Dr. Tom Goode
optimal health - optimal living
Personal History
(Excerpted from the book, Fully Alive! by Tom Goode, ND, 2006)
Beginning at age 16
As a teenager, I barely survived a grave car accident. After working all morning at the local hardware store, I returned home for lunch and left to suit-up for the high school football game that afternoon. I spent my on-field time getting back up after repeatedly being flattened by the local halfback who would later become a college All-American. Our team lost by several touchdowns. I was bummed out and joined some other team members in joy-riding around and drowning our sorrows in beer. Maybe I was just rebelling against a distant and alcoholic father.
Whatever my prior motivation, I awakened ten days later with my right leg and right arm tied to a hospital bed. My left leg was elevated in a cast with a weight dangling from a traction device. My head and face were encased in another cast and I was unable to open my mouth. My left arm was in a third cast to immobilize it so that the fracture in the upper arm could heal where the bone splintered and stuck through the skin.
I opened my eyes as a nurse passed by and asker her, "What happened?" She said that I was in the hospital. I remember the pulse of anger that surged through me that moment. I had already figured that out. I wanted to know how I had gotten there.
Apparently the car I was driving was the 102nd vehicle to fly off a dangerous curve and strike the same cedar tree as the 101 predecessors. County workers cut it down that next spring.
My mother's car, a four-door 1952 ford sedan hit the tree on the driver's side, tearing the engine from its mounts and pushing it backward through the pedals into car. The engine came to rest on and pinned my left leg. Meanwhile, my body propelled forward into the windshield. My leg was still anchored in position under the pedals by the motor. My body bounced back into the seat and was then thrown forward again and my face smashed into the metal dashboard as my body fell toward the passenger side.
My two buddies were sleeping in the back seat. One was uninjured, asleep through the entire event. The third passenger jammed his legs upon impact and suffered a hairline fracture of his pelvis. He recovered quickly and played varsity baseball a few months later.
Battered and Bruised
My bodily injuries were multiple. There was brain damage, several fractures and a dislocated left hip. My face was bruised and broken and there was a hole in my skull. I lay in a coma for ten days with the prognosis uncertain.
I was not given pain killers because of the brain injury since no neurologist was available to assess how serious it was and what drugs to choose. My body screamed out loud while lying on the emergency room gurney. It would be 36 hours waiting for assistance from the neurologist who didn't work or Saturday nights or Sundays.
Strapped to the gurney and gagged to muffle the sounds, I was wheeled outside. I was removed because the noise from my screaming was disturbing the entire ER unit. So I was strapped to a table, wrapped in a blanket and left on an uninsulated porch to thrash by myself. It was mid-November and cold in Northern Virginia.
The nurse told me I had been in a coma for ten days as I opened my eyes. My mother had been present the first few days of what was thought to be a death watch and finally sent home and told to rest and wait. Someone would call her if there was any change. My father accompanied her for the first visit after the midnight call awakening them to my plight. He stayed at home or worked knowing there was little he could do. Prayers were offered in my behalf at the local churches.
My condition stabilized about the fifth day; although the 24-hour private-duty nursing schedule was relaxed only after I awakened on the tenth day. Apparently it was important for someone to be present when I opened my eyes.
Awakening in the Night
My immediate bodily awareness was of my tongue scratching against a wire in the roof of my mouth. There was a large hole there where the plastic surgeon has sewn the flaps back together. My jaws were fractured to such an extent that my teeth, after four years of braces removed only a month before, were all loose. My jaws were wired shut so the fractures could set and inside the cast my face was swollen like a pumpkin. I hurt like hell and itched like I had thousands of tiny fiery skin pricks. I couldn't move.
The cast that encased my left arm ran from the shoulder to the wrist with a traction weight pulling at my elbow. My arm was suspended from a frame attached to the bed. My entire left leg was encased in plaster as well with a weight pulling on my ankle, keeping the leg straight with traction.
Doctors had good news, bad news, and a lot of speculation: I would regain the use of my arm. However, the bone would never knit back together because of the severe splintering when it broke. The hip rehabilitation was estimated to be six months in length, during which time I would walk on crutches-after I could use the left arm again.
The brain damage was to the motor and speech areas. As a result there was concern both for my future abilities to walk and talk. The prognosis was for significant and, as yet unknown, loss of intellectual capacity. I would later be able to observe the loss and not be able to do anything about it or make my brain work better.
Tied Hand and Foot
My uninjured right limbs were tied to the bed because I would flail around in my unconscious state and hit and kick at anyone who came near. One night I broke the arm restraint and reached down to untie my right leg. I then tore the cast from my face and arm into small bits and painfully removed all of the wiring from my jaws. However, I didn't make much progress in my attempts to destroy the cast on the left lower body. Raging at the pain, I was in and out of consciousness and exhausted myself from the effort.
The morning shift nurse walked in and looked at me, and immediately picked up the phone to call my doctors. I was sedated and they scheduled me for more surgery in the next few hours.
