Surviving the Suicidal Thoughts Storm

⚠️ Content Warning: This episode contains a discussion around suicidal thoughts. Please take care while listening and seek support if you need it.

Living with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS) isn’t just painful—it’s punishing. It hijacks your body, messes with your mind, and turns everyday tasks into uphill battles. In this episode, Lyndsay Soprano sits down with Jeannette Tashjian for a brutally honest conversation about what it really means to live with relentless, unpredictable pain.

They talk about the parts most people don’t see: the mental spiral, the isolation, the weight of explaining yourself over and over, and the moments when giving up feels like the only option. But they also talk about what keeps them going—connection, infrared sauna therapy, self-advocacy, and the power of simply being heard.

This episode doesn’t sugarcoat anything. From navigating life with a disability to confronting the stigma around suicidal thoughts, Jeannette and Lyndsay lay it all out. They speak from the gut—about grief, about resilience, and about finding pieces of joy in a body that feels like it’s working against you.

If you’ve ever felt like no one understands what you’re going through—or if you love someone who lives with chronic pain—this conversation will hit home.

Tune in for the truth behind CRPS, and the reminder that you’re not alone in this fight.

Find Jeanette Tashjian Online Here:
Website: www.burbankinfraredsauna.com
Instagram: @burbankinfraredsauna
Past Guest Episode 6: The Pain Game Podcast Episode 6

Find The Pain Game Podcast Online Here:
Website: thepaingamepodcast.com
Instagram: @thepaingamepodcast
Facebook: The Pain Game Podcast
LinkedIn: Lyndsay Soprano
YouTube: The Pain Game Podcast

IF YOU’RE IN CRISIS:
USA – Call or text 988 (24/7)
Canada – Call: 1-833-456-4566 (24/7) | Text: 45645 (4 PM–12 AM EST)

Episode Highlights:
(00:00) Introduction to Chronic Pain and Trauma
(03:12) Understanding Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS)
(06:01) Personal Stories of Pain and Trauma
(08:52) The Role of Infrared Sauna in Pain Management
(12:11) Navigating Life with CRPS
(14:58) Acceptance and Coping Mechanisms
(18:07) The Importance of Community and Support
(23:42) Finding Freedom in Acceptance
(30:43) Navigating the Pain Journey
(31:12) Addressing Suicidal Thoughts
(43:45) The Importance of Hope and Support

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Hey, guys and dolls.

Speaker 2 (00:01):
Before we jump into this episode, a note about our
content today. This is created for adult audiences only. We
advise listener discretion, so if you need a breather, take
a break.

Speaker 1 (00:12):
And come back later.

Speaker 2 (00:17):
This is your Pain Game Podcast where we talk about
the game of living in and with chronic pain and trauma,
getting to the heart of how to heal. I am
your host, Lindsay Soprano. On the show, I plan on
discussing with doctors, chronic pain patients, holistic practitioners, loved ones,
and anybody that is interested in having their voice.

Speaker 1 (00:39):
Heard in the chronic pain and trauma world that we
live in.

Speaker 2 (00:52):
Today's going to be a tough conversation, guys, but one
that is one hundred percent necessary. So grab some tissues.
I have mine right here, so is my guests. We're
ready to rock and roll. Buckle up because it's gonna
be tough, but it's also going to be amazing at
the same time. So if you are new to listening
to the Pain Game Podcast, welcome.

Speaker 1 (01:10):
It is lovely to have you.

Speaker 2 (01:11):
I hope that we give you some love and some
joy and probably a bit of some tears today as well.

Speaker 1 (01:16):
But if you are new.

Speaker 2 (01:17):
I have something that's super rare and excruciatingly painful disease
called complex regional pain syndrome CRPS. Bill here is talking
about that today, and so does my guest today. Well,
what's so interesting about CRPS, if we can call it interesting,
is that it doesn't act the same way in each
person that has it. Right, there are similar traits, but

(01:38):
everybody's bod is different in how their CRPS presents itself.
But if there's one thing that is the same across
the board, is that against the board of the group
of warriors that we are here, is that it is
higher on than mc gill pain scale than natural childbirth.
We're walking around having natural childbirth twenty four hours a day.
This is what we're doing here, and my guests and

(01:59):
I do it with a big gass smile on our
face and this kind of personality. And it's hard to
believe that we could be in the kind of pain
that we are when you hear the two of us
speak today. But all I know is that my CRPS
is debilitating, it's getting worse.

Speaker 1 (02:12):
It's crushing our hearts and our souls.

Speaker 2 (02:15):
And there are days and I'm speaking on behalf of
my guests as well as myself, that there are days
when we both want to legitimately commit suicide.

Speaker 1 (02:22):
There are days that I just don't.

Speaker 2 (02:23):
I can't take it anymore because the thought of going
on one more minute and this kind of pain is unbearable.
And it's hard for my brain, my pain brain that
has been changed from chronic pain over time, to even
fathom how bad I am going to feel in five
years from now.

Speaker 1 (02:43):
Told you so.

Speaker 2 (02:44):
Today we are going to get down and dirty to
talk about dealing with the day to day of living
with chronic pain and illness, which is one of the
many things that we talk about here on the show
year after bloody year, This ongoing, relentless pain that we
struggle with twenty four hours a day, and how both
Jeannette my guests are introducing a second how we are

(03:06):
just trying to survive the unimaginable life that we did
not sign up for with grace, dignity, depravity. That's my
coping mechanism, laughter, and a whole lot of tears without
committing suicide in the middle of it all, and taking
care of all of our loved ones and our business
and our kids and our nieces and our nephews and

(03:28):
our grandkids and and ann Ann and we're still doing
it and rocking it. So without further ado, I would
like to introduce you to my guest today, Jeanette tash Jan.

Speaker 1 (03:38):
Hello, my darling, I lindsay, how are you, sweetheart? Well,
I'm already crying and we're a minute.

