What's The Matter With Me? Podcast

Disabled voices are just like regular voices, just like anybody. Using our voice makes it stronger, and it’s doubly true for disabled people who’ve been disenfranchised, and hidden away, and censored. Begin Transcript JOHN HOPPIN: What these people said really impacted me and really moved me, so I wanted to talk about this. Welcome. Thank you for tuning in. Welcome to the What’s...

Compounded trauma is when things make us upset, because they remind us of traumatic situations that we’ve experienced before, causing us to relive them. When I feel this way, naming the feelings I am having, and explicitly connecting them, can be a way to overcome them. The thing is, my wife likes creepy stuff. I don’t like watching surgery. When the scalpels come out, I check out of t...

We all need to put in effort to get ourselves out there, because it can be hard on your mental health to be so isolated. It’s important to be part of a community, and be involved, and have exchange with people. I’ve been spending a lot of my creative effort trying to keep my business open. Crippled crisp review is two disabled Dutch comedians eating potato chips together. I have begun...

Day 67 COVID-19 self isolation I’m working in the garden, while wearing my new AFO brace in this episode of the What’s The Matter With Me? Podcast.

Two months into coronavirus self-isolation, I’m thinking about how this is an important time, one that we’ll remember forever and that our kids will also remember. In this episode of the What’s The Matter With Me? Podcast, I’m thinking about the importance of this time.

Welcome back to the What’s The Matter With Me? Podcast. Day 42 of Covid-19 Coronavirus quarantine finds me thinking about the value of disabled life. What is the Principle of Non discrimination? The principle of non-discrimination seeks “to guarantee that human rights are exercised without discrimination of any kind based on race, colour, sex, language, religion, political or other opinion,...

Day 23 of self-isolation I’m going to try practicing some acceptance to get through this terrible experience of confinement, which is worse than usual. Begin Transcript JOHN HOPPIN: You are listening to the What’s The Matter With Me? Podcast. My name is John. I’m 40 years old, husband, father of two, small business owner, radio DJ, podcaster, and I have multiple sclerosis. So I m...

Day 14 in isolation coronavirus isolation has my mind stressing, the amygdala, anion mal brain underneath the hippocampus, the thinking part of my brain. Looking around at the newspaper, it seems like there’s a lot of nutso animals on the prowl right now in our culture and around the world. And it’s a lot of stress. It creates this stress, it’s bad for MS, it’s bad for many...

A crash course in distance learning I recorded this message on lockdown. I can’t go anywhere due to the coronavirus pandemic and my multiple sclerosis condition. I’m in my house with my family, trying to educate my kids and keep their development on track. We’re taking a crash course in distance learning, e-learning, online education, or whatever it’s called, sooner than an...

The orthotist came up with a second brace concept, and I went back for a fitting that left me feeling a bit dejected. She took a video of me walking in the examination room. She showed it to me after. It was framed from the knee down. Looking at it made me feel really disabled. I felt ashamed of myself. I felt sorry for myself. it was kind of nauseating. I looked at myself as an object. I felt dis...

People are listening People are listening to the What’s The Matter With Me? Podcast. I even found some podcast statistics to prove it. More people listened than ever last month. They come from a lot of places around the world, and different places in the US. We’ll cover all of our podcast statistics in this episode of What’s The Matter With Me? Podcast, “Podcast Statistics....

In this episode, I went to get a new ankle-foot-orthotic (AFO) brace. basically, a rigid ankle brace. Things got emotional. BEGIN TRANSCRIPT Yeah! You are tuned in to the What’s The Matter With Me? podcast, “New AFO Brace.” What up! What’s The Matter With Me? In this episode, I went to get a new ankle-foot-orthotic AFO brace. Basically, it’s a rigid ankle brace. Thing...

Get The Whole Story:  Please check the Microvascular Decompression tag page to hear all the updates about my MVD surgery. I had microvascular decompression surgery to alleviate trigeminal neuralgia, and now I’m in recovery again. BEGIN TRANSCRIPT Thank you for tuning in to the What’s The Matter With Me? Podcast “I’m recovering again”. It’s pretty windy. I am rec...