Wired back together once more and with a new casts, my doctors revealed the rest of what they knew. My hip was dislocated and the sciatic and peroneal nerves were damaged. I was unable to lift or move my leg. My foot had no feeling. The outlook was guarded-maybe it would get better. The orthopedic team didn't know. They could only tell me that it would be at least six months before I would be permitted to put any weight on the leg.
Unable to Walk or Move the Leg
I would also need a brace on the left lower leg. In addition to being able to move my leg from the sciatic damage, my foot was limp as a result of the damage to the peroneal nerve. I was subsequently fitted for a shoe with spring-loaded foot device to correct the condition mechanically whenever I walked and to prevent more pain as my foot dangled, sensitive and unresponsive.
In the early period of waiting six months for the hip to heal, I suffered at the hands of a well-intentioned physiotherapist who visited with twice daily electrical shock to stimulate the nerve pathways. And I mean shock as my entire body writhed in pain with the pulsations. The entire lower left leg was prickly-feeling and I could just bear to have a sock put on. To me, the shock treatments were a form of torture that continued for many weeks even after I left the hospital after my initial month there.
Continuing treatments at home became more humane with a different therapist and it wasn't so bad when I could be the one in control of the level of stimulation. The nerve damage to the lower leg, I was told, was permanent since nerves grow such a short distance and that the damage in this case was too severe. I left the hospital after that first month with an uncertain future, knowing only that I would return for two more operations.
Back to the Hospital
The first of the two operations was to come four months later, after I was on crutches. I had finally escaped from my bed where I lived and was back in high school-for one month. I was still an unpretty sight with a face livid with scars, swollen and discolored.
As my face had been crushed, one of the tear ducts was closed causing mucus to rise up into my eye and down my face instead of down my throat. Operation one was to bore a hole through the bone so the duct could drain and I wore a plastic soda-straw-sized tube that ran from the corner of my eye and out of my nose while I healed from the surgery. I ate lunch alone so as not to have my disfigurement be a source of revulsion for my schoolmates.
Going through the windshield and smashing against the dash shattered my cheekbones and virtually eliminated my nose because the cartilage was removed. During the twelve months following the accident, the crushed nasal passages formed a flattened shape. The second surgery opened and reshaped my nose, and rebuilt my cheekbones. The scars were bright and I picked glass out of my face for years afterwards.
The formerly straightened teeth that were shaken from their roots stabilized in a not-so-perfect presentation. I would not smile for years. The correction for my overbite was preserved; although now my chin jutted forward from my flat profile. There was nothing more to be done.
I wore the leg brace for about a year before discarding it. The foot drop was still present; yet I limped as badly with the brace as without it. The only difference was pain. Although the leg and ankle hurt constantly when I walked without the brace, I could at least wear a different pair of shoes. The limp lasted about 3 years before disappearing.
Why I can walk without the brace has never been explained. There was no possible way the nerve function could have returned because, as it was explained to me, once the nerve was cut and the ends didn't grow back together, the ends heal separately and never reconnect. Somehow other muscles compensated and took up the job left by the absence of an intact nerve.
I am now able to run, skip, jump, dance, boogie and do all of the other things I could do before the accident. I am unable to ice skate though. I was, however, also unable to ice skate before the accident. The swelling, scarring and discoloration in my face from the injury and the later surgeries faded. The brain damage remained.
Not Quite the Same
The open wound into my head was about the size of a silver dollar and whatever cut the hole also tore across the left frontal lobe. I was sent to specialists who measured my cognitive ability and compared it to my earlier test scores recorded in my second year of high school. Told I had suffered a 20% loss, I was complacent on the outside; not fully understanding the impact this would have on my life. Inside I was still numb.
No one expected me to complete regular high school, so I was offered the opportunity to simply receive a diploma and then apply to a trade school. I rejected that advice. Instead I dropped out of chemistry and advanced algebra classes and completed all requirements to graduate from high school tenth out of a class of 150. I was offered and accepted a state rehabilitation scholarship to the University of Virginia.
The physical body was mending and my brain still didn't work right. My memory for details was very poor, so if there were a four step process to recall, I was unable to get beyond the first three. My first semester was a disaster as I earned a .9 average on a 4.0 scale. I managed to make it through to the end of the second year, now with a composite average of 1.9.
That was good enough for me to be accepted back for a third year on probation. Only now I faced the idea that I might never be able to raise that composite GPA to ever reach the required 2.5 average required for graduation.
The Light at the End
I persevered and, entering the McIntyre School of Commerce at The University, found my strength not in memorizing items, but in understanding concepts. I became a Dean's List Student by my senior year having been captain of the Varsity Pistol Team, President of the Rifle and Pistol Team, President of the business fraternity and a class instructor for one of the courses I was taking. One professor offered to give me an automatic "B" if I want to skip the second semester of his course because he said there wasn't much more I could learn from it - and I accepted.
