I have a friend that is got her masters in English. She is really a remarkable woman with deep compassion and heart and a lot of insight. I love talking to her. We often sit near each other at swim meets, I can’t imagine what it is like to sit near us and catch snippets…
Dear Medical Professionals, If you are a practitioner, please share this. It’s about what chronic pain patients wish medical professionals understood when they see you for testing. You see, I spend a lot of my time online. Talking with patients, listening to their stories, and helping them to find help. It’s amazing to me how…
Reflections on SI surgery and pain As I revisit and reflect on this post it is now 8/13/2018. I am now 7.5 years out from surgery. Doing even better than I was 3 years post-op and glad I have shed even more beliefs that were holding me back from living like I am now. My…
My perspective is shifting. It’s crazy to watch it. I see it in the way I think and the way I respond to people asking questions online. I am really becoming a therapist. It’s weird in a lot of ways and I feel like a split personality sometimes when working with my patients. I…
When living in pain for days, weeks, months, and years, we can go through medical professionals like tissue. Sometimes as many professionals as tears we have cried. They poke, they prod, they draw blood, they take images, they scratch their heads at the pain in our faces and have no answers. So we move on……
I just left the hospital. I had to say goodbye to an old friend today. She’s the Mom of one of my very favorite Young Life kids. She and her husband treated me like family when I was in college. So many nights hanging out with the kids at their house, relaxing in the hammock,…
Every once in a while a brave soul asks about how those in chronic pain maintain a sex life, or feelings of being a sexual person, or even just feeling beautiful. I’ve touched on this topic a few times throughout my journey and find my inbox full when I do. It’s come up for me…
I think I am finally rounding a corner again after being injured again 8 weeks ago. It’s surprising, and nice to finally feel like I am following the “textbook” of healing and not mapping out my own route. I saw my Primary Care Dr a few weeks ago to get cleared to go back to…
As I ponder the world acceptance I am reminded of one of my very first patients as a student PTA. I had the great privilege of meeting an outstanding human being during the first few weeks of my first rotation. She taught me an enormous amount about real acceptance. Allowing horrible things to be what…
With the “gift” of experiencing some of my SI pain again, I find myself wanting to write many of the things that I thought when I was in pain ALL the time down. I have had so many conversations with other friends in chronic pain about the things we think, and say to each other,…
It has been a long time since I uttered these words due to pain. The words tasted like battery acid crossing my lips, poison, foulness. I uttered them again this week. I am in full-on, full-blown pain. The burning is just like before surgery. The burning that I have said repeatedly I NEVER want to…
This is my best friend, Jess. She is amazing. In many many ways. I think everyone should have a best friend like her. We have been on a wild ride in the 11 (now 17) years we have been friends, and I have loved every moment of our friendship – the highs and the lows…
“Acceptance in human psychology is a person’s assent to the reality of a situation, recognizing a process or condition (often a negative or uncomfortable situation) without attempting to change it, protest, or exit. The concept is close in meaning to ‘acquiescence’, derived from the Latin ‘acquiēscere’ (to find rest in).” Let’s be frank… I suck…
Ok, I admit it… I have no idea what it means to live a “normal” life. I’ve always kinda walked to the beat of my own drum as it were. Life was certainly FAR from normal when I was laying down and on narcotics trying to figure out how to get downstairs to feed my…
The alarm blares in my ear scaring me awake. I’ve promised myself I will only let it go off once. If I don’t get up I’m only disappointing myself. That and I still feel bad that my college roommate, Kelly, had to listen to it go off this early in the morning… O’Dark 30 we…
The door slams shut shaking my kitchen, as it does every day at roughly 3:30. My place of solitude, quiet, and research turns back into a kitchen. Within the first 15 minutes of being home, I feel like a ball player at batting practice, but the machine is turned on high, throwing out balls for…
A loss of one of our own… a pain too great to shoulder alone. My heart is heavy, heavier than it has been in a very very long time. This seems impossible to write about, and yet the idea of staying silent hurts just as much as trying to write. January 9th, 2012 we lost…
Admittedly, it’s not an easy task… it’s hard… and sometimes well… it’s irritating. Those people around you that always have a glass that is half full… they are always happy, and bubbly no matter the situation. Frankly to me, they seem fake, I mean seriously who has a good day every day all day?! Not…
I’m enjoying some alone time after a busy week in Georgia and waiting for the rest of my family to come home from their vacation. That means that I get to indulge in some guilty tv pleasures like Dr. Drew Celebrity Rehab… don’t judge… 🙂 It’s family week where the families get to talk about…
Do you ever feel like you have a mask you wear because of your pain? Do you feel like people don’t really want to know how you are doing, or you shouldn’t bother explaining, because no one will really listen anyway? If you feel this or anything like this, please know you are not alone!…
With life starting to return to normal in our household I find myself still looking backward shaking my head and having to deal with the reality that I was NOT dealing with my reality prior to surgery. I still hold fast to the fact I never hid my pain from friends and loved ones… but…
I think that this is one of the most important things we can talk about while we are in the midst of trying to live in our pain. It doesn’t matter where you are in your journey with pain… stuff gets hard to do and when we put our heads together and talk about how…
Guilt and Shame These 2 insidious creatures, guilt, and shame seem to accompany pain the longer we travel on that road. I find them detestable in the way they hurt me and my friends. I want to take a look at this because I think these emotions seriously hinder us and hold us back in…
Balancing my life had never been easy for me, I feel like I have often lived at the extremes. My life is lived VERY fast, with every minute filled, or so slow I am rotting and decomposing as I wasted away in my own body. Right now, at this place in my recovery, for the…
