We were lucky to catch up with Alan Brewington recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alan, thanks for taking the time to share your stories with us today Let’s jump right into how you came up with the idea?

This is how I became a chronic pain and rheumatoid arthritis advocate.

As far as advocates go, my story is unusual. Despite my current list of health issues, I grew up without many symptoms. I did have pain and other issues due to my ankles but that was manageable. Basically ice, aspirin, rest, repeat as needed. This changed suddenly in June of 2003. While out rock climbing with some friends, I fell off the route I was on and hit the group after about a 15 foot fall. Side note, I did not have any health insurance at that time.

In order to put me back together that night, I had to have 10 screws and a plate inserted into my left arm in addition to 6 staples in my head. If I remember right, I was in the hospital for the better part of 3 days before they left me go home to recover.

A couple of weeks after being released I received the bill for my hospital stay. To be perfectly blunt, the final total was obscene. I quickly learned that the only group of people in our country that actually pay sticker price are those without any health insurance. This led to my first real “advocacy” experience. Through much research, I learned that I had a right to challenge every charge on the bill, so I did. I sat with a nurse/auditor and we discussed every single item on my bill. After several hours of work, I had worked the bill down to roughly the same price Dad would have paid with his health insurance which was through the military. My first advocacy win!

Fast forward a couple of years. I was still in a lot of pain and was having trouble describing it to my doctors. This made my doctor’s job much harder. So one Friday night, pretty much to fight some boredom, I decided to start a blog which I named PainTalks. Quick side note, growing up I was the “jock” in the family and my younger brother was the writer. In school I never showed any interest in writing, it was something I had to do in order to complete assignments. However, since I was in a lot of pain and no one could tell me why, I assumed it was because I needed to become a better storyteller. It was my fault that my doctors couldn’t help me so I needed to do something to change that. I needed to change how I expressed myself.

I had no real plan or idea of what I wanted my new blog to become. If an idea came to mind, I wrote something. Other times I wrote about my rock-climbing accident, my advocacy regarding my hospital stay, or everyday life. More often than not, my blogs were based on my life experience, but I did do some creative type writing where I made up stories in order to tell a story. Around this time social media was exploding into our lives so I utilized various platforms to get my message out.

Several years ago I wanted a new, a fresh start so I ended PainTalks and started blogging at www.alanbrewington.com. In addition to blogging, I started posting some of my photography. I use the term photography in the looses possible sense, I have no idea what I’m doing with a camera. Basically, I bought a very expensive camera to take on walks and hikes as tool for distraction from my ever increasing pain levels. Some of my friends and family thought it was good so I started posting it along with my blogs.

Throughout this entire time, I have never thought about nor have cared much about what could be defined as success. Since I live a life in constant, almost relentless pain, success can change by the minute. Sometimes it’s finishing a 6 mile hike, graduating with a second degree in accounting, or being able to shower without crying from pain. That said, I was picked to attend Stanford University’s Medicine X (#Medx) Conference and then asked to join their Epatient advisory board. Not going to lie, that was pretty awesome. That said, probably my proudest accomplishment as an advocate has been anytime a fellow patient has asked me for advice or help. Social media “likes” and awards feed the ego, helping a fellow human is often why I get out of bed.

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

I grew up with strong parents, dad was a fighter pilot who retired as a one-star general, and mom is a retired elementary school teacher with multiple awards and accolades. Both parents have a long history of successfully advocating for themselves, fellow coworkers, and most importantly, for my younger brother and me. Mom and dad were strong believers in human centered problem solving but would not back down from a fight if that was what was needed to accomplish what was right. Being somewhat intelligent myself, I took this admirable quality and decided to make it my own.

Growing up I never thought of patient advocacy has a possible career choice. Even still today, patient advocacy is thought of as a moment in time event. For example, self-advocating for a particular treatment or to correct a mistake on a hospital bill. It is not something that little kids dream about becoming. However, life often has a way of helping us make “choices” on career paths or health journeys. This exactly what happened to me after I fell off a cliff rock climbing. Life basically decided for me that I would become a patient advocate.