Speaker 3 (03:44):
In so congratulation.

Speaker 1 (03:48):
I lasted one second longer than I thought I was
going to, so real quick.

Speaker 2 (03:52):
So Jeanette is the sauna doctor, as we like to
call her, extraordinaire, and she's the owner of Bourbank and
Frared Sauna, which is in Los Angeles, which is where
I found her and met her. She is a wife, mother, grandmother,
and a wellness advocate. Not to mention, she also is
a retired baller Rena, and her main goal in life
now is to find a cure or at least an
excellent treatment for CRPS, which we are chasing every day.

(04:16):
And that's the reason why I started this show. Are
for people like myself and Jeanette, and that's why we're
both here. You know, we're going to give pain purpose.
We're going to educate about CRPS and discuss how sad
wanting to die is because that is legitimately what she
and I talk about, and we text each other and
we're emergency contacts for each other and we have to
talk each other off the ledge. And there's an important

(04:37):
aspect of having your village around you. You know that
you can trust to say these things and talk to
them and be open about it, because it's really scary
to talk about suicidal ideations. It's scary to talk about
the fact that we've thought about them.

Speaker 1 (04:53):
How we do it? Googling it? That shit is nuts.
So anyways, let's see. So, Hi, honey, how are you
feeling today?

Speaker 3 (05:02):
Well, I'm out of five right now. It's good. We
are still early in the day, we are, but I'm
just so ecstatic to be doing this show with you, Lindsey.
I just want to give everyone that you know potentially
has any sort of pain in their life some hope
and also that to keep pushing forward, that don't ever

(05:25):
give up. I think that's my main thing that I
want to give across. Please don't ever give up.

Speaker 2 (05:31):
Yeah, we have to say that to ourselves to each
other often, far more often than I'd like it to be. Unfortunately,
and like I mentioned earlier, things have not gotten better
for either of us. All right, well, I'm rolling out
the red carpet for you, babe. You briefly mentioned about
getting diagnosed when you were a child, So can we
touch on that really quickly and then we'll get into
the nitty gritty of things absolutely.

Speaker 3 (05:53):
So you know, as a child, you know, your memories
are a little askewed, but from what I remember, you know,
I went to wake up one day to go to school,
and I put my feet on the ground and my
right foot felt like it was absolutely shattered in a
million pieces. And I screamed, and my mom, of course,
came into my bedroom and asked me what was wrong,

(06:14):
and I said, I can't walk on my foot. It
feels like it's broken. I did not go to school
that day. My mom called the pediatrician and we got
in immediately. And by that time, it obviously had already
been brewing because the doctor, the pediatrician could see the
color changes in my right foot already. It was purple,

(06:34):
it was blue, and that had obviously crept up out
of nowhere. And as a kid, I didn't know that
that was a problem, but it took the foot becoming
not usable, and that level of pain for me to realize, Wow,
there's something wrong with my foot. So we ended up
you know, at Children's hospital, being admitted and having to

(06:57):
stay there for several weeks as patient. And that was
very traumatic to have to leave my parents and stay
in a hospital and wonder what was going to happen
to me or you know, was I going to get
to go home?

Speaker 1 (07:10):
A lot of what is yeah, like abandon it? Like
is this it? Am I now living in a hospital?
Where is everybody?

Speaker 3 (07:16):
Yeah? So you know, trauma basically trauma on top of trauma.

Speaker 2 (07:20):
Well, and that's what happens, and it carries on and
we talked about all the time. I think I may
mention this book on every single episode of my show,
but the body keeps the score and it absolutely does.
And from you with me, like my childhood trauma started
when I was about nine years old, and that's when
a lot of my health issues started to kind of
creep up. And I know that you had some bullying
issues and there were all kinds of things that were

(07:41):
going on in your world too from a traumatic perspective,
and there's other things that we just don't.

Speaker 1 (07:45):
Have to talk about. But man, I mean trauma is
trauma is trauma.

Speaker 2 (07:49):
And I don't like when people call it big trauma
versus little trauma, because it's whatever your trauma is to you.
So you know, if you want it to be big,
call it big. But you know, whatever we want it
to be, it's trauma in my brain. So no matter
what age you are, it's traumatic, no matter what happens
to you, that how you're affected by it, how your
body responds to it, how your brain responds, especially with

(08:10):
you being so young with your diagnosis, I mean, your
little brain is still just warming, right, But so you
end up going into remission, and then you end up
studying at the Geoffrey Ballet and ended up becoming a
professional ballerina. And this is on a foot that you
can't walk on when you're ten. Can you talk to
me about how this even happened. This is amazing.

Speaker 3 (08:29):
Honestly, all the years that I was so active with
this foot, I think that's what kept the crps at bay.
I think I was strengthening it and using it and
allowing blood flow. The funny thing behind this is that
as a child, when I would go take my ballet classes,
I would literally sit here ready for this sit in

(08:50):
the bathroom in the sink with hot water to warm
my feet up before I would put my tights and
my leotard on to go to class. I did know
that this was not normal, and who knew. You're a child.
Do you think, oh, I just have cold these times?

Speaker 2 (09:07):
If you've been walked around seeing a bunch of your
friends putting their feet in the sink, I mean, let's
be real.

Speaker 3 (09:11):
Zero right but lobby, yeah, but over here. That was
my coping mechanism in order to do my hobby that
became a full time sport career. In order to make
that happen, I literally would put my feet, like I said,
in the warm water, get them super super hot, put

(09:33):
my tights, put my leotard and my leg warmers on,
and then go take class for hours. And that was
how I dealt with the CRPS, not even realizing that.
Of course I wasn't in remission. My feet were frozen.
They were like you know, ice.

Speaker 2 (09:50):
Blocks, crazy, it's so crazy, and so yours were like
ice box.

Speaker 1 (09:54):
And now we go through there.

