Hey folks, so nice to see you here! This is just a note to let you know that I’ve migrated the MyCuppaJo blog over to Substack. The entire MyCuppaJo archive is there (minus a few crappy posts I deleted – what was I thinkign in those early months?!?) and free to access. I also hope to start posting regularly again, →
I originally wrote this post in my hiking journal, and decided to make a blog post of it. I’ve added some links throughout and at the end. I edited it a bit, I’m happy to share the rest with anyone who is interested and wants to have an uncomfortable yet honest conversation. I know this is imperfect, because I am →
This is a follow up to my Challenging Patient post. It is a wonderful exchange I had with a physical therapist about the idea of patients being challenging.
Some recent discussions have led me to ponder the differences between healing and curing. My dear friend Amy Thompson shared this interview with Rachel Naomi Remen that talks about just that. “…we can only cure a small amount of human suffering. The rest of it needs to be healed, and that’s different…”
Wow. Just wow. Another San Diego Pain Summit is in the books! The fifth SDPain and my fifth (I’m a lifer). I’m still trying to weave together all the beautiful threads present throughout the Summit, so this will be the first in a series of posts. It will be more impressions than details, with future posts delving into the talks →
My pain didn’t go away as expected. Not as I expected. Not as any of the dozen plus clinicians who treated me expected. Not as the worker’s compensation claims adjusters expected. I was labeled a challenging patient, a “difficult” patient, and punted down the line to the next care provider, the next treatment. The next failure. It was I who →
This has been a year of presenting or participating in meaningful ways in conferences, and I’m so grateful for the opportunities to share what it is like to live with pain, and to recover, out into the professional conference world. The most recent was the Reforming MSK Practice conference from Jack Chew and ReformPhysio, where I was a keynote speaker →
I’m writing about language…again! It’s because this year I have had the great honor to speak at a number of conferences, and it’s come up every time. One of the most important talks I’ve ever given was at the Paincloud Convention. It was the most vulnerable I’ve ever been on stage, probably the most vulnerable I’d ever been in public period (including →
I promised a post on the major turning points in my pain experience at the beginning of the year. Then life, and death, happened and it was put on hold. Those posts (there are two, reflecting two major turning points) will come soon, but first I wanted to share why I’ve been away, for those who may be wondering. It’s →
These days I’m feeling like I’m just a person, not a person with chronic pain, which is an interesting perch to view the past eight years from. I’m trying to piece together how I got here. Granted, I’ve been trying to do so for some time! But never from this vantage point. I recognize how much acceptance has been a part →
In my last post I shared some thoughts on pain education and the phrase ‘pain is an output of the brain‘. I compared pain as output to pain as a lived, conscious, complex experience that people feel. From my perspective, describing pain as an output robs the experience of pain’s harsh, all-encompassing, life-changing reality. We are not machines producing outputs. →
This is something I have been thinking about for quite sometime and recent conversations pushed me to finish this post. I’m not a fan of saying pain is an output of the brain, and I’ll lay out why (please hear me out). I do anticipate some pushback, based on previous chats. Because of that, I want to make it clear →
So where the heck am I coming from? Part of why I write this blog is to bridge the gap between the science of pain and the experience of pain and between clinicians’ and patients’ understanding of pain. I’m at an interesting intersection in the pain world. I have lived with pain, so view pain science through that lens. I try →
My buddy shared a video on nature photography yesterday and said it reminded him of me and Buster and my picture taking. I loved the post and the video as this has been my experience, too. It’s a video about techniques but it’ll start halfway through where the photographer talks about his story and why he shoots woodland photos and →
On a 4-mile run the other the day I ran my fastest first 2 miles in over 7 1/2 years. My fastest first mile, too. And I did it on asphalt and concrete in heavy sneakers I didn’t buy with the intention of running in. Factors that would have made me avoid running in the first place just 6 months →