The Waterdown Osteopath

It was in the late 1990s about 1998 after coming back from playing hockey in Sweden. I was playing in a men’s hockey league in Hamilton and I had injured my neck. I had a manual therapy practice at the time, having trained in Shiatsu therapy in Toronto and I had gone everywhere and seen everyone for it. I tried Chiropractic, physiotherapy, massage therapy, acupuncture and nothing was touching it and it was getting very troublesome. One day a patient in my office suggested I see Dr Reid Johnston D.O. who was an American trained osteopathic physician. He was located in Waterdown Ontario so I called his office and to my surprise he answered the phone. “Hello” he said, without stating his professional title. Just “hello” and suggested I come in immediately, and so I did. I walked up to his reception room, opened the door and saw two pictures of Spitfires on the wall and a reel-to-reel tape deck in the corner. The room was dated and the carpet was green and thread-bare. He opened the door politely and asked me to come in. He picked up a 3×5 file card and asked me my name, telephone number and why I was there. I stated that I had a neck injury. He didn’t take any further health records or any further health history he just asked me to lie on a treatment table. He ran his hand across my body, my knees, my ankles, my pelvis and he told me everything about my health history without my disclosing it. He knew about my knee issues and my digestive problems. He went on to treat me very briefly for a cervical issue without any cracks, no thrusts, nothing of that sort. It was a gentle, firm, directed and disciplined type of treatment. He knew where he was going and why he was doing it. Then he got me off the table, asked me for $25 and said “that will be all, your neck will be better in 3 days”. I thought that was ludicrous and I didn’t believe it would be better at all.

Three days later, my neck pain was completely resolved and I wanted to know more about this thing called osteopathy. I called him up again and this time stated that I had a back injury and he politely asked me to come in immediately. I went back to the office, faking this back injury. He examined me and said “there’s nothing wrong with your back. Is there anything else I can do for you?” I slung my feet to the other side of the table and said “What I really want is to be you!” He laughed hysterically and then I made the the common amateur error and said “I would like to learn those techniques, I have a little manual therapy practice myself”. He said “oh it has nothing to do with the techniques it has everything do with the lesion. (this was back in the days when they were still using the traditional language). I was sure I could understand it if he just told me but he wouldn’t disclose anything. He said that it wasn’t about a special technique and from that moment I wanted to learn osteopathy. I wanted to learn what he knew. It wasn’t until years later that I found out that he was the brother of Dr William Johnston DO, known for his functional technique. I didn’t know it yet but in future years I would often reflect back to these encounters, and relay to my students the tale of the American DO, who would start me on my path. How would I learn what he had known? Who would be my mentor? Who would teach me to think osteopathically?