A PAIN IN THE NECK

Another friend writes:
This letter is being written in thanks for your part in a miracle in the life of a little girl named Shayla Roberts.

"We have friends all over the place," Dr. Stjernholm says modestly.
Dr. Stjernholm's Lakewood office is identifiable by four-foot-tall letters over the front door forming the words DR. ALVIN STJERNHOLM, DC, ND. This morning, many of his friends have traveled to see him, even though the office is technically closed on Wednesdays. Cars with license plates from Kansas, Indiana, California and South Dakota dot the parking lot.

A Connecticut family arrived two days ago for treatment. "I flew out just for this," says Walter Zymbaluk, who is hoping Dr. Stjernholm can relieve the rheumatoid arthritis in his shoulders. He is staying in Denver the entire week for the treatments.

"We're so blessed to have so many friends," Dr. Stjernholm says. "We just had another miracle as of yesterday. A woman who was in a car accident and injured her spine is healing. We're just having a great time here." He adds, a little darkly, "We get it from every direction, but we're blessed that we're still at it."

Here is what Dr. Stjernholm is still at: practicing chiropractic, furiously, at a pace he estimates brings in about $75,000 gross a month. He's so busy that, at age 61, he just bought a 64,000-square-foot former Safeway building on West Alameda Parkway to house his new clinic, a health-food store and an Olympic-sized pool. (Also, he hopes, a community center: "The old folks can't find a decent place to square dance," he says.) His specialty is a tissue-stimulating treatment called "soft laser."

"`Soft laser'?" asks Dana Rose, a staff doctor of chiropractic for the International Chiropractic Association, in Alexandria, Virginia. "Did you see him use it? I've never heard of it. And I just got out of school, so I'm familiar with all the new treatments being used."

Here are the directions from which Dr. Stjernholm has gotten it: the state Department of Education, which he has sued successfully; the state Board of Chiropractic Examiners, which has suspended his license twice, and which he in response has sued three separate times; the Internal Revenue Service, which has a lien on his Lakewood house and which he sued recently for auctioning off his property at less than market value.

He has also gotten it from:
A company that outfitted a truck he converted into a mobile display on chiropractic--the vehicle bounced around too much and trashed the exhibit, so Dr. Stjernholm sued; the landlord of his former office, whom he sued for allowing the Jefferson County Department of Social Services to move in next door and take all his parking spots.

And from:
The City of Lakewood, which filed a lawsuit against him for trespassing when he ran a fence across Old Hampden Road after the city closed it down, a claim he is hotly contesting; Jefferson County, which sued him when he allegedly violated zoning laws by parking tractor-trailers on his property, and which he in turn sued for changing the zoning on his land; and two of his lawyers, whom he sued for not representing him well enough when he sued someone else.

"He's an active guy," sighs Gerald Dahl, who has represented the City of Lakewood against Stjernholm. "There's no doubt about that."

His contribution to the image of chiropractic care is somewhat more fuzzy. "He's a healer. Doctor Al has had more miracles per capita than any other health-care professional I know," says Martha Gorman, a spokeswoman for the Colorado Chiropractic Association. "He's also a public-relations nightmare. There's a part of me that dreads getting a call from someone saying, `I just spoke to Dr. Stjernholm.'"

Dr. Stjernholm is unruffled. "You can't be in a fight without making a few marks," he points out. "I think the controversy makes you a better person." Besides, he is not without charity. He launches into a short lecture:

A Variation on Turning the Other Cheek. "To me," Dr. Stjernholm explains, "nobody is an enemy. If they're wrong, you've just got to shake 'em by the collar."

The lesson? "The biggest responsibility we have is to love our enemies," Dr. Stjernholm says.

Dr. Stjernholm's offices are in a dismal strip mall on West Alameda Avenue. Next door is Queen City Bull Ride.

The offices are resplendent in buffalo.
Three huge stuffed buffalo heads stare dolefully down from the walls. A taxidermied buffalo calf stands watch over Dr. Stjernholm's treatment room. In his personal office is a bronze Frederic Remington statue, which is of a buffalo. Hanging on the office wall is a buffalo hide.

In addition to practicing chiropractic, Dr. Stjernholm raises buffalo. "I wanted to get involved in something natural, that man hadn't messed around with," he explains. "Also, I wanted it to be low in fat and high in protein."

In another room is a poster showing two buffalo bulls smashing heads in a cloud of dust, with a tag line that reads: "Bring on the competition!" It is there for a reason. "It's kind of my theme song," Dr. Stjernholm says.

