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It’s been a busy week. I’ve got two posts elsewhere, both related to Pain Awareness Month:

First, the great people at CreakyJoints graciously allowed me to share more about 7 Facets: A Meditation on Pain. 

“‘So many live with pain, many more than you can imagine. A billion and a half of us all over the world are intimately entwined with pain and what comes with it … Looking in the dictionary, I see a definition of pain as a distressing sensation, as physical suffering. But is this so? Is this sensation just one thing, just distress, just suffering? Is it singular or, as with so many other aspects of our world, mutable and multiple, ever-changing? If we turn the prism, looking upon pain through each facet of the glittering crystal, what might we see?’

That is a quote from the beginning of my new book 7 Facets: A Meditation on Pain. It’s a short e-book that dives into the depths of pain and looks at it from different perspectives.

I’ve lived with chronic pain since I developed juvenile arthritis in early childhood. Forty-five years of partnership (if you will) with anything or anyone will teach you about said partner’s nooks and crannies, will drive you crazy and sometimes make you smile. After forty-five years, you know this thing or this person better than anything else in your life.

And so it is with pain and me. We know each other well, have been companions for almost half a century. We’ve tested each other, questioned each other, negotiated, fought, coexisted and worked together. And despite all of this, it can still surprise me.”

Hop on over to CreakyJoints to read the rest of the post.

Also pain related… I interviewed Cynthia Toussaint, a very interesting and inspiring woman for HealthCentral. We talked about her new book, her life and the nonprofit she started for women in pain:

“In Battle for Grace: A Memoir of Pain, Redemption and Impossible Love, Cynthia Toussaint writes about her life with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS), fight for a diagnosis and proper care and her journey to becoming an advocate for herself and other women living with pain. CRPS is a disorder that can be caused by injury and causes intense nerve pain. In her early 20s, Cynthia was a ballerina, but a hamstring injury developed into CRPS and she spent the next 13 years trying to get treatment. This book is a searing indictment of the HMO system, and Kaiser Permanente in particular, for the limited access it offers to doctors, Kaiser’s denial of care and the health care for profit model. Most of all, Battle for Grace is the story of Cynthia, her partner John Garrett and their journey through the hell of relentless pain, depression and dysfunction to a place of peace, optimism and love. The author’s chapters alternate with John writing about the experience from his point of view and the two together present a 360° perspective on the challenges one partner’s chronic pain present to a relationship. Cynthia’s description of her journey of being lost in illness to many different forms of advocacy is an inspiration.”

You can read the rest of the interview here.