Janet Jay

Popular Science — For 17 years, I went to doctor after doctor, undergoing scans, physical therapy, and just about every “alternative” treatment that promised relief. Despite some amazing doctors and the expensive tests at their disposal, they could never see anything wrong, so I never got a diagnosis. That is, until a couple of years ago, when a routine CAT scan finally caught a structural problem with my spine. Because of that, I qualified to have a spinal cord stimulator, an electronic device used to treat chronic pain, implanted into my back. Although I was scared to go under the knife, I was more than willing to become a cyborg in order to find even partial relief. And this type of therapy might also be able to help some of the 100 million Americans who suffer from chronic pain.

VICE Motherboard — The idea first came up while a friend and I were discussing the vagina's probiotic properties. "Why is there a whole cookbook of cum-based recipes and not a SINGLE THING on Google about culturing jazz juice?" she wrote in a message to me and a few of our friends... Curiosity piqued, Westbrook began to research in earnest. What choice did she have but to try it herself?

Defiant / Medium — Let me tell you about a guy. Not his politics, ideology or career - not yet... The former Brietbart mastermind, Bannon is Donald Trump’s chief strategist in charge of “vision,” “goals” and “narrative.” He currently enjoys a degree of political power that most alt-right partisans only experience in their wet dreams... Yes, it’s a bright new day in America and the guy running the White House is pretty much an ass. How do we know? Well, his public comments are a clue, of course. But many subsequent anecdotes from these files help us get an idea of his motivations, his temper, his ideals.

The Mighty — *Originally published on janetjay.com* Fucking pain scales. If you’ve ever sought treatment for pain, you’ve heard this more than once: "describe your pain on a scale of one to ten." Ten means the worst pain you've ever experienced. Or else ten means the worst pain imaginable. Unless it means "bad enough to go to the ER." Or just "very severe." My new favorite is "Unspeakable / unimaginable. Bedridden and possibly delirious." That seems closest to the gist of it. There's even a scale with faces! ...But honestly it’s better to just get done with the number and move on to actual description. And that’s the right word, too: don’t just say your pain is bad. Describe how it’s bad. Describe the effect it has on your day-to-day activities. Describe the actual pain as best you can: not just “it hurts” but “it burns, it stabs, it clenches.” ...All these things are trying to objectively classify something that resists that categorization. There are so many types of pain, but even if you only have one (“only”), pain isn’t neat and tidy. So as you answer pain scale questions, keep the bigger picture in mind. Stress out less about the technical wording of the scale you’re using and more about how you’re going to get across the information you need to get across. Think of the pain scale as an intro to a conversation that might really be useful to both you and your doctor, rather than as the be-all-end-all.

janetjay.com — Murderball came out in 2005 and in some ways, it changed my life. With my life-warping invisible disability I didn't fit in with the able-bodied, but there wasn't really a home for me in disability spaces either. (At least that's how it felt.) It’s a hell of a sports saga about quad rugby (murderball) teams, international rivalries, and competition at the highest levels. It’s also a human story about people who have been through some shit... and come out the other side with pride, self-confidence and the desire to slam into others in an armored chair.

janetjay.com — It can be really hard to communicate to people that don't have both pain and weight issues that it's not just about hurting all the time, it's about the pain taking up so much of your being, so much of your energy, and so much of yourself that you just don't have enough to deal with other things. Stuff like anger, stuff like weight gain, stuff like frustration, stuff like anxiety– it’s all tied in together. Because guess what: as much as we like to Protestant-work-ethic our way into “all you need is to work hard and believe in yourself,” it’s just not true. There’s only so much a person has to give; there’s only so much energy and self that a person can bring to a day. Can you rally and push through? Of course, but can you do that every day? No, absolutely not, and it shouldn’t be something that you try to expect of yourself.

Pain Management Nursing —

Pain Management Nursing —