Speaker 2 (09:55):
There's so many different, like wonderful things about CRPS that
happened into our bodies. And in fact, I literally have
ice booties on my feet as we're speaking right now,
because my feet are on fire and my bones feel
like they're broken in my feet, and it's really hard
to walk when you feel that way.

Speaker 1 (10:15):
It truly is it, truly is so.

Speaker 2 (10:16):
So you end up getting into your ballerina and we
met and you weren't you weren't You were in rementioned still,
so you were just you know, your crazy little self
walking around and vacuuming and doing your thing. And I
was like barely hanging on and started going to your
sauna every single morning. I ended up buying one from her, actually,
and we have one in our home because it was
just a lot to go up and down and up

(10:37):
and down, up and down. And now I can use
it anytime I want to too, which is lovely. But
can you talk just a little bit about the benefits
of infrared sauna at your business, because you're the hold
is your business.

Speaker 3 (10:47):
Now again, it's eight years this March.

Speaker 1 (10:49):
Eight years and you just moved to a new facility,
which I have yet to see it.

Speaker 3 (10:52):
Yes, and it's been a year at the new facility
all lot, I know, yep, a year already.

Speaker 2 (10:57):
Last year was a really long girl. You come in
and help you vacuum again.

Speaker 3 (11:03):
Oh great, what a pair will be no.

Speaker 2 (11:06):
Anyway, So the benefits of infreds on it, and not
just for CRPS.

Speaker 3 (11:10):
Not just for CRPS. We're talking about lowering inflammation levels,
helping regulate with blood pressure. You're detoxing on a cellular
level because you are pulling up things that are stored
in your tissues. We're talking about pharmaceuticals, anesthesia from surgery,
Our food and our water and our air is definitely

(11:30):
not clean and all this stuff is stored in our body.
Our livers, stagnant kidneys aren't working properly. So inference on
it is one of the truly only ways where we
can pull these toxins up and sweat them out. It
helps with sleep, can help regulate your circadian rhythm, It
helps females with going through menopause. The list is so long,

(11:54):
it's just unbelievable.

Speaker 2 (11:56):
And what is the difference between infrared versus going to
like you're at the day spat and you go to
a dry sauna or something like that. What is the
difference between those Because they both have good benefits for you, obviously,
but INFRED works on a much deeper level.

Speaker 3 (12:09):
So a traditional finish sauna, which is from Finland, and
those saunas where you typically it's super super hot we're
talking about two hundred degree spahrenheit or hotter where you
would actually pour water over the rocks or you can
pull the chain in that type of and the water
will disperse over the rocks. That is considered like it's

(12:30):
a dry sauna, meaning that it's you're sitting and you're dry,
but there's water going over the rocks. Now, these types
of saunas have been used forever. Children go in them
in Finland and the health benefits are incredible. You reduce
the risk of heart attack and stroke dramatically by saunaing,

(12:51):
you know, four to times to five times a week
using a finish type sauna. Now you take the technology
of an infrared sauna, and my saunas are spectrum which
is near, mid, and far. They've harnessed all three so
the near is the red aspect of the light, the
mid and far is the heater sources. So with that

(13:11):
technology you are penetrating your body up to two inches deep.
So you can imagine those infrared are the raised harnessed
from the sun that when you're standing outside and you
get that warm, cozy feeling from the sun, not the
UVA or UVB where we're tanning, but that the warm like,
oh I'm warming, So that feels so good. Those are

(13:34):
infrared rays and so they penetrate into your body and
you are then able to pull up and sweat out
and detox well.

Speaker 2 (13:42):
And I did a really good one today because I've
had I've changed a little bit of my protocol. I
just started with the new doctor, as you know, and
I'm like, i made a commitment to myself that I've
got to shift a little bit of how I'm doing
things in the morning, change the way I'm doing because
I'm just like in the same grind.

Speaker 1 (13:58):
I'm like, I'm doing the same thing.

Speaker 2 (13:59):
I'm doing this, I'm like to change it up because
my brain's just bored andy're doing the same thing. And
so I took a little bit of a break from
infrared SNA for like a couple of weeks, and I
could one hundred percent tell the difference, right that's and
so today I got back into I was all nervous.
I was like, oh my god, am I gonna am
I gonna get sick? Because I pain puke all the time.

(14:19):
Like this morning was white. The hurling session, it was lovely.
Bill's like, what's going on. I'm like, I'm dying, don't.

Speaker 1 (14:28):
Talk to me. But the but the infrared sauna was
so incredible this morning.

Speaker 2 (14:33):
I ended up being in there for like an hour
and I didn't even realize it. I was just listening
to my whatever on my insight time or my meditation music,
and I was setting up all my little chotchki's and
my sona because.

Speaker 1 (14:43):
We just moved.

Speaker 2 (14:44):
It's such a special place and it's a place where
I meditate, I read, I think, I write. Actually I'm
sweaty writing, but I still I write in there. There
are so many things that I accomplish in there before
my day kicks off that I love doing it in
the morning versus doing it at night. Is there a
better time for people to do it, you know? Or

(15:05):
is it just a preference. I've never asked you that,
so to.

Speaker 3 (15:07):
Know anytime, but anytime is a good.

Speaker 2 (15:10):
Time come for sick dot com.

Speaker 1 (15:16):
Well, okay, so that's good because a lot of people
are like, what's the difference between infrared and all that?

Speaker 2 (15:19):
And when you google, you can google all the different chromatherapy,
and you can read about what the different lights are
about what they tackle, whether it better for your skin,
whether they're good for inflammation, whether no matter what the
inference on is good for your inflammation.

Speaker 1 (15:31):
It also helps with weight loss, It does help with sleeplike.

