(00:00:00):
Ever think about how one thing,

(00:00:01):
like just one event can totally change the course of someone's life?

(00:00:05):
Like, you know, set off this ripple effect.

(00:00:07):
Yeah, definitely.

(00:00:08):
Well, that's kind of what we're looking at today.

(00:00:09):
A real legal case spanning over 14 years,

(00:00:13):
chronic pain and a car accident right at the center of it all.

(00:00:16):
What I find super interesting about this one is how it gets at this question of

(00:00:20):
cause and effect.

(00:00:21):
Yeah.

(00:00:22):
It's easy to assume like, oh, this happened because of this.

(00:00:24):
But as you'll see, it's almost never that simple.

(00:00:26):
Right.

(00:00:27):
And to really unpack it all, we've got court documents, medical records, the whole nine yards.

(00:00:31):
This all goes back to 2009 with a woman named Katia Camacho.

(00:00:35):
She was rear-ended on 17th Avenue in Calgary.

(00:00:39):
And from the police reports,

(00:00:40):
the pictures,

(00:00:42):
the accident itself seemed,

(00:00:43):
I don't know,

(00:00:44):
pretty minor.

(00:00:44):
Like we're talking a dented bumper, a bent spare tire, repairs in the low thousands.

(00:00:49):
Neither Katia nor the other driver, Mr. LaCroix, even went to the hospital right away.

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And that's where things take a turn.

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This isn't just a fender bender.

(00:00:57):
You know,

(00:00:58):
this gets into Katya's life before the accident,

(00:01:01):
what she went through afterward with chronic pain and how the legal system even

(00:01:04):
tries to make sense of these questions of causation.

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It gets complicated.

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It's like one of those medical mysteries, but with real lives, real consequences.

(00:01:13):
Exactly.

(00:01:13):
So paint a picture for me.

(00:01:15):
Who was Katya before all of this happened?

(00:01:18):
Katya's background is actually pretty interesting.

(00:01:20):
She was a trained doctor in Columbia.

(00:01:22):
She'd put her medical career on hold to come to Canada.

(00:01:25):
And at the time of the accident,

(00:01:26):
she was working as a personal care assistant trying to,

(00:01:30):
you know,

(00:01:30):
get licensed to practice medicine here.

(00:01:32):
Sounds like she was already juggling a lot even before this accident.

(00:01:36):
Oh, for sure.

(00:01:37):
And her medical history before the car accident,

(00:01:40):
it becomes a really important part of the legal battle later on.

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She'd experienced some trauma in her past, being kidnapped, even a previous suicide attempt.

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There's also a prior shoulder injury from a work accident a while back,

(00:01:52):
although the reports say it was almost totally healed by the time of the car accident.

(00:01:56):
OK, so already we're seeing layers here.

(00:01:58):
This wasn't just like whiplash and then a settlement.

(00:02:00):
This was something much bigger.

(00:02:02):
Yeah.

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And the defense would eventually argue that her current pain,

(00:02:05):
it might be coming from these preexisting conditions,

(00:02:07):
her history of trauma,

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maybe even her mental health,

(00:02:09):
not just the accident itself.

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Makes you think about how much someone's past experiences,

(00:02:14):
you know,

(00:02:14):
physical and emotional,

(00:02:16):
how much those can impact their present.

(00:02:19):
It's like that.

(00:02:19):
What's that legal term?

(00:02:20):
The eggshell skull rule.

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You take your victim as you find them.

(00:02:24):
You're on the right track.

(00:02:25):
It's formally called the thin skull principle.

(00:02:27):
And it's a big deal in this case.

(00:02:29):
It basically means even if someone has,

(00:02:32):
let's say,

(00:02:33):
preexisting vulnerabilities that make them more susceptible to an injury.

(00:02:38):
The person who caused the harm is still responsible for the full extent of the damage,

(00:02:44):
you know,

(00:02:44):
the whole thing.

(00:02:45):
So even if Katya had some preexisting conditions,

(00:02:48):
if the accident made them worse,

(00:02:49):
Mr.

(00:02:50):
LaCroix could still be held responsible.

(00:02:52):
That's a lot for a court to sort out.

(00:02:54):
Exactly.

(00:02:54):
And that's where the medical evidence becomes key.

(00:02:57):
And you'll see it's anything but straightforward.

(00:02:59):
It's not enough to just prove that Katya is in pain.

(00:03:02):
It's about connecting that pain, that suffering directly to that car accident back in 2009.

(00:03:07):
Okay, so let's get into that.