I’m changing the format. Plus, listen to the new theme song for season 4! begin transcript All right. Thanks for tuning into the What’s the Matter With Me? Podcast, “Format Change.” This is the first episode. I guess you’d call it an episode. I have in the past. The first episode of the fourth season. For the last few years, I’ve been restarting the season at th...

I went to Costco on the Saturday before Thanksgiving. On accident, of course I didn’t think about it. I went to the Cantor Arts Center at Stanford University. I had to position myself to avoid the glare. The Rodin, they had “The Thinker”. So, I went into the gallery and saw that and I had to kind of position myself all around it. And because you have to spend so much, because I h...

I have a wheelchair and I busted it out over the weekend. It was kind of a big deal. I’ve never ridden around in a wheelchair before. We’ve talked about it before on the podcast that I’ve got the wheelchair, but also that I’m kind of apprehensive about riding around in a wheelchair. But I did it. I was with my family. I had gone to see my cousin Amy in the hospital where sh...

Check the Get The Whole Story:  Please check the Microvascular Decompression tag page to hear all the updates about my MVD surgery. Welcome to the What’s The Matter With Me? Podcast, “grief and trauma” Overlapping grief and trauma and my new post-trigeminal neuralgia existence are causing anxiety and fear. My brain chemistry, the amygdala, stress, fight-or-flight part of my...

Get The Whole Story:  Please check the Microvascular Decompression tag page to hear all the updates about my MVD surgery. I record this podcast to let people know when bad things happen you don’t have to quit. You can keep going. I’ve learned things along the way. I started out thinking that I was sick but now I know that I am in recovery. My life feels totally different now I have a lot mor...

Get The Whole Story:  Please check the Microvascular Decompression tag page to hear all the updates about my MVD surgery. Notes So they were like, “Something is weird. We got to put the EKG on him.” But I’m like a hairy individual, you know? So they got out the trimmers, they’re like, “What?” They’re just like, “What do we do?” … she says...

Get The Whole Story:  Please check the Microvascular Decompression tag page to hear all the updates about my MVD surgery. What’s The Matter With Me? Podcast Season 3, Episode 14 Excerpt: “Flapping My Arms” One thing I did notice about the last episode is that I’m flapping my arms again. I first figured out of it about flapping my arms in episode five: “and this is kin...

Trigeminal neuralgia hurts like hell. I’m going to have micro vascular decompression surgery, get out of pain, get off these pain medications, and contribute to my family again. I signed up to have surgery. They’re going to pop a hole in my skull and operate on my trigeminal nerve. It’s called micro vascular decompression surgery. BEGIN TRANSCRIPT John Hoppin: What’s The Matter With Me...

wtmwm s3 e12 i awoke up this morning to a familiar nausea. i’d forgotten to take my pills the night before. still can’t get it straight. got me thinkin’…. this podcast – like me – is disabled.  not only a podcast about disability or adversity, CHALLENGES or perserverance, this podcast itself is disabled maybe i shouldn’t call it a podcast. but, it’s...

Pain / Withdrawal Cycle Swallowing Evaluation AKA Diagnostic Fluoroscopy Had pain and went to the Nurse Practitioner .. Medication (mis-)management traps me in the the pain & withdrawal cycle. Read more for my visit to the nurse practicioner, diagnostic fluoroscopy, postlude with John John & more. BEGIN TRANSCRIPT JOHN HOPPIN: Welcome to the What’s the Matter with Me Podcast, season...

Google’s Project Euphonia helps disabled people communicate Five weeks of mayhem, pain and drug withdrawal ALSO, Five Weeks of Mayhem, Pain &Drug Withdrawal (Picking up the pieces) TRANSCRIPT JOHN HOPPIN: Welcome to the What’s The Matter With Me? Podcast Season Three, Episode 10: Disability Technology. Coming up, Google’s Project Euphonia helps disabled people communicate. I...

“Face hurts … Tomorrow is Koko’s 3rd Birthday” Man!– I have trigeminal neuralgia, my face hurts. Ow! The kids had to go away, it hurt so bad I couldn’t handle it and I freaked out. I’ve been staring at plants in the garden. I grilled chicken for the whole family, had dinner and couldn’t eat it, because my face hurt. Tomorrow is Koko’s third bir...