My first advocacy experience and win came a few weeks after I got home from the hospital after my rock-climbing accident. The only way to describe the bill I received for my stay would be gross. Since I did not have any health insurance at that time the hospital basically wanted to charge me for breathing their air, and their air was not cheap. After extensive research and talking to fellow patients online, I learned that I had the right to request an audit of said bill. Long story short, I was able to reduce the bill to roughly what dad’s health insurance would have had to pay if he would have been the one that fell instead of me. As I recall, that was a several thousand-dollar victory for me.

Fast forward several years and I was still having a bunch of pain issues that was thought to be related to my accident. However, I was starting to believe otherwise but was having a horrible time convincing my doctors. I don’t recommend this technique, but my default is to blame myself for not being able to express myself well enough to help my doctors. So, one Friday night, while in a bad combination of being in pain and bored, I created my first blogging website paintalks.com.

I had no real plan or even an idea what I would write about on paintalks.com, I just started writing and posting it. To my surprise, I started to gain followers and fans. After writing about my fall and subsequent advocacy victory over the hospital, I started to gain opportunities to tell my story to a broader audience. Probably the biggest and proudest opportunity for me was being chosen by Stanford University to attend their Medicine X (#MedX) Conference as an epatient scholar (epatient meaning an engaged patient). After my second year attending the conference as an epatient scholar I was asked to join their epatient advisory board. For 2 years I helped other epatients experience and soak up as much of the conference experience as I had. We are talking a life changing experience.

Today I blog and showcase my photography at alanbrewington.com. Much of my blogging revolves around asking the question How Might We…? Don’t get me wrong, I still share my individual story. However, it has involved from a Friday night activity to more of a mature look at what it means to be a chronic pain and rheumatoid arthritis patient. I share my photography in the hopes of providing a momentary moment of happiness for my fellow chronic patients. The photography is a distraction from my pain for me, I hope it can be for others too.

My mom will probably disagree with this statement, but I don’t think I was born with inspiration or that “it” factor. I’m probably not going to lead a nation into battle. What I do have is a willingness to open a door, to jump into a situation in the hopes of beginning a human centered journey to a solution. I’m willing to bring attention, maybe not always in the best way, to an issue so it can be examined by smart people. I enjoy working with others but if required, I do have the ability to tackle issues on my own. My hope and desire is to be able to turn this into a full-time, paid career. Human centered problem solver sounds like an amazing job title.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

Despite having rheumatoid arthritis, type 2 diabetes, liver disease, degenerative disk disease, post trauma severe osteoarthritis, atrial fibrillation, facet joint syndrome, chronic pain, 11 surgeries, countless epidurals and steroid injections, and chronic pain, I’m still more interested in tomorrow than what I have accomplished yesterday. If you permit me a moment to brag, yesterday I bought my first house, graduated with a second degree in accounting, was asked to join the epatient advisory board for Stanford University’s Medicine X Conference, worked full-time at a high level job, traveled, took up photography, and became an avid hiker so I could expand my photography skills just to name a few accomplishments from yesterday.

Resilience doesn’t come from success like the tv would like us to believe. Resilience is simply realizing that its just a bad day, not a bad life.

Are there any resources you wish you knew about earlier in your creative journey?

I wish I better understood how vulnerability is an excellent resource for creativity. For too long, I thought creativity revolved around making hit songs, writing amazing books, or painting the Mona Lisa. Creativity was something that could be manufactured or built. That was wrong. Creativity is using vulnerability to tell a story about this ever evolving journey through life. The more one can understand, experience, and push their vulnerability envelop the better creativity can become. Vulnerability becomes one’s resource for creativity.

Contact Info:

• Website: www.alanbrewington.com
• Instagram: www.instagram.com/abrewington
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AlanBrewingtonsAdvocacyandSupport
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/alan-brewington-7183634/
• Twitter: https://twitter.com/abrewi3010

Image Credits
All imagines were taken by me and no one else.