When Your Back Doc Retires

The first time I walked into the chiropractic office of Dr. Bruce Narvey, I was pregnant with my third baby. That “baby” is now 34 years old. Not only did Dr. Narvey keep me in the best possible shape for a healthy delivery, but he has kept Hubby and me well-adjusted through all the years since then. A glance at the diploma on his wall tells patients Dr. Narvey’s been practicing since 1981. Forty years is a long time to practice something, but now that he’s finally getting the hang of it, he’s giving it up for golf and grandchildren. The nerve!

Through the nineties, when I cleaned houses for a living and took care of a large garden, my spine occasionally became so misaligned it left me nearly immobile, and I’d go hobbling into Dr. Narvey’s office hunched over in pain. He’d give me an attitude adjustment and encourage me to proactively come in regularly instead of waiting until I was in trouble. Once I finally settled into an every-three-weeks schedule, I got along much better. I’ve benefited from his ultrasound therapy, too.

Allowing someone to manipulate your spine every three weeks involves a level of trust, but Dr. Narvey has become a friend, too. He knows, for example, that I’m going to start coughing as soon as I lie on my back. I don’t need to explain over and over that it’s a chronic lung condition and not Covid-19. I’ve listened to his jokes and his stories about the aforementioned golf and grandchildren. He’s purchased my books and read my columns. He teases. I give it right back. We occasionally talk politics, but I think that might be his way of figuring out which way I lean on any given day. I tried to convince him to rename his practice “This Joint’s Poppin’” but he refused to crack. (By the way, don’t ever let a chiropractor tell you a joke while he’s giving you an adjustment. It could really mess up your funny bone.)

When my husband underwent an amputation of his right arm, Dr. Narvey went above and beyond. He came to visit Jon at Health Sciences Centre in Winnipeg and gave him an adjustment right there, helping to alleviate some of the damage done elsewhere by the accident. He and his wife Cheri also blessed us with a care package at that time. Guess you could say they’ve always had our backs.

Photo by Violet Hay

Dr. Narvey deserves a long and happy retirement. Few people return to the town they grew up in and serve it and the surrounding community for 40 years. Although they’ve recently moved to Winnipeg to be closer to grandchildren, I imagine Portage will always feel like “home” to the Narveys. This is where they raised their family and where they donated untold volunteer hours with Rotary Club, Portage Golf Club, coaching, mentoring, fund-raising, and generally behaving like all-around top-notch citizens.

So, to the man who turned heads every time he went to work: I salute you, I thank you, and I wish you God’s richest blessings. Portage will miss the Narveys. You could say it’ll be an adjustment.

 

A Bone to Pick

Well, my goose is cooked now.

Local chiropractor Dr. Bruce Narvey has been giving me regular attitude adjustments since I was pregnant with our youngest son, who turned 30 last January! Dr. Narvey has served our family through thick and thin—even going above and beyond by treating Hubby in a Winnipeg hospital following his 1995 arm amputation. And if all that isn’t enough to earn my undying loyalty, the fact that he reads my books ought to be.

Why then, one wonders, would I name a villain after him?

On my last visit to his torture chamber—I mean, office—our conversation sounded something like this:

“I have a bone to pick with you. Just one.”

When a chiropractor has a bone to pick, it can’t be good. Where exactly did he find this bone?

“Oh?”

“Yeah. I finished the book. It’s very good. But…”

I always dread the but.

“Did I get something wrong?” My mind skimmed the details of the novel, wondering which historical fact I may have misrepresented.

“Well, I can’t help wondering why the one real jerk in the book has the same name as me.”

Oh.

Woops.

I laughed. I remembered naming that character. I knew he was going to be a mean one, but Mr. Grinch had already been taken. Ebenezer seemed too obvious, as did Adolf, Goliath, and Lucifer. Then too, there’s the trick of giving your character a name appropriate to the era and ethnicity. I usually look up the most popular names for the year of a character’s birth and choose from that list. This time, I thought I’d try a little subliminal psychology. I figured if the name sounded like brute, perhaps readers would be subconsciously predisposed to fear him. Hence, Bruce was born.

And honestly, it never occurred to me. But sitting in his office, the opportunity seemed too good to pass up.

“Well,” I said. “You must have a little bit of bully hidden under the surface, or you wouldn’t enjoy cracking people’s bones.”

This is not a wise thing to say to a man who’s about to crack your bones.

“I do not have any bully in me whatsoever. And I am most certainly not a Nazi sympathizer.”

Oh. I’d forgotten that detail about my fictional Bruce. And about Dr. Narvey’s Jewish heritage. 

We laughed and teased some more. I got my adjustment and walked out better aligned than when I walked in, and with a blog post already beginning to write itself.

Today is Remembrance Day. One reason I like writing novels about life here in Canada during World War II is because of the heroes who fought to end the atrocities overseas. It occurred to me that if no one had prevented Adolf Hitler from completing his mission, Bruce Narvey and I would not be picking bones or laughing together. He would not be my chiropractor or my friend. The Narveys and their people would have been wiped off the planet before Bruce was even born.

And I stopped laughing.

Lest we forget, indeed.