The rest of the office decorating scheme seems to be a cross between a populist reading room and a van-side stand hawking shiny plaques with inspirational sayings. A thickly varnished wood clock with the letters C-H-I-R-O-P-R-A-C-T-I-C instead of numbers greets visitors.

Patients have a wide variety of reading options, including reprinted testimonials from Dr. Stjernholm's cured patients, available in bulk; copies of a full-page notice he bought in the Rocky Mountain News just before last month's election urging votes against Governor Roy Romer, Attorney General Gale Norton and Jefferson County Commissioner John Stone; numerous articles on the body's ability to heal itself; a stack of articles titled "How the Clintons' Investment Story Has Changed Over Time"; and a pile of blue pamphlets--"Aid & Abet: Constitutional Issues for Lawmen."

Today, though, Dr. Stjernholm heads directly to an office in his suite that might be called the Testimonial Room. "I want to show you the tremendous things we're doing here," he says. "We've got nothing to hide." But first, a pause in the hallway to deliver a short lecture:

The Body's Capacity to Heal Itself; The Unfortunate Overuse of Antibiotics and the Body's Decreased Resistance Thereby; The 500 Bugs Drugs Can't Kill; The Cause of AIDS; and The Bad Rap Cholesterol Has Received.

"Where did we ever get the idea that lard or butter is bad for us?" he asks. "If you ever get confused, just ask yourself, `Did God make it?' If he did, it's okay. If man messed with it, watch out."

Lesson? "The world is getting sicker every day because of too many chemicals. We're just dying from these things," Dr. Stjernholm says.

A patient, Bob, walks by. He stares hard at Dr. Stjernholm. "Don't you ever stop?" he asks.

Dr. Stjernholm replies, "We've just got so much to do," adding, "Why don't you just go in back and get a shot of laser from Elsie?"

Covering the back wall of the Testimonial Room is a series of backlit screens. Hanging on them are pairs of X-rays--befores and afters. Spend any time with Dr. Stjernholm and the stories behind them will become very familiar.

There's The Ninety-Year-Old Woman-With-a-Crooked-Spine-Who-Touched-Her-Hands-to-the-Floor-and-Lived-to-Be-One-Hundred. And The Infant-Born-With-the-Twisted-Hip-Who-Was-Cured-With-Laser. Or The Boy-With-the-Neck-Tumor-That-Wilted-Under-Soft-Laser (voluminous documentation available upon request). Numerous others. "We're just helping the body take care of itself," Dr. Stjernholm says. Inspired, he is inclined to share a short lecture:

The Body Versus the Bug. He grabs a book off of a shelf to the right of the screens. "This was written by an expert, a medical doctor, an oncologist. It says that, on his deathbed, Louis Pasteur, one of the greatest scientists, admitted that disease was a matter of allowing the body to deteriorate to the point where it is invited." Dr. Stjernholm closes the book.

Lesson? "Disease is in the soil. No bug grows until it has the media to grow on," Dr. Stjernholm says.

"We're just so blessed," he sighs, shaking his head. "We've got so many success stories. And they're all on video."

Next door to the Testimonial Room is an office that might be called the Video Room. "We've got the capacity to record five tapes at a time," Dr. Stjernholm says.

For many years Dr. Stjernholm has had a standing invitation to his patients--and the public at large--to attend his weekly office lectures on chiropractic. In the 1970s, however, he recognized the value of the new personal-video revolution. He invested $20,000 in an early JVC 3/4 video camera and began taping lectures. Then he began copying the tapes and giving them away.

Now, each time there is a spectacular success story that he just can't keep to himself, Dr. Stjernholm videotapes an interview with the patient. It is not uncommon for a testimonial to take the appearance of a lecture. When there are enough anecdotes, he copies the tape and gives it out to new patients or anyone who asks, and to some who don't. "We tell people not to return them," he says. "We don't want 'em back." Hundreds of master copies are stored in a fireproof cabinet across the hall.

Each video comes with a table of contents. "DR. ALVIN STJERNHOLM addresses the chiropractic student body at the Parker College Assembly--THE WORLD HEALTH CRISIS, DOCUMENTED REVERSALS OF PATHOLOGIES" is followed directly by "STEVEN WHITE--Back injury, therapy for a year, back surgery, bone graft would not grow...years following injury patient starts therapy with Dr. Stjernholm, 5 months 70% improvement, approximately 1 year, dug 5 post holes 22 feet deep, return to full time heavy equipment operator, July, 1994."