The body was continuing to improve as well. I was able to wrestle on an intramural team - until my parents found out. I was dropped from the requisite Physical Education Curriculum and given a "C" for my effort. I switched to playing touch football and softball--and kept my mouth shut when I was at home since I had been warned that activity might harm me.
It seemed like a miracle to me at the time to actually graduate from college and achieve that goal. We now know that if one portion of the brain is injured, it is not unusual for another area to compensate. Whatever the cause for my recovery in a functional sense, my intellectual test scores after graduation were still twenty points below what they were in high school. I still don't know what I am missing.
What I Do Know
I learned from my experience in the years following the accident that people have amazing recuperative abilities. I know that regardless of your personal situation, you can overcome handicaps and establish health habits to help you feel better and grow stronger.
Inside of everyone is a spark or human spirit that arises to overcome handicaps when intention, willingness and commitment to heal are joined. State your intention now:
It is my intention to heal my (__________) condition. I am willing to heal my (__________) condition. I am committed to heal my (__________) condition.
You can even become biologically younger, reduce and prevent fat, if that is your goal. I'll tell you more about how I learned this later in the book.
As a grown man in my late thirties, I lost my health again due to a degenerative disease. This time, doctors said I had two years before it became terminal. From my early experiences with polio and debilitating injuries, I knew not to give up or listen to well-meaning advice to surrender to my situation. I knew to move through pain and discomfort.
That knowledge was enough for then. Now I faced a different challenge. As a young man, I had no information about achieving true health. Instead, I relied solely on willpower to rebuild my body and push onward. This time, I decided to add education to my willpower.
The Stress Was Killing Me
I immediately turned to alternative care and treatment methods since the prognosis from traditional medicine was so dis-couraging. By learning everything I could about what I now call optimal living, I transformed my experience with degenerative disease into a major health victory. This turning point in my life gave me the reason to keep living-to help others along the way in their healing and health crises.
In a little over a year, I was symptom-free, and disease-free. I was also able to reduce and then discontinue altogether the drugs I had been taking for seventeen years, as reported in my story in Prevention Magazine.
In pursuit of my own healing I discovered things not known to the average individual and began sharing what I had found. I developed an intense interest in holistic health and took any and all available classes to learn and develop proficiency in over 20 different healing modalities. I became an ordained minister in 1981 to provide healing treatments and services to a broader community and network around the Washington, D.C. metropolitan area.
Later, having moved to New Hampshire, at the age of 54, I complete a course of study as a Naturopath and was awarded a Doctor of Naturopathy degree from the Clayton College of Natural Health. Since then I have served as a consciousness researcher and coach, a holistic consultant and a naturopathic practitioner of the healing arts. In 1991, I become one of the founders of the International Breath Institute (www.internationalbreathinstitute.com). IBI provided workshops and seminars throughout the US and abroad and in 1995, I moved to Boulder, Colorado to make services available to the general public through books, articles and newsletters.
Inspired Living International, LLC was formed and the website www.inspiredparenting.net was created to provide parents with the latest information on neurobiology and ortho-molecular science. My wife, Caron, and I moved to Tucson, Arizona in the summer of 2001 to recover following long bouts of caretaking of illnesses that resulted in the death of both of our parents. On September 11, 2001 the United States was attacked and the world changed for everyone.
In the Aftermath
Knowing that inner peace was the only path to outer peace in the world, Caron and I reflected on how best to serve this cause. We next established the Academy for Coaching Parents International, providing a distance-learning curriculum for training parent coaches to successfully operate their own home business, and offering professional certification for parent coaches (www.academyforcoachingparents.com).
Caron and I now live in Fort Worth, Texas writing health and parenting books and articles and publishing our monthly newsletters. Caron, a psychologist by education, background and training offers consultant services. I now offer my work as a speaker for businesses and colleges in addition to workshops and seminars. I am also available as a coach for those seeking to accelerate their personal evolution. (http://internationalbreathinstitute.com/consciousness_coach.htm)
Dr. Goode is a member of The Life Extension Foundation, The American Holistic Health Association, The National Health Federation, The Institute of Noetic Sciences, The Health Keepers Alliance and the International Society for the Study of Subtle Energies and Energy Medicine. He is the editor of Just Breathe!, a monthly holistic health newsletter. His articles on health and lifestyle appear in books, magazines and on the Internet. His websites are:
. www.drtomgoode.com - Speaker's Page
. www.internationalbreathinstitute.com - International Breath Institute, LLC-the leader in breath training for health and consciousness
. www.acpi.biz - Academy for Coaching Parents, International, providing a distance-learning curriculum and training parent coaches to successfully operate their own home business, and offering professional certification for parent coaches.
. www.inspiredparening.net - Inspired Parenting, LLC - an Internet resource for Whole Child Parenting and Practical Parenting Methods.
Dr. Goode can be reached by telephone in Fort Worth, Texas at 817-847-8216. His email address is thomasgoode@earthlink.net
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