From the Raytown | Brooking Eagle

Chiropractor Dr. Gary Boring was slowly dying of heart failure and given a 2% chance of survival. Doctors told him they couldn’t do anything for him. “Find a heart if you can,” then patted him on the back on his way out the door.
“I was turning purple and gasping for air. When God humbles you so you cannot take a breath without Him giving it to you then you’re ready,” recalled Gary.
He traveled to the renowned Mayo clinic in Minnesota where the head cardiologist told him to go back to Kansas City. “You’ll never get one here. The public there is better educated about donating organs so your chances are greater at St. Luke’s.”
Gary learned that hearts are very hard to come by on the east and west coast but Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute has performed 600 heart transplants since it began its program in 1985. Doctors there determined that Gary was a good transplant candidate and three compatible hearts were available in 2011.
“I had surgery 21 days later and they kicked me out in ten days,” laughed Gary. “They even let you see your old heart and show you what went wrong.”
Gary’s wife, Sandy, remarked, “They can’t give you the donor’s name but we think Gary has a woman’s heart because the doctors told me after surgery that he’ll probably be doing more shopping now.”
Gary sold his 39 year-old practice a year later figuring it was time to retire and savor whatever years he had left. He bicycled 300 miles that summer, worked up to 50 lapses in the pool and got stronger and healthier. Then one day he ran into a former patient who greeted him with a big hug.
“I realized then what had always kept me going. Loving on my patients and them loving on me,” said Gary. “I decided then what I was going to do the rest of my life with my Gift of Life and that was to pass it on by helping people. I decided to reopen my practice.”
“I was turning purple and gasping for air. When God humbles you so you cannot take a breath without Him giving it to you then you’re ready,” recalled Gary.
He traveled to the renowned Mayo clinic in Minnesota where the head cardiologist told him to go back to Kansas City. “You’ll never get one here. The public there is better educated about donating organs so your chances are greater at St. Luke’s.”
Gary learned that hearts are very hard to come by on the east and west coast but Saint Luke’s Mid America Heart Institute has performed 600 heart transplants since it began its program in 1985. Doctors there determined that Gary was a good transplant candidate and three compatible hearts were available in 2011.
“I had surgery 21 days later and they kicked me out in ten days,” laughed Gary. “They even let you see your old heart and show you what went wrong.”
Gary’s wife, Sandy, remarked, “They can’t give you the donor’s name but we think Gary has a woman’s heart because the doctors told me after surgery that he’ll probably be doing more shopping now.”
Gary sold his 39 year-old practice a year later figuring it was time to retire and savor whatever years he had left. He bicycled 300 miles that summer, worked up to 50 lapses in the pool and got stronger and healthier. Then one day he ran into a former patient who greeted him with a big hug.
“I realized then what had always kept me going. Loving on my patients and them loving on me,” said Gary. “I decided then what I was going to do the rest of my life with my Gift of Life and that was to pass it on by helping people. I decided to reopen my practice.”

When asked what Sandy thought about this “crazy” idea, she replied, “I knew this is where he needs to be.”
Gary renewed his license and they hired an architect and set about to remodel the building of his former practice at 12626 E. 40 Highway that they fortunately never sold. The results are stunning from the comfortable, beautifully furnished waiting room to the warm wood floors and calming earth-toned walls of the examination and treatment rooms.
“We even put in a fireplace where we can roast s’mores,” said Gary with delight. “And we were able to get our old Raytown 353 prefix for our phone number.”
Gary and Sandy Boring have restarted their business at a time when most folks are winding down but their joy and anticipation at the onset of this venture is more like that of a newlywed couple. Gary, who has never known anything but chiropractic care, started working in his father’s practice that was founded in 1934 at 3927 Troost in Kansas City.
“Back then we saw up to 100 people a day. The philosophy was high volume and working long hours to bring people relief. It’s no wonder my heart wore out with the stress of working at that pace. My father died at age 62,” recalled Gary. “We’re not working like that anymore. We’re giving our new patients one and a half to two hours of our attention to fully evaluate and determine their level of degeneration.”
Gary eventually launched out on his own, authored two clinical books and discovered the value of the Atlas Orthogonal (A.O.) procedure. He incurred a neck injury in his twenties and suffered ten years of neck pain before discovering A.O. but had to fly to Atlanta for many years to get treatments. He decided to get the A.O. certification and for many years was the only one in the area who performed the specialized procedure.
“We don’t crack necks like we used to,” explains Gary. “We use a non-invasive, 3-pound vibration that gently adjusts vertebras into alignment. X-rays prove out the results.”
Gary also does presentations for the Gift of Life Donor program to educate the community about the urgent need for organ and tissue donation and allay apprehension about organ transplants. For more information, visit www.GiftDonor.org.
Dr. Gary A. Boring Chiropractic is open Monday and Wednesdays from 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. and Tuesday and Thursdays from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Call 816-353-1910 to make an appointment.
Gary renewed his license and they hired an architect and set about to remodel the building of his former practice at 12626 E. 40 Highway that they fortunately never sold. The results are stunning from the comfortable, beautifully furnished waiting room to the warm wood floors and calming earth-toned walls of the examination and treatment rooms.
“We even put in a fireplace where we can roast s’mores,” said Gary with delight. “And we were able to get our old Raytown 353 prefix for our phone number.”
Gary and Sandy Boring have restarted their business at a time when most folks are winding down but their joy and anticipation at the onset of this venture is more like that of a newlywed couple. Gary, who has never known anything but chiropractic care, started working in his father’s practice that was founded in 1934 at 3927 Troost in Kansas City.
“Back then we saw up to 100 people a day. The philosophy was high volume and working long hours to bring people relief. It’s no wonder my heart wore out with the stress of working at that pace. My father died at age 62,” recalled Gary. “We’re not working like that anymore. We’re giving our new patients one and a half to two hours of our attention to fully evaluate and determine their level of degeneration.”
Gary eventually launched out on his own, authored two clinical books and discovered the value of the Atlas Orthogonal (A.O.) procedure. He incurred a neck injury in his twenties and suffered ten years of neck pain before discovering A.O. but had to fly to Atlanta for many years to get treatments. He decided to get the A.O. certification and for many years was the only one in the area who performed the specialized procedure.
“We don’t crack necks like we used to,” explains Gary. “We use a non-invasive, 3-pound vibration that gently adjusts vertebras into alignment. X-rays prove out the results.”
Gary also does presentations for the Gift of Life Donor program to educate the community about the urgent need for organ and tissue donation and allay apprehension about organ transplants. For more information, visit www.GiftDonor.org.
Dr. Gary A. Boring Chiropractic is open Monday and Wednesdays from 10:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m. and Tuesday and Thursdays from 10:00 a.m. to 1:00 p.m. Call 816-353-1910 to make an appointment.