(00:03:08):
What kind of treatments did Katia seek out after the accident?

(00:03:11):
Well, first she went to physiotherapy.

(00:03:13):
I mean, that's pretty standard after a car accident, right?

(00:03:15):
Her physiotherapist, a Miss Nguyen, diagnosed her with whiplash.

(00:03:20):
She noted that her symptoms were pretty persistent.

(00:03:22):
They just weren't going away.

(00:03:23):
Whiplash, that sounds almost like expected after a rear-end collision.

(00:03:27):
It is common, but the severity, how long it lasts, that can vary a lot.

(00:03:32):
For Katya, the pain, it lingered.

(00:03:34):
It didn't really respond to the usual treatments.

(00:03:37):
So what does she do?

(00:03:39):
So her family doctor,

(00:03:40):
Dr.

(00:03:40):
Darwish,

(00:03:41):
he prescribes pain medication and refers her to a musculoskeletal specialist.

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Now, this specialist has since passed away.

(00:03:48):
Oh, wow.

(00:03:49):
Yeah.

(00:03:50):
So the records we have are limited,

(00:03:52):
but they show this ongoing pain and discomfort,

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you know,

(00:03:56):
no real improvement.

(00:03:56):
I imagine this is where things get really difficult for her.

(00:03:59):
Chronic pain is one thing,

(00:04:00):
but trying to find answers,

(00:04:02):
trying to get some relief when even the doctors are struggling to figure out what's

(00:04:05):
going on.

(00:04:06):
Yeah, you're right on the money with that.

(00:04:07):
Chronic pain, it can be so isolating, people can't see it, you know?

(00:04:11):
Right.

(00:04:12):
And that makes it really hard for others to understand what someone like Katya is going through.

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And what we often think of as routine injuries from car accidents,

(00:04:21):
like the whiplash,

(00:04:22):
it's often anything but routine for the people living with it day in and day out.

(00:04:27):
100%.

(00:04:28):
And Katia's case, it shows that this wasn't a few weeks of discomfort.

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This was chronic pain.

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And it started to really impact her life in a big way.

(00:04:36):
So she's seen her family doctor, physiotherapist, a musculoskeletal specialist.

(00:04:42):
Where does she go from there?

(00:04:43):
Katia's journey,

(00:04:44):
it takes her to a whole bunch of different specialists all trying to figure out

(00:04:46):
what's going on and how to,

(00:04:47):
you know,

(00:04:48):
help her manage this pain.

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Sounds like we're about to get into the nitty gritty of Katia's medical journey.

(00:04:53):
And that's where we'll pick back up in part two of this deep dive.

(00:04:57):
We left off with Katia kind of going from doctor to doctor,

(00:05:00):
right,

(00:05:01):
trying to get to the bottom of this chronic pain.

(00:05:03):
Yeah, it's a real search for answers.

(00:05:04):
So what happens next?

(00:05:05):
Who does she see?

(00:05:06):
So over the next few years, she sees a bunch of specialists, right?

(00:05:10):
Each one with their own take on things, their own way of treating her.

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For example, there's a pain specialist, Dr. Vant, who diagnoses her with WAD-2.

(00:05:19):
WOD2.

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Break that down for us.

(00:05:21):
Sure, sure.

(00:05:21):
So WOD stands for Whiplash Associated Disorder.

(00:05:24):
It's basically a way to classify how bad the whiplash is,

(00:05:28):
what kind of symptoms someone has after.

(00:05:31):
WOD2, it suggests that Katia had more than just neck pain going on.

(00:05:34):
We could be talking decreased range of motion,

(00:05:36):
maybe neurological symptoms,

(00:05:37):
even psychological stuff.

(00:05:39):
Which makes sense given, you know, everything else we know about what she was dealing with.

(00:05:42):
Exactly, exactly.

(00:05:43):
So what did this Dr. Vant recommend?

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What did he do?

(00:05:46):
He tried a lot of different things,

(00:05:47):
more physiotherapy,

(00:05:49):
massage,

(00:05:50):
trigger point injections,

(00:05:51):
even something called radiofrequency ablation.

(00:05:54):
He was really trying to cover all the bases.

(00:05:56):
Okay, hold on.

(00:05:56):
Trigger point injections, radiofrequency, what?

(00:06:00):
We got to unpack some of that.

(00:06:02):
Those sound kind of intense.

(00:06:03):
Yeah, so those are more targeted treatments, right?

(00:06:05):
The goal is to kind of interrupt those pain signals that are firing off constantly.