Another video opens with a lecture by Dr. Stjernholm, followed by a section entitled "Dr. Stjernholm demonstrates soft laser to Dr. Dorothea Linley, M.D., and her husband, Frank, and interprets their personal X-ray distortions resulting from childhood and adult injuries." The next subject is "ANNA WOOD--Two bladder surgeries for incontinence (leaky bladder) to no avail. First treatment eliminated leakage, spinal surgery failed, spectacular response to laser and soft tissue manipulation."

Back in Dr. Stjernholm's office, evidence of his lifelong commitment to chiropractic abounds.

A plaque for state Chiropractor of the Year (1982), president of the Colorado Chiropractic Association (1967), the Colorado State Chiropractic Society (1985) and the Colorado Chiropractic Council (1985-86). A photo essay of the Stjernholms on chiropractic lecture tours to Denmark, Sri Lanka and Greece. Cards and tokens of appreciation crowd the walls and bump against one another on shelves.

On the wall to the right of his desk is a black-and-white picture showing Dr. Stjernholm standing next to an uncertain-looking Governor John Love. To their left is Miss Posture Queen 1964, winner of a contest sponsored by the Colorado Doctors of Chiropractic and the Spring Air Mattress Company of Colorado.

"We disqualified Miss Boulder Body Beautiful because she had a crooked spine," Dr. Stjernholm recalls. "She was quite upset. I don't think she knew she had a crooked spine."

Settling back in his chair, he says, "We've just been so blessed." His eyes widen. "Did I show you the Globetrotter? I've got to show you the Globetrotter." He pops up and strides briskly back to the Testimonial Room to share evidence of How-a-Harlem-Globetrotter's-Broken-Foot-Was-Cured-in-Just-a-Day-by-Laser-Treatments.

"He was shooting baskets in our backyard the next afternoon," Dr. Stjernholm says.

Driving west in Dr. Alvin Stjernholm's red Cadillac. The seats are pushed upright to a near-right angle. Our posture is superb.

Dr. Stjernholm has a wide face and narrow nose. Slicked-back hair, blue eyes and a large gap between his two front teeth. Bushy eyebrows and a left eye that narrows when he concentrates. He wears a black leather jacket with suede sleeves that, when removed, reveal Popeye forearms. A black Ace comb rests in his breast pocket. His voice has the calm cadence of the convinced. He refers to himself as Stjernholm.

He grew up in Cheraw, a speck of a town that scarcely breaks the wind gusting across the plains of southeastern Colorado, where the Stjernholm family raised sheep. He met his wife, Elsie, while he was in the sixth grade. She had just moved to town, and they sat next to each other in class. Elsie has worked as Dr. Stjernholm's receptionist and assistant for three decades now. Recently, as a practical matter, she also became his legal assistant.

Over the years, Dr. Stjernholm has had significant injuries.
When he was a boy he swung out on a rope attached to a branch, pendulumed back and slammed into the tree. "For years afterward I used to have bileous bile attacks where I'd vomit up golden-yellow bile by the cupful," he says. "Plus painful spasms. I had lots of tests, but no one knew what was wrong."

He entered the service during the Korean War, learned X-raying while in the Army in Japan and, upon his return to Colorado, began working as a technician at General Rose Hospital in Denver. He also began taking classes in preparation for medical school.

Dr. Stjernholm discovered he could earn twice as much money driving a delivery truck as he did X-raying. "One day I was sitting at 38th and Brighton Boulevard, next to the Pepsi place, when I got hit by the Buick." His head snapped back and shattered the rear window. He spent several weeks in the hospital and was released with a brace from his hips to his neck.

Two of his neighbors were attending chiropractic school and convinced him to see Dr. J.J. VanHorn, a Denver chiropractor. "He gave me a few treatments, and it just cleared my back problems right up," he recalls. He began studying chiropractic at Denver's University of Natural Healing Arts in 1958.

One of his instructors was a man named Dr. Gerald Watson. While studying with him one day, Dr. Stjernholm had one of his spells, vomiting golden-yellow bile and spasming. "Dr. Watson saw immediately I'd had an old injury and began massaging my left hip. It was like a miracle; the spasm stopped instantly."

The two men opened an office on First Avenue and Broadway in 1961. Two years later Dr. Stjernholm enjoyed his first big lawsuit, against the state education department.

end of part 1