Suffering in silence no more: How peer support helps people with chronic pain
CBC
Janice MacMillan recalls driving home from work trying to breathe through a flare-up of excruciating chest pain, all while contemplating this heavy question: "What's the point of living if this is my life?"
MacMillan has suffered from chronic pain for more than 45 years. She once felt hopeless, alone and invalidated — until she found a new purpose.
The 62-year-old woman has made it her life's mission to help people with chronic pain in a province where people wait years to see specialists and where pain clinics are understaffed.
"I was meant to be here and I'm fighting hard so that every person on the South Shore, even Nova Scotia, not be left behind," said MacMillan, who is originally from Ontario but moved to Liverpool, N.S., in 2021.
MacMillan's experience is not unique. More than 20 per cent of Canadians live with chronic pain, an invisible condition advocates say is still widely misunderstood by not only the public but even doctors and nurses.
After experiencing barriers to the health-care system first-hand, MacMillan started a grassroots support group for people with chronic pain on the province's South Shore, just as similar groups are cropping up in other areas of the province and across Canada.
MacMillan was diagnosed with fibromyalgia — a condition that causes widespread pain in muscles and soft tissues — in her late 20s. At the time, there were no treatments, and she was often dismissed by health-care professionals, given the condition was not yet widely recognized.
She was denied medications and had no information about how to deal with her lifelong affliction, which — to this day — can be debilitating.
So she suffered.
"I don't think people understand what chronic pain can do. It's like someone taking a chisel and chiseling a part of you little by little," said MacMillan, who was an ICU nurse before her condition forced her to stop that line of work.
"My family didn't believe me and the world didn't believe me. They treated me like I was an idiot or I was not mentally all together."
Her pain was made worse by a head injury resulting from a fall in October 2015 and from being hit by a truck in January 2016. These accidents caused brain damage and impacted her short-term memory.
Four years ago, she decided to leave her life in Ontario behind and move to the Maritime province where her ancestors came from.
She also left behind her pain specialist. Unable to access one in a timely manner in Nova Scotia and discovering Yarmouth Regional Hospital did not have a staffed pain clinic, she had an epiphany.
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