Speaker 2 (15:33):
Janette mentioned it's weird calling you Janet by the way, Yes,
who is this person I'm talking to? So now you
thank you for sharing that, because I think that's really important,
because this isn't just for people that live in chronic pain,
right It's for all of us. We all live in
such a gross, toxic world right now, and you know,
we can only do so much to keep ourselves healthy

(15:54):
and our immune systems going, and our food sucks. And
you know, whenever I go over to Europe, I feel great,
stomach's great, my pain level's low. I come back home
to the United States of America and I feel like
jumping off a cliff. That's for a million different reasons,
but one of them is CRPS, So you know, and
one of the things that you were in remission for
so long and then you ended up popping right back

(16:17):
into my team on being on CRPS team, and I
don't like you being on my team. I don't mean
I'm glad that I have you, but I don't want
you to live like this.

Speaker 1 (16:26):
So what the hell is going on?

Speaker 2 (16:28):
You've got three year anniversary of your flare starting tomorrow,
so the past three years, what have you been doing?
I mean outside of you know, navigating our new normal.

Speaker 3 (16:39):
So that's definitely at navigating a new normal, which is
a hard pill to swallow, and it is one hundred
percent first having to accept that I'm disabled. Yeah, and
it started with, you know, something as simple as asking
my doctor to please give me a handicapped placard. It's

(17:00):
all the little things that come with accepting the road
that you're on and allowing to move forward and just saying,
you know what, do I like that I have a
handicapped placard. I went from a red one, which was temporary, right, yes,
and we do we do little baby steps when we're
disabled because it's easier to bite and chew off a

(17:22):
little bit at a time. So it went from having
a red temporary one to then saying to doc, hey,
you know what I just need to I need to
stop being you know, thinking that this is going to
go away anytime soon, and I, you know, let's just
do a and so it's stuff like that, and it
may sound childish or stupid to other people, but it's

(17:42):
having to accept the fact that you're disabled and that
you can't live your life like you used to. It
was like a line in the sand that got drawn.
And there's no going back to that old life that
we had, short of a miracle being instilled on me
or you or our other CRPS warriors that were involved with,

(18:04):
and short of an absolute miracle, our new normal is
navigating the disability world, which means handicapped placards, crutches, wheelchairs.
We just bought a new bed. We spent a lot
of money and it's a bed that goes up and
down and gravity this and just to help me sleep

(18:25):
better because my sleep is a train wreck because of
my pain. And so those are the navigating things that
you know, I'm fifty three years young and I'm navigating
a lot for someone right at this age when I
should be. I feel like it's the prime of my

(18:46):
life right and I absolutely feel like my life has
completely it's been turned upside down.

Speaker 2 (18:53):
It has Mine has too, and it has for your husband, Brian,
and from my husband, Bill, and we did an episode
form one hundredth episodes together. If you haven't listened to it,
it's worthwhile, especially to hear a loved one's a spouse
what they go through too, because it's really important that
we let them cry, that we let them be upset,

(19:15):
that we let them get angry, that we let them
talk about hard stuff with us, and that we feel
comfortable enough that we can talk to them like Brian
Lake Bill, where we can talk to them about the
student's suicidal ideations and where.

Speaker 1 (19:29):
That comes from.

Speaker 2 (19:30):
And some of it comes from the medications that we've
been put on too, which is a scary part of
navigating the new norm. God, I am just leaking over here,
crying on my eyes are just leaking.

Speaker 3 (19:39):
I'm leaking.

Speaker 2 (19:40):
I'm glad I put on all this fancy makeup for
you today, lobby anyway, so you're welcome, because that's what
you and I do.

Speaker 1 (19:47):
We show up.

Speaker 2 (19:48):
Nobody would think that you are five right now, and
I am a six right now, and I have my
little calendar where I write my numbers down what I
am every day.

Speaker 1 (19:55):
The entire month of May has been a ain f
the ask go.

Speaker 2 (19:58):
It has been so high and trying to identify what
it is that's causing that pain to get you know,
ruffled up. Well, a lot of it is talking to
our spouses, talking to our family members, talking to our
coworkers about what's really going on, and also not saying
yes to everything, because what we tend to do is

(20:20):
as soon as we start feeling a little bit better,
all I do is go full throttle and get everything
I can possibly get done on the planet. Whether it's
tidying up the house or doing laundry or going to
the supermarket, which I cannot do. I end up doing them,
and I push myself and I push myself and then
I'm down for the count for like three sometimes five days.

Speaker 1 (20:40):
It totally depends.

Speaker 2 (20:42):
And without us being able to lean on our village
like I was mentioning earlier, and lean on our loved ones,
it's also hard for them to be leaned on.

Speaker 1 (20:52):
So we have to we have.

Speaker 2 (20:53):
To be cognizant of how this is also affecting the
people in our lives.

Speaker 1 (20:56):
And that's also the people that we work with, right.

Speaker 2 (20:58):
I mean, I know you run your bit business, I've
run mine for twenty four years, and our people have to.

Speaker 1 (21:05):
Work around our pain.

Speaker 2 (21:07):
Like I honestly, there's no possible way I can make
that zoom call today because I am in bed, I
cannot walk. I crawled to the bathroom. I've been throwing
up all morning. It feels like somebody whipped me from
a head.

Speaker 1 (21:20):
To toe, you know.

Speaker 2 (21:21):
Like, and these people that we work with, you have
to be able to be honest and open with them
and tell them this is what's going on, especially if
you have, you know, an intimate team of people. But
it's just something that's part of navigating that new norm.
And the handicapped pop packard thing is really interesting and
by the way, you can use them when you travel
into other countries. So yeah, so when you're driving around,

(21:42):
if you go if you're traveling or going to Europe,
or you're going wherever you're going, Mexico, wherever you're going,
you can use your handicapp plackkards in other countries and
they will, you know, they honor them. So just a
little tidbit for travelers. And that's something also that came
into the new norm. How do you travel in an
airport when you're in this much pain? Well, I got
a wheelchair and I love my thing. I mean, whenever

(22:02):
there's a heel in an airport, I go straight down
as fast as I possibly can. Like all of my
sports girls stuff that I used to do comes out
when I'm in my chair. Because I got a sports
chair that I can exercise in. I can go, I
can go do wheelies in it. I can you know,
I can spin around in it. And I've gotten so
much better about it, and now I don't mind it.
I don't mind it at all. But it took getting

(22:24):
used to it, and it took accepting, like you said,
and it's not a short trip to get to acceptance.

