occasions he gave me another puzzled look. He seemed in deep thought and while looking directly at me he said, "I wonder what's making that happen." I didn't say anything because I do not believe that he was conscious of expressing this thought vocally.

While we were in Illinois for our annual Christmas trip, I started getting this particular headache. I said, "Oh no, not way up here." I had never been able to relieve this headache before with any of my home remedies or with pain pills and I was frightened to have it so far from Dr. Toman.

I thought I would try my exercises to see if they might, by chance, relieve it before it got too bad. On my very first rotation at the waist clockwise, I had a tremendous movement. It felt as though my entire neck shifted. I was so thankful that the headache left immediately. However, this was the real beginning of the sequence of events that would take me into another very severe stage.

After returning from Illinois, on my next appointment, the adjustment on the axis was made on the right side instead of the left as it had always been done before.

A few days later I had symptoms of nausea. I called him for an appointment for this problem and by the time I got to the office that afternoon the tension had shifted to the lumbar area. I could practically feel the tension shifting. As it passed down the vertebras, I got a pain in the sternum, the quivering in the epigastric area and it finally settled in the lumbar area making my legs numb.

This shifting of tension happened several times and was so severe that it was necessary for me to call for an appointment to have it adjusted.

After months and months (except when he rotated it in August) of not adjusting the atlas, he now was able to adjust the bottom part of it as I laid on my back giving it a lifting type adjustment. With my exercises, I could also bring on this movement relieving myself, many, many times.

As the right side of my neck vertebras shifted down, it seemed the left side would press against the base of my skull giving me that severe unrelieveable type headache.

For him to relieve this pressure, it was necessary to move the atlas to the left while I laid on my left side. Finally, we were back to the type of adjustment that he had used at the beginning of my treatments--sliding the atlas to the left with me lying on the left side. He proceeded very cautiously. After each adjustment, he asked me if I had any reactions. I had no immediate bad reactions.

I had been waiting all these months for him to be able to adjust the atlas again in this way for it was on this type of adjustment that I had gotten my "good feeling". My hopes were building and mentally I was preparing for the big event.

It did not come!! This was a terrible blow to my morale. Not only did my "good feeling" not come, but my worst symptom of all started coming back--that nonfunctioning brain feeling. No headache or any pain that I have ever experienced can compare with that horrible feeling.

I personally felt as a catatonic looks. I wanted to do nothing more than sit. I had no desire to even move. Many times there was nothing that hurt, but my brain felt as though I could not think. I called them my "zombie" days.

My husband asked how could I describe it as feeling like a zombie since a zombie is someone dead who has been brought back to life. I said there wasn't much difference because a person alive with their brain unable to think is the same as dead.

I had terrible fears that my brain would remain like this. Even though it felt as though it was nonfunctioning, some parts of it must have been because I was very aware of these feelings.

There seemed to be two levels of thoughts. On the surface I felt my brain was nonfunctioning but deep down I was well aware of all my symptoms and problems.

My symptoms were extremely severe at this time. I felt that I could no longer fight back. I was so exhausted. I managed to fix simple meals for my family and keep the clothes washed, but I spent the most of those dark, gloomy, wintry days in bed.

Even though I felt that I did not have the strength to keep fighting back, I never lost my desire to live. Very little relief was being obtained with my adjustments. All I felt like doing was going to bed, pulling the covers over my head and staying there. There was no escape though. From a far higher source I managed to obtain the strength to keep going for my adjustments. Many times when I went to his office it seemed as though it was all a blur.

When I first started going to Dr. Toman, I learned that my atlas and axis were in very abnormal positions. The atlas was too far to the right and the axis had been shoved sideways. Now I believed that during the waist rotation exercise in Illinois on Christmas Day, when a major movement took place in the neck, that the odontoid process on the axis had slipped out of position from the atlas.

Needless to say, I learned another very valuable lesson in the potency of exercises.

Periodically for days at a time, my head would ache. My husband said I wouldn't know what to do if I didn't have a headache. I called myself a parasite because I was taking so much from the children and causing many hardships on him. I never contemplated suicide, but I gained a new understanding into why people who are ill would do so.

I believe that if death must be, it would be easier on the patient and the family to have it happen suddenly and be done with. It was harder for me to accept the fact that I was such a useless, worthless piece of humanity taking so much from my family than it was to have the discomforts themselves. However, they showed me so much love that I wanted to get well very much.

When I went to bed before the children did, Brian would "put me to bed" using the same loving technique that I have put him to bed with all his life. He would remind me to say my prayers, tuck me in, and then hold my hand and talk for a few minutes before he kissed me goodnight.

After this, Jeanne would come in and lay down beside me for a little while and have a chat. Whenever I was having an especially bad day, Jeanne would be so concerned. She would ask me every five minutes how did I feel. It was a deep expression of love, but it became very annoying. Even Brian said, "Jeanne, shut up." I didn't want them to be so concerned for me even though I was deeply touched. I finally had to scold Jeanne to make her quit asking me so often how I was feeling.

She slowed in asking this particular question, but contrived other ways of finding out how I was. She knew if I felt well I enjoyed going for a ride in the evening. She would almost insist that I go for one. This would verify that everything was okay.

Many times when I felt badly my entire body would be in an uncontrollable tremor. She would put her arm around me or sit on my lap to check on this. They are wonderful dear children and I was sorry to put them through so much emotional distress.

Although Stan and I had some problems in the past, overall no woman could have a better husband. He never complained about my many trips to the doctor. Never complained about the lack of housekeeping, lack of good meals, my appearance, my endless grunts and groans or even my weight gain. He was always very patient with me. I am a very lucky person.