(00:06:10):
Trigger pro injections,

(00:06:11):
they involve injecting like a local anesthetic,

(00:06:13):
sometimes a steroid,

(00:06:15):
directly into those muscle knots.

(00:06:16):
You know, those knots that just feel like rocks, the ones that seem to be causing the pain.

(00:06:21):
And then radiofrequency ablation that uses heat to basically,

(00:06:26):
I don't know how else to put it,

(00:06:27):
but it kind of shuts off the nerves that are sending those pain signals to the brain.

(00:06:32):
Wow.

(00:06:33):
Really makes you think about what people will go through when they're dealing with

(00:06:36):
chronic pain,

(00:06:37):
you know,

(00:06:37):
constantly searching for some relief.

(00:06:40):
It's true.

(00:06:41):
In Kati's case, it shows how tough it can be to treat chronic pain.

(00:06:46):
It's a lot of trial and error,

(00:06:47):
trying different things to see what sticks,

(00:06:49):
what gives even a little bit of relief.

(00:06:51):
It's like trying to put together a puzzle, but the pieces don't quite fit.

(00:06:54):
Yeah.

(00:06:54):
You've got all this treatment, but no real solution.

(00:06:57):
And it doesn't stop there.

(00:06:58):
Wasn't just pain specialists, right?

(00:07:00):
She also saw a dentist, Dr. Medji.

(00:07:02):
He treated her for cracked molars.

(00:07:04):
Really?

(00:07:05):
Cracked molars?

(00:07:06):
Yes.

(00:07:06):
Yeah.

(00:07:06):
He thought it could be related to the accident,

(00:07:08):
like maybe from clenching her jaw a lot because of the pain.

(00:07:11):
Yeah.

(00:07:11):
But he couldn't say for sure if it was connected to that 2009 accident.

(00:07:15):
So even things that seem totally unrelated,

(00:07:17):
like dental problems,

(00:07:18):
could be factoring into her experience of pain,

(00:07:21):
right?

(00:07:21):
Absolutely.

(00:07:22):
And it kind of highlights this idea that chronic pain, it's not always straightforward.

(00:07:26):
It can show up in weird ways.

(00:07:28):
You know, it often involves both physical and psychological stuff all tangled up together.

(00:07:34):
And we see this even more with her visit to a TMJ specialist, a Dr. Sharon.

(00:07:39):
TMJ, that's the jaw, right?

(00:07:41):
You got it.

(00:07:41):
Temporomandibular joint, that's the one that connects your jawbone to your skull.

(00:07:46):
Dr.

(00:07:46):
Sheriff diagnosed her with temporomandibular disorder,

(00:07:48):
basically saying,

(00:07:49):
yeah,

(00:07:50):
you've got TMJ,

(00:07:51):
and he attributes 69% of her jaw pain to the car accident.

(00:07:55):
He recommended physiotherapy and one of those mouth guards you wear at night.

(00:07:58):
It's wild how this one event,

(00:08:00):
this car accident,

(00:08:01):
seems to have had this domino effect throughout her entire body.

(00:08:05):
Yeah, and it reminds us that our bodies are all connected.

(00:08:07):
You know, one injury can impact so many other things.

(00:08:10):
And for Katia,

(00:08:11):
it seems like maybe this accident made some existing problems worse,

(00:08:15):
or maybe it triggered a whole bunch of new ones.

(00:08:17):
So we've got all these different medical opinions,

(00:08:19):
a bunch of treatments,

(00:08:20):
but it doesn't sound like she's found any real answers and probably still dealing

(00:08:23):
with a lot of pain.

(00:08:25):
You're right.

(00:08:25):
And this is where the legal case, it gets really tricky.

(00:08:28):
Because if you can't clearly say what's causing your pain,

(00:08:32):
how do you prove in court that it was the accident's fault?

(00:08:34):
Because the defense could just say,

(00:08:35):
well,

(00:08:36):
it's those pre-existing conditions we talked about,

(00:08:37):
right?

(00:08:38):
It's not our guy's fault.

(00:08:38):
Yep, that's exactly what they argued.

(00:08:41):
But then in 2019, something happens that really throws a wrench in their plan.

(00:08:46):
Katya, she's living in Arkansas now, and she sees this new doctor, a physiatrist, a Dr. Daimel.

(00:08:53):
Okay, and this is where it gets good, right?

(00:08:54):
Oh, yeah.

(00:08:54):
What did this Dr. Daimel find?

(00:08:55):
Spill the tea.

(00:08:56):
So he orders a new MRI of her neck, the first one since 2016.

(00:09:01):
And the results, they're pretty major.