Speaker 1 (22:31):
I don't even know if I'm one hundred percent there,
to be honest.

Speaker 2 (22:33):
Because I have hope that that I'm going to get better,
that You're going to get better. So it's hard for
me to fully one hundred percent accept it. I refuse
to because I don't want to give into it.

Speaker 3 (22:45):
Well, I think that's great because that's human nature, and
that is that at the end of the day, that
is the hope that somehow, some way you and I
will get better and that these modalities that we have
right now are just to help us temporary. But I
will tell you, getting my wheelchair, and mine was actually

(23:08):
gifted to me by a chiropractor and he knew how
much I was struggling, and he had been working on me.
And one day I could barely get back to my car,
and he said, let me just put the wheelchair that
we have at the office in your trunk and you
can take it home and you can just use it
if you need it. And he was so gentle and

(23:30):
kind about it, and I wanted to say no, but
in my head, in my heart, I knew that I
needed it.

Speaker 1 (23:36):
I know, I've been trying to get you to get
a wheelchair for a while, so I was happy to
hear this.

Speaker 3 (23:42):
Yeah, because it's given me freedom. Because when my pain
levels every night are so high that I cannot walk
in my house, or I can't get to the bathroom,
or I can't get to the kitchen to get anything,
it's given me my freedom back. And if accepting means

(24:03):
that I'll have some freedom, then that's where I am.
I've accepted the fact that I do need a wheelchair
because my CRPS is in both feet up to my knees.
Many nights, it could be even up to my lower back,
my sacred area, and my legs are not stable, I
cannot walk, and so I have completely surrendered, knowing that

(24:26):
I'm much safer and I have more freedom when I'm
in my chair.

Speaker 1 (24:31):
Absolutely, I call mine my little buggy.

Speaker 2 (24:33):
Yeah, I call my buggy, and I throw my buggy
in the back of my truck and then like, guse
I I can't walk around the mall. I don't like
really going to the mall anyway, but when I have
to go to places like that, when I've got like
shop for a trip or whatever, I'm in that puppy.
When we're in museums, when we're traveling, when we're in
the airport, I'm like, god, how many times do we
do U turns in an airport because we're like, I
don't even know what the hell any of these words mean,

(24:55):
and so you're like going back and forth and turning around.
We're like, well, I thought it was gay a and
now it's this. And we got to take a shuttle
and I'm like, oh my god. And I dressed my
sweetie up in bright colors because he wanders off so
I can see.

Speaker 1 (25:05):
Him because all I'm doing is looking at.

Speaker 2 (25:07):
Butts and getting farted on the entire time I'm traveling,
you love it.

Speaker 1 (25:13):
So many farts.

Speaker 2 (25:14):
You have no idea how many people far in front
of you when you are traveling.

Speaker 1 (25:17):
It is unbelievable. Museums, farts, airports, too many farts. I mean,
it is unbelievable. You guys are all disgusting.

Speaker 2 (25:29):
Yeah, but it is super important for us to relinquish
the control that we have.

Speaker 1 (25:34):
And you and I are both similar to that where OCD.
We're clean freaks. We like everything the way that they're
supposed to be.

Speaker 2 (25:40):
Why the hell would this happen to somebody like me
should happen to these awful.

Speaker 1 (25:43):
People in this world? Right?

Speaker 2 (25:44):
But you know the part that scares me about you
going into remission and then coming back out of it,
is it happening to me as well? Being Like I
have this like sense of this hope, like, oh my gosh,
my body's working, I'm going to be to do all
these things again. I'm going to start skiing again, I'm
gonna start to be a little all the things. And

(26:05):
then bam hit one morning and you're like, what, how
in the world did you deal with that?

Speaker 1 (26:11):
I mean, I remember how you dealt with it, But
please tell our audience. Yeah, great.

Speaker 3 (26:16):
No. I mean, you can imagine being in full remission
from a very rare condition and you literally are at
the point in your life where you don't even remember
that you had it, Like the diagnosis is so far gone,
like you're not even thinking this could ever come back
to bite you in the butt.

Speaker 1 (26:35):
Right.

Speaker 3 (26:35):
And you know, I took my puppy for a walk
three years ago. I was walking up our street and
you know, we live in a ranching neighborhood and the
street was kind of undulating. Great word to use, by
the way, and I think my foot was just being
tested a little too much. And lo and behold does

(26:57):
it have dejabou?

Speaker 2 (26:58):
Here?

Speaker 3 (26:58):
The next morning, when I went to get out of bed,
I put my foot on the ground and I screamed,
and it felt like my foot was broken, And I thought,
what the heck is going on? Now? During my walk,
nothing happened. I didn't twist my ankle, I didn't do
anything that would have alluded to the foot being broken.
So here we are back in this what is wrong

(27:19):
with my foot? And you know it's Memorial Day weekend,
the end of end of May, and here we're thinking,
you know, what's going on? And so I had to
wait till the doctors came back and get in and
to my orthopedis get an MRI ordered. And by that
point I was on crutches. I could not put any
weight on this foot, and it was like deja vu

(27:42):
all over again. And you know, a week into it,
the foot red black, purple, and I just thought, you
have got to be kidding me. Here, here we are,
Here we go again, or we go again, and your
whole and like we said that apple card that you
were living, living the life, and you're you know, you

(28:04):
thought everything was great, honey dory, and that apple cart
just gets turned upside down, and your apples are going
in a million different directions and you don't know which
one to pick up first. And and here we are
three years later. The crps has gone from right foot
only to left foot, both legs, into my hands, my

(28:26):
teeth ache. I mean, I've had problems with my eyes,
I've had problems with my female area. I mean it's
I would consider at this point that I have full
body crps.

