fostering the humanistic practice of medicine publishing personal accounts of illness and healing encouraging health care advocacy

Susan Cunningham

Vilomah

The three years from 2013 to 2016 were the worst of my life. I am still recovering.

In June of 2013, I had a mental health crisis, diagnosed as an acute psychotic event and eventually bipolar 1 disorder. The loss of my mental health was crushing. I was fifty-two years old and married with two amazing young adult children. I had a great career as a physical therapist and was seemingly thriving in a master’s program. After a manic weekend with little sleep, racing thoughts, compressed speech, grandiose plans and euphoria, I was hospitalized in the psych unit. After a week of acute care, I transitioned to a two-week partial hospital program. Unfortunately, two months later, I sank into the other “pole” and struggled with a clinical depression. With a lot of support, love and compassionate psychiatric care, I gradually resumed working and carried on.

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Pain

I am a PT with 38 years of clinical experience. Though I have many interests, the human experience of pain, especially where physical pain intersects with emotional pain, has been a patient-care focus of mine for some time now. I am also a mom of  two, one of whom I lost to the disease of addiction six years ago. And recently, I have been an orthopedic patient, having had a partial knee replacement two months ago.

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