(00:09:03):
They show moderate to severe stenosis at the C5-6 level of her spine.

(00:09:08):
Whoa, hold up.

(00:09:09):
Stenosis, that's not just another medical term we can skip over.

(00:09:12):
What does that even mean?

(00:09:13):
And why is it important for Katya's case?

(00:09:16):
Okay, so stenosis, put simply, it means narrowing.

(00:09:20):
In Katya's case,

(00:09:21):
it means the spinal canal in her neck,

(00:09:22):
it's narrowed,

(00:09:24):
probably because of bone spurs.

(00:09:26):
And it's putting pressure on her spinal cord and the nerves that branch out from there.

(00:09:29):
It's not good.

(00:09:30):
So like a pinched nerve, but on a much bigger scale.

(00:09:32):
Exactly.

(00:09:33):
And that pressure on the spinal cord, the nerves, it can cause a lot of problems.

(00:09:36):
Pain, numbness, weakness, even problems with balance and coordination.

(00:09:40):
It can really impact your life.

(00:09:41):
And how does Dr. Daimel connect this back to the accident for 2009?

(00:09:45):
So he diagnoses her with something called cervical radiculopathy,

(00:09:49):
which basically means pain and other symptoms that shoot out from a nerve being

(00:09:53):
pinched in the neck.

(00:09:54):
Right.

(00:09:55):
And here's the crucial part.

(00:09:56):
He says it's highly likely this was caused by that whiplash injury from the car accident.

(00:10:02):
We're talking over a decade later.

(00:10:03):
This feels huge.

(00:10:04):
Like,

(00:10:05):
we finally have something concrete,

(00:10:07):
something you can see on an MRI that links her pain and her limitations to that car

(00:10:11):
accident all these years ago.

(00:10:12):
Oh, it's big.

(00:10:14):
But remember,

(00:10:14):
the defense has their own expert,

(00:10:16):
an orthopedic surgeon,

(00:10:17):
a doctor who,

(00:10:19):
he had said earlier that Katya's pain was just from her spine getting older,

(00:10:23):
you know,

(00:10:24):
degenerative changes...

(00:10:25):
classic battle of the experts then one side saying it's the accident the other

(00:10:29):
saying it's just her body doing its thing exactly and this is where those legal

(00:10:33):
ideas we talked about earlier come in that thin skull principle versus what they

(00:10:37):
call the crumbling skull argument okay remind me again what was the difference

(00:10:40):
Right, so thin skull, it means you take your victim as you find them.

(00:10:45):
So even if Katya had some issues already,

(00:10:48):
the defense is still on the hook for making them worse because of the accident.

(00:10:53):
But the crumbling skull argument,

(00:10:54):
that's basically saying,

(00:10:56):
look,

(00:10:56):
this was going to happen anyway.

(00:10:58):
They're saying she was already headed for pain and limitations because of those

(00:11:02):
pre-existing conditions,

(00:11:04):
and the accident just sped things up a bit.

(00:11:06):
So Sin Skull says you're responsible for all the damage and Crumbling Skull says,

(00:11:10):
well,

(00:11:10):
some of that damage was already coming down the pipeline anyway.

(00:11:13):
You got it.

(00:11:14):
And now it's up to the judge to decide which argument is more convincing.

(00:11:18):
So it all hinges on whether the judge believes this accident was the main cause of

(00:11:22):
how cocky is now,

(00:11:23):
like Dr.

(00:11:23):
Daimel says,

(00:11:24):
or just a bump in the road on the way to problems she was already going to have.

(00:11:27):
You got it.

(00:11:28):
And that brings us to the judge's decision.

(00:11:30):
Which is a pretty big deal.

(00:11:31):
Oh, yeah.

(00:11:32):
It has big implications, not just for Cassia, but potentially for other cases just like hers.

(00:11:37):
And that's where we're going to pick up in part three.

(00:11:39):
So last time we were left hanging a bit.

(00:11:42):
What happened with the judge's ruling in Katya's case?

(00:11:45):
This is the moment of truth after, what, over a decade of this, right?

(00:11:48):
It really is.

(00:11:49):
And it shows you just how complicated it can be when you're talking about chronic

(00:11:53):
pain and the law.

(00:11:54):
It's not always clear cut.

(00:11:55):
So did the judge side with Katya?

(00:11:57):
The judge did rule in Katya's favor, yeah.

(00:11:59):
Whoa, okay.

(00:12:00):
Saying that that 2009 car accident, it was a major factor in all of this.

(00:12:04):
Her pain, her limitations, you name it.