Speaker 1 (28:40):
Yes at night or early morning, welcome, thank you. It's
such a party over here.

Speaker 3 (28:47):
I literally get awakened from a dead sleep because I
can feel my spinal cord vibrating my bones like vibrate
like I'm plugged in with an electrical socket, and I
feel running through them. Is There's some nights where I've
asked Brian, you know, I've woken him up and said,
am I having a seizure right now? And he's gipping

(29:08):
it in the dark, going no, you look like you're
perfectly still, But in my spinal column, I'm feeling like
I'm vibrating so hard that I actually feel like I'm
having a seizure. I know.

Speaker 1 (29:19):
That's nuts.

Speaker 2 (29:20):
When you shared that with me, that's like and I've
got similar weird things where it feels like I've got
hot lava worms running through all the veins in my body,
and sometimes you can it's almost like I have an
alien in my body. And this was actually found out
later that i have lime disease on top of it.

Speaker 1 (29:36):
So I've got a parasite party going.

Speaker 2 (29:39):
On all day and that which adds to the pain,
which adds to my all my stuff. My pain level
goes up when there are things that really bother about
are bothering me about the political environment that we're in,
and I can tell my body just like a stressful,
something happens or I read something that I'm like that
is unbelievable, and a lot of it is because it
affects our health as women, and it also helped it

(30:00):
is going to be affecting the disability issues that we have.

Speaker 1 (30:03):
And so there's all these other things that kind of
come up in the.

Speaker 2 (30:05):
Back of my brain of things that I'm worried about,
and that worry of I'm never going to get better
and the things that I do have might be taking
away from me.

Speaker 1 (30:12):
I mean, it's it's it's it's just completely wackad do
every single day.

Speaker 2 (30:17):
So and all of this adds up, right, and all
of this keeps going and going and going, and I'm exhausted.
Like I sound like I have a ton of energy,
that's because I'm just I come in and I come
in hot, and I come in for these episodes specifically
so that I can give it my all. But man,
I am I tired. I'm exhausted of living this way. Yeah,

(30:39):
I'm exhausted. So what can we talk a little bit
about our topic of wanting to leave the planet for
a minute and why that There's a story that you
told me a while back about your bathtub, and I
remember immediately talking to Bill obviously about it. And this
is where our emergency contact thing came into play, because

(31:00):
it was like, you've got to call me when you
ever feel like you're going to want to jump off
a cliff, and vice versa with me.

Speaker 1 (31:05):
So what's going on with you?

Speaker 2 (31:06):
Because I know the reasons why it happens to me
where I think about it and it scares the shit
out of me. So can we talk about this because
it's so taboo, you know, to talk about it because
people are uncomfortable. I'm not uncomfortable talking about it anymore,
and I want to make sure that people that are
listening if you feel this way at all.

Speaker 1 (31:25):
Obviously there's the suicide hotlines.

Speaker 2 (31:27):
Well probably I know they canceled the suicide hotline at
this point, but please make sure reach out to me,
do whatever you need to do if you're ever ever
ever feeling this way, because we understand and we're still
sitting here, So can you talk to me a little
bit about this?

Speaker 3 (31:43):
I can. This is definitely a topic that, like you said,
is very taboo, and I don't like that because we
need to make it so that we can normalize it.
So that we can save people who are feeling this way.
When something's taboo, you're afraid to talk about it, you're
afraid to tell somebody. This is where I've come to

(32:04):
in my pain journey, and I'm here right now, and
this is the way I'm feeling, And like you elluded, Lindsey,
my first episode where I actually felt like I wanted
to commit suicide was based on being on a pharmaceutical.
I had been on it for two and I won't
say what it is because I don't think it's fair.

(32:26):
I'm not here to bash the pharmaceutical.

Speaker 2 (32:27):
World well, and also, pharmaceuticals, medication affects every day.

Speaker 3 (32:30):
It's excellently one different. So this is not about bashing
the pharmaceuticals because some of them have been very good,
good for me and good to me. And so I
just want to put that out there that a pharmaceutical
that I did go on for two weeks, and it
was exactly at the two week window, as if the
medication had built up enough to alter my brain thought process.

(32:53):
And one night I had gotten in the bathtub my
pain levels were so high that I was begging my
husband to drown me, to please push me under and
to help me, help me go home. And I will
tell you in that moment, I was so serious and

(33:17):
so invested in that comment that when my husband looked
at me, I know part of him probably wanted to
because I was bagging him. And you know then the
reality of I can't help assist my wife in doing this.
Our children will not look at me very fondly, nor

(33:40):
will the police department.

Speaker 1 (33:43):
So it talk about childhood trauma. Right, I drowned your mom?

Speaker 3 (33:48):
Yeah, it's okay, though she asked.

Speaker 1 (33:50):
Me too, So it's all good.

