Meet Bonnie Boots

Hi! I’m Bonnie Boots, the Publisher of Pain Health News.

In 1990, my life was in the dumpster. After being injured in an auto accident in 1989, I’d been subjected to all the worst the American health care system has to offer. I was misdiagnosed. My medical care was mismanaged. My insurance company went out of business and left my bills unpaid. I was living with intense chronic pain and deep depression.

I was desperate for someone that would help me find healing. And then something wonderful happened…..

I discovered I could be that person!

The day I determined to be my own advocate is the day I began to recover.

It wasn’t easy. I had to overcome all my “be a nice girl” training and let my inner bitch shine forth. I had to stop politely waiting for doctors and physical therapists to give me help and start demanding it.

I had to push myself beyond my pain so I could get out and around to anyplace I might find information. I read books in my local library. I bought cheap books in used book stores. When I couldn’t afford to buy certain books, I read them while propping myself up against the shelves in Borders and Barnes & Noble.  And I took notes and tracked down whatever I could find that might help.

I was a guppy and a guinea pig for anything that promised relief. I spent thousands of dollars and tried anything in pursuit of pain relief, no matter how outrageous or nonsensical it might seem. And bit by bit, I began to recover.

It wasn’t easy. It didn’t happen overnight. And there were many,  many days–years even–when I didn’t think life was worth living. But eventually I did make it through to the other side. Not a side where my life is all rosey and wonderful and problem-free. But a place where I have, without question, a life worth living.

Part of my journey to recovery was learning to help others with the information I gathered. I became an organizer for a self-help organization for people living with chronic pain. I taught workshops wherever I could find free space, and spoke as a patient advocate to groups of doctors and nurses.

My chief value to others, at that time, was as a source of information. In the early 90’s, the internet was not yet much of a resource, and pain patients were pretty much in the dark when it came to learning about treatments, both authorized and alternative. And so were many health care providers.

You’d think all that would be different today, when the largest library in the world, the internet, is available to almost everyone. But that vast expanse of information brings its own challenge. Not too little but too much information is the problem!

No one can find it all, sort through it all, read it all. And certainly it’s not easy to attempt this while you’re in pain. That’s why I started  publishing Pain-Health-News.

No matter what the source of you pain is, or what challenges it brings to your life, you’ll find something here to help. And if you don’t, let me know.  If I’m aware of a particular problem, I’ll do my best to search out resources for solving it.

Pain Health News is divided into the blog, where you are now, and the web site, which is located at http://www.pain-health-news.com

You can contact me by leaving comments here on the blog or by using the contact form located in the web site. Be assured you’ll be contacting a real person, one who understands your struggles, frustrations and challenges.

Be assured, too, that there is help and hope for you. As I have discovered for myself, at the moment when we firmly resolve to overcome the challenges that confront us, we suddenly find that we have resources inside us that we knew nothing about. What I’ve discovered is that we are able – all of us – to do much more than we think we can.

Here’s to a life worth living!

Bonnie Boots

Want to know more about me? Click here to read an interview with me by Shawn Hessinger in the PostRanger Blog.

Want more? Click here to read an interview with me by award-winning newspaper columnist Judy Hill.

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