(00:12:07):
After all this time, so what convinced the judge?

(00:12:10):
Was it that MRI from 2019, the one showing the stenosis in her spine?

(00:12:14):
That definitely played a big part,

(00:12:16):
along with what Dr.

(00:12:16):
Daimel had to say,

(00:12:17):
you know,

(00:12:17):
connecting that spinal damage to the crash.

(00:12:20):
But here's the thing.

(00:12:22):
The judge also gets it, you know.

(00:12:25):
They understood that Katya's medical history wasn't exactly a blank page before any

(00:12:30):
of this happened.

(00:12:31):
Right, all those pre-existing conditions, the trauma, the shoulder injury, everything.

(00:12:35):
Exactly.

(00:12:36):
But even with all that, the judge still ruled for Katya.

(00:12:39):
Yeah, that's huge.

(00:12:40):
And this is where you see that thin skull principle we talked about come into play.

(00:12:44):
It didn't matter that Katya might have been more vulnerable to this kind of thing.

(00:12:47):
The accident still did the damage.

(00:12:49):
You know,

(00:12:50):
in fact,

(00:12:50):
the judge specifically said that the accident basically took what was already there

(00:12:55):
with Miss Camacho's conditions and created this whole situation that completely

(00:12:59):
changed her life.

(00:13:00):
Strong words.

(00:13:01):
Wow.

(00:13:02):
So you're saying you can't just ignore someone's pain because they weren't

(00:13:05):
perfectly healthy to begin with,

(00:13:07):
right?

(00:13:07):
It's like what you said before.

(00:13:08):
You take your victim as you find them.

(00:13:10):
Everyone has a past.

(00:13:11):
Everyone has their own stuff going on.

(00:13:13):
And that's important.

(00:13:14):
It really makes you think about everyone out there living with these invisible illnesses,

(00:13:18):
things other people can't see,

(00:13:20):
trying to get that pain recognized not just by doctors,

(00:13:23):
but by the courts,

(00:13:24):
too.

(00:13:24):
For sure.

(00:13:25):
And I think this case, it reminds us that we need empathy.

(00:13:28):
You know,

(00:13:28):
we need to really hear what people are going through,

(00:13:31):
especially when it comes to chronic pain.

(00:13:33):
It's so easy to brush it off when you can't see it.

(00:13:35):
But this case shows it's very real and can have a huge impact.

(00:13:39):
So the judge ruled in Katia's favor.

(00:13:41):
What does that actually mean for her now?

(00:13:43):
After 14 years, what does she get?

(00:13:45):
Well, the judge awarded her a total of $471,298.85 in damages.

(00:13:50):
Okay.

(00:13:50):
Yeah.

(00:13:52):
So that includes money for her pain and suffering,

(00:13:55):
future lost wages,

(00:13:56):
and the cost of future care,

(00:13:57):
like medication,

(00:13:58):
therapy,

(00:13:59):
all of that.

(00:14:00):
That's a lot of money.

(00:14:01):
But like we've been saying, no amount can really make up for all of that.

(00:14:06):
The years of pain, the struggle to get treatment, her career being derailed.

(00:14:11):
It's true.

(00:14:12):
This wasn't just about the money.

(00:14:13):
It was about being heard, being believed.

(00:14:15):
You wonder,

(00:14:16):
though,

(00:14:17):
if things had been different from the beginning,

(00:14:19):
if she'd gotten better treatment right away,

(00:14:21):
could they have avoided all of this?

(00:14:23):
Would she even be in this much pain?

(00:14:26):
It's impossible to know, but it makes you think.

(00:14:28):
It really does.

(00:14:29):
And I think it speaks to this bigger issue of how we approach chronic pain as a society.

(00:14:33):
You know, how can we make diagnosis and treatment better?

(00:14:36):
How do we support people living with these invisible illnesses and make sure they

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can get what they need?

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It's a conversation that goes way beyond any courtroom.

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Katia's story, it's just one example, a powerful one, but still just one.

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It reminds us that chronic pain is complicated, and it affects everything.

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And it challenges us to really see people,

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to listen to their experiences,

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and to be more compassionate,

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more understanding,

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especially when it comes to things we can't see.

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This deep dive into Katya Camacho's story, it's been something else.

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It makes you think, you know.

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It's a story about resilience,

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about dealing with a system that's not always on your side,

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and about fighting for yourself.

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And it leaves us with a lot to think about.

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How we understand chronic pain,

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how the legal system does or doesn't address it,

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and how we can all do better by those who are living with it every single day.