Speaker 3 (33:53):
It's all good. And in that moment, you you know,
my spouse realized that we're done with this pharmaceutical because
I've gotten to a point where it's altering what my
brain is thinking and what and in a mind that
prior to being on that pharmaceutical, you know, I may
have been in a lot of pain, but I would

(34:13):
not have come to that point where I would have
said I want to end my life. I need to
get out of here, I want to go home. And
so we stupidly took me off the medication without being
weaned off of it, which is a danger because I
could have had a seizure. But my husband was willing
to deal with a seizure versus having been concerned about

(34:35):
leaving me at home and me attempting to do something
that and succeeding at it. So he was willing to
deal with the side effects of cold turkey going off medication,
and I agreed to it. I was on board because
I knew how I felt that night in that bathtub,
and then you and I later then spoke about it,

(34:58):
and I know that it scared you to pieces, and
I've learned that it's okay with our illness to say
I'm feeling suicidal right now. I'm feeling like I don't
want to live this life anymore. I don't know how
I'm going to handle this level of pain one more day,

(35:22):
or I don't want to do this anymore. And I
think it's okay. We're not failures and we're not giving in.
We're just being honest that the pain that we are
enduring is wearing us to the bone, and that we
are being completely one hundred percent coherent and vulnerable to

(35:48):
our husband's partner's friends, whoever it is. That we need
to be rallied around right now, and that means don't
leave us alone. Don't leave us with our thoughts. Don't
leave us period, Because do I think ultimately lindsay that

(36:09):
I could take my life. I want to say no, Yeah,
me too, But I have because many reasons. I have
a beautiful marriage, I have four beautiful children. Our oldest
has given us a grandson. I have so much to
live for and I know that. And I don't want

(36:31):
to leave suicide as a legacy to my children. I
don't want them to have to tell people that their
mother committed suicide. I don't want that in their history.
It's not fair to them. But I do know that
it's very real and that I do encounter it more

(36:51):
days than not. And just the other day, two days ago,
I was in the kitchen and I was in a
ass a flare. I was in my wheelchair and I
was just staring out my kitchen window at the beautiful clouds,
and I was thinking, I want to go. And I'm

(37:11):
holding my little bag that I have, which has a
tiger on it, which is so appropriate. It has all
my medication in it. Everyone in my family knows if
we have to call nine one one or whatever, grab
the medication bag, so they know potentially what I'm on
or what I could have taken or what I could
have mixed if I had made a poor decision. Yeah,

(37:35):
And I had my tiger bag and I was holding
my pill that I try and not take, I take
as needed. And in that moment, as I'm staring out
the window, I was thinking, how many of these would
I have to take at once? Yep, to just go
to sleep. And your brain literally just you're no longer Lindsey,

(37:58):
or you're no longer you are just in a fog
of pain that's so debilitating that all you can think
about is getting out of that body that is causing
you so much pain. Right And in the background in
the kitchen, I hear my husband saying, honey, what can
I do to help you right now? What do I
need to do? And he's just like, it's like a

(38:20):
woman in the background, and so here here I'm trying.

Speaker 2 (38:26):
I'm literally had seen her face that you would have
laughed like I did.

Speaker 3 (38:29):
Just now I'm literally out of my mind, literally, and
I'm concocting all this stuff in my head, and my
amazing husband is like and it like pulls me back
and I'm like, wow, you know. So it's those.

Speaker 1 (38:46):
Moment that's right, That's why I'm here because you're nagging me.

Speaker 2 (38:50):
Yeah, I got to stay around else everyone else is
gonna have to deal with your yapping in their ears
without me helping them.

Speaker 1 (38:56):
Yeah. Well, and men want to problem solve, you know.

Speaker 2 (39:01):
And I have that with with my sweetie because he's
you know, he's like, what can I do? I feel
helpless all the time, And I'm like, honestly, what I
just need you to do is just listen to me, right,
Just listen to what's going on in my brain so
I can get it out so it doesn't stay inside
me and make me even more sick or make me
feel crazy. Because it makes you feel kind of crazy,
I'm like, am I going nuts?

Speaker 3 (39:22):
Like?

Speaker 2 (39:23):
Because pain changes your brain, like it changes the fabric
of your actual brain.

Speaker 1 (39:30):
It's not early changes your brain. It legitimately changes your brain.

Speaker 2 (39:33):
And so it changes everything from your focus and your
concentration to rational thoughts to irritability of me. A lot
of that's because we're so tired, just like everything bugs
me and like constantly pmsing. Then you add paramenopause on
top of it, which is also painful. So for us
women who live in chronic pain when you're also then

(39:54):
you're adding paramenopause on top of it, and you're adding
all these hormonal changes that go on that and of
itself causes pain, specifically in women's feet, if you can
believe it. So if you're adding that too on top
of all that, plus these medications that make us feel
a little cuckoo, sometimes a little more than cuckoo, and
some that you don't feel at all, that don't do

(40:14):
anything for you, that that they just make you.

Speaker 1 (40:16):
Fat or you know.

Speaker 2 (40:16):
I mean, it's like it's just one thing after another
and we're navigating that. But we're going to keep going.
And we will not be drowning ourselves in bathtubs. We
will not ask our loved ones to join us in
bath bathtubs. We will not do these things. And that
is my promise to you, and I know it's your
promise to me. And we are here for you. I mean,

(40:36):
we're here for each other. We're here for you, audience,
and whatever questions you might have for us, or any
needs you might have, or you just want to vent
or whatever, please please reach out to us. I'll put
her information, not her cellphone or either of that, but
i will put her. You know her Instagram and her
website and all that, and you can email her or whatever.
I'm just generously offering your services to these people. But
it's something that is helpful for us when we're in

(41:00):
this space right now, because what is the point of
us going through all of this if we can't help
other people?

Speaker 3 (41:06):
Amen, what's the fucking point.

Speaker 2 (41:09):
That's why giving pain purposes why I'm here every day,
because I gotta give it something. If I don't give
it purpose out in the way, else the hell I'm
gonna give it.

Speaker 3 (41:18):
I'm kicking the ass.

Speaker 1 (41:19):
Oh my god. I try it every day, but my
feet hurt to kick. Oh man.

Speaker 2 (41:26):
And I know that we touched briefly on pharmaceuticals and
medications and all of that, and that you didn't want
to mention the medication. I appreciate you not doing that
because there's some people that could be taking and it's
just working fine. So I don't want anybody to feel
like WHOA. I should probably look into this, but it
is important for you to resoarch the pharmaceuticals before you
start taking them, take a look at what the side
effects are of them, be prepared for what those might be.

