Check out July Pain Carnival

On How to Cope With Pain (I'm pleased one of my post was included).

On NPR: Championing The Caregiver's Cause

Excellent segment on NPR, Fresh Air. Terry Gross interviewed Carol Levine about being the primary caretaker for her husband in a piece called, "Carol Levine, Championing the Caregiver's Cause."

"For 17 years, home health-care advocate Carol Levine never truly left her job. Levine spent her work days at the United Hospital Fund, focusing on the needs of family caregivers. When she came home, she devoted her time to caring for her housebound husband, who was seriously injured in a car accident in 1990.

In 2007, Levine's husband died. It was, she tells Terry Gross, as if she had lost her husband twice: once in the accident, and then once again when he actually died."

Levine also edited the book Always On Call: When Illness Turns Families Into Caregivers.

Grand Rounds at Grunt Doc

A varied collection of interesting posts from the medical blogosphere. Have a look at Grunt Doc.

My Own Private Idaho

In 1991 Gus Van Sant wrote and directed a dark and compelling movie called My Own Private Idaho. It is a story of two friends who go on a quest for identity and connection and find something bigger than either one ever imagined.

This past week Richard and I took our first real vacation since my pain condition started eight years ago. We went to our own private idaho, which was, coincidentally, in Idaho. We did a six day, 120 mile white water rafting trip on the middle fork of the Salmon River.

This was the kind of adventure we used to do BP (before pain). We hiked the Canadian Rockies, climbed Mt. Kilimanjaro, flew with a bush pilot in the highlands of Papua New Guinea, scuba dived in the Cayman Islands. We loved to have a destination without a plan. To show up and follow the wind. We were our best selves, and at our best couple-ness, when we were moving up a mountain or diving into deep ocean. It was on dry land, within too easy reach of a wireless internet connection, that we usually lost ourselves.

When pain was my primary companion, my body and imagination were at its service. I could no more envision a wilderness adventure than I could see turning myself into a double half caf skim milk grande latte. My world was binary: pain - less pain.

When this rafting trip opportunity arose (it was at a friend's inviation who wanted to celebrate her 50th birthday in this way), I was hesistant. I feared being hundreds of miles away from Walgreens (where I send my prescriptions), a heating pad, and my pain specialist. The "what-if's" started accumulating. What if I have a pain spike? what if my meds get wet? what if it rains (my pain liked the rain)? Richard, the scientist and primo problem solver had work-arounds for all my worries.

Then I began worrying about being around twenty-five people for a week. Even BP, I needed a daily dose of solitude. AP (after pain), pain and I shared a special, private cell that only Richard and one friend ever entered. How could I focus and balance with so much human stimulation around every day?

I described my crowd anxiety to Richard. He smiled and said, "How nice to see you worrying about something other than pain. Just remember, a few years ago, a trip like this would have been unthinkable."

As soon as he said this, my perspective (and anxiety) shifted. It felt so sweet to indulge in the luxury of a normal worry.

The trip was amazing. I paddled hard and was soaking wet for 5 hours every day. My meds stayed dry. I met some wild Texans, and four take-no-prisoners Montana women who came packing water guns. I didn't think about pain much. For a week, I got reacquainted with my old self.

While I was away on vacation.....

Check out this hilarious Grand Rounds at The Blog That Ate Manhattan, built around our favorite Seinfeld characters.

Here's another one on Unprotected Text.

I'll write about my vacation as soon as I wade through the mountain of emails that accumulated in my inbox over the past week.

July Fourth

I remember the first July fourth after I started have chronic pain. Like every other day for that terrible year, I lay curled up in a bean bag chair in our attic bedroom trying every trick I knew to meditate myself into oblivion. In the period b.p. (before pain) July fourth meant a bar-b-cue on Mark's front deck with the best chicken wings and cold beer. Around 7:00pm we'd wander down to the river to stake our place for the fireworks show. a.p. (after pain), July fourth was just another damn holiday when I couldn't get in touch with my doctor, nurse, physician's assistant, acupuncturist, chiropractor, homeopath, or physical therapist.

It's been several years since I last lay in that bean bag. Today, Richard and I are going to a new bar-b-cue on a deck overlooking the bay where we'll eat shrimp, drink Merlot, and watch fireworks from a distance.

July fourth is now just another day to be with my sweetie and friends. It doesn't get much better.

Happy July 4th!

How to Make the Hard Conversations a Little Bit Easier

Part 3 in a series about The Hard Conversations

I have a strange form of flying phobia. I am completely comfortable once I get on the plane. At that point, I relinquish all control, because there is really nothing else I can do, and trust in the force. But getting to the airport is fraught with opportunities for chaos.

I build in an extra hour of commuting time. I book a taxi the day before and then confirm it a half hour before it's due to arrive. I unplug appliances, give the stove knobs an extra twist to make sure they're really in the off-most position, check three more times to make sure I have my "government issued photo id," and then I pace.

Once I get to the airport I go right to security, no stops at Dunkin Donuts. I have my 3 oz. liquids in a baggie at the top of my pocket book, my lap top under my arm, and my shoes loosely tied so I can slip them off instantly. After I pass security, I go to my gate, sit in the chair closest to the gate, and wait, impatiently, with mounting anxiety.

Richard has the opposite tendencies. He likes to leave for the airport at the last minute. I actually think he enjoys the adrenaline rush that comes from zooming down the corridors, wheelie suitcase screeching behind, and making it through the gateway door with seconds to spare.

This week, Richard and I flew together. We arrived at the airport one and a quarter hours early (a compromise). I sat in my chair in the gate area, and Richard decided he would wander about to find something for lunch. He returned thirty minutes later to report that he had found a place that sold three bean chili and was considering heading back there to buy a bowl.

By this time, we were fifteen minutes away from boarding, and my anxiety and I were adamant that he shouldn't leave the gate area. I said, "Please just stay here. They might board early, and besides, I want to get on the plane first."

He responded with what sounded like, "Don't be silly."

I shifted a few degrees towards righteous anger. It's enough to just have this weird anxiety. I did not need to be belittled for it. I said, "Don't say that to me. I don't like the message or the tone."

I was about to continue, but Richard's expression suddenly changed. It started to resemble the face I often saw in the past when I was doubled over with uncontrollable pain, sobbing, making animal-like groans, and scratching my arms to distract me from the greater pain in my abdomen. That face said, "I don't understand what's going on, and I don't know what to do, and I'm a little bit afraid that you've gone somewhere I can't reach."

That face stopped me. I said, "What? Why the face? I'm just reacting with anger to your saying to me, 'don't be silly.'"

He started smiling and said, "I didn't say 'Don't be silly." I said, 'Three bean chili.'"

After a nano-second of silence I started laughing, hard. Richard began laughing with me. "Don't be silly - three bean chili," we chanted together.

I was still laughing when we missed the first boarding call.


How to have the hard conversations -- look for something to laugh at. If you can introduce even a slight smile into the mix, you break the constriction fear and anger create. And through that slim opening, a bit of light and the remembrance of love may enter.