(41:49):
So One of the things that I do with Bill
is if I start something new, which in fact i'm
starting something new today, is Honey, you have to read
all of these things because you are my watcher. I'm
not necessarily going to know if something funky is happening.

Speaker 1 (42:04):
How do I mean, who knows?

Speaker 2 (42:05):
Depending upon what the litany of things you know at
the end of every fricking medication commercial, you know that
you say.

Speaker 1 (42:12):
May cause oily discharge. I'm not taking it.

Speaker 2 (42:14):
If it's going to cause an oily discharge out of
my butt, it's not happening.

Speaker 1 (42:18):
It's not happening.

Speaker 2 (42:21):
But that long list of things is super important for us,
especially when we're in the kind of pain that we're in,
especially under the exhaustion that we're in, where we don't
necessarily feel like we're making the most rational decisions. We
feel like we might be a little bit out of it.
We feel, we feel, we feel Honey, I need you
to see. These are the things that this medication can
start causing, Like is my face starting to twitch?

Speaker 1 (42:41):
Do I have some random rash on my arm? Like?

Speaker 2 (42:44):
We need to be aware of those things and be
prepared for them if they come up, And what the
exit strategy is should they arise, because that's something when
you're with your loved ones that you need to make sure.
If you don't have a loved one that lives with
you in your home, you need to find somebody that
you can call and you can talk to, like there
has to somebody that's there, that's in your village, even
if it's a village of two, you know it's.

Speaker 1 (43:04):
A small village.

Speaker 2 (43:05):
Absolutely one is better than nut, right, So thank you
for being as vulnerable and raw and open and real
with me as you have today, My darling. I cried
for most of this episode, which is a little bit
more than I had planned.

Speaker 1 (43:20):
It just couldn't.

Speaker 2 (43:21):
I can't stop it once it gets go like cheese
will weeze? And I'm looking at her sweet little face.
So is there anything that you'd like to leave us
with before we hit the dusty trail?

Speaker 3 (43:32):
You know, just keep fighting. I want I want all
of us pain sufferers to never give up. Hope. I
think that is the key word to stay focused on that.
If you have hope, even if it's tiny as a
grain of sand, it will carry you through. And it
may sound cheesy or corny, but hope is everything at

(43:56):
the end of the day, because without that, we don't
have the capability of moving forward. And you know, like
you said, there are people out there that love and
care for us. Tap into those resources. Don't be afraid
to be vulnerable and speak up. Tell those people that
love you what your needs are. Stop being so dog

(44:19):
on full of pride like yours can do this. Stop
being stubborn and prideful. Those are all just very unattractive qualities.
When you're in pain and you need help, it's time
to step up and it's time to ask for help.
And it's okay. It's okay to ask for help.

Speaker 2 (44:39):
Yes, I like that, It is okay to ask for help.
I suck at it. I'm far better than I used
to be, but it's definite need. I need help, So
we have. Janette has a promo for you. If you're
local to the Los Angeles or Burbank area, or you're
just popping into town traveling and you're an Infred son
a person and you need to get one, you.

Speaker 1 (44:57):
Need to reach out to Burbank Infrared Sauna.

Speaker 2 (44:58):
She is offering a free first sweat for any listener
of this podcast.

Speaker 1 (45:02):
There is a phone number to text and a word
to use.

Speaker 2 (45:07):
I'm not giving the phone number over air, so you've
got to go to show notes or going to social
and all of that.

Speaker 1 (45:12):
It will all be there for you.

Speaker 2 (45:14):
You can visit her website at Burbankinfraredsauna dot com. Her
Insta handle is also at burbank Infrared Sauna, and Infrared
is spelled I N F R A R E D
because it's hard to spell over and over again. Oh
my goodness, thank you so much for being us with
us here today, Lobster. I am so grateful for our
friendship and for you sharing your story with us today.

Speaker 3 (45:36):
And Keel, thank you, Lindsey. Thank you for doing this podcast,
thank you for bringing it to light, thank you for
giving pain a purpose, thank you for being you, and
thank you for loving me.

Speaker 1 (45:53):
Well that's easy. She's the easiest person to love on
the planet, by the way. So there, all right.

Speaker 2 (45:59):
So before we jm out, I have a new bite
sized extension of the Pain Game podcast that we're trying
out called pain Bites. I'm going to serve up like
a little small but mighty dose of real talk every
other Friday.

Speaker 1 (46:09):
I was going to do it every.

Speaker 2 (46:10):
Friday, and I'm finding like, oh my gosh, I got
more submissions than I thought, and so I'm kind of
weeding through and trying to figure out how I want
to do this.

Speaker 1 (46:17):
But I can't do it without you. So what these
are are?

Speaker 2 (46:20):
I want you to submit your wins, your losses, your struggles,
your celebrations, everything in between and out and how you're
getting through it. And you can cry, you can laugh,
you can send a voice note. You can just send
me a blurb that I can that I can speak about.
It can be anonymous, I can use your name. Whatever
it is that you want to do. There's information at
on Instagram at our link in the bio that shows

(46:42):
you the form that you fill out.

Speaker 1 (46:43):
It's super easy to do. So I want to hear
from you. I want to talk about you, one.

Speaker 2 (46:47):
Bite at a time, So you'll fill out that form,
send me your voice notes.

Speaker 1 (46:52):
Do it.

Speaker 2 (46:52):
Get engaged because the more engaged you are with us,
the more engaged we're going to get back with you,
and maybe we can find a cure for whatever it
is that ails you.

Speaker 1 (47:00):
That's why we're here.

Speaker 2 (47:01):
You are exclusively invited to share this. Never give up,
help VIP pain journey together. Let's get to the heart
of how to heal. With you by my side. Please
follow the Pain Game Podcast wherever you digest your podcast content,
we will be there. Visit us at the Pain gamepodcast
dot com and follow us on all the socials. Thanks
for listening my little VIPs.

Speaker 1 (47:21):
Catch you on the other side.