1h 11 min
A Chimney Sweep’s Brush with Disaster—and Virtual Reality Painopolis
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- Medicina
Can’t sleep because of chronic pain? (And wondering if weed might help?) Get our new book, Cannabis Lullaby: A Painsomniac’s Quest for a Good Night’s Sleep. Available in print, ebook, and audiobook, it’s brimming with real-world, evidence-based answers. The author is Painopolis co-host David Sharp, an award-winning health journalist who nipped his pain-fueled insomnia in the bud. Buy a copy today at: painopolis.com/cannabis-lullaby/
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After a horrific fall from a roof, Bob Jester needed opioids to get through the day. Then he found something better than pills: the pain-fighting power of VR.
In the time it takes to tumble off a roof, Bob Jester’s life took a calamitous turn. A professional chimney sweep, Jester had spent decades working at a job that involved climbing onto high, steep rooftops. Given the obvious danger, he’d always been a stickler about safety. Then one August day in 2016, he made a slight blunder, and that’s all it took. An instant later, he fell 18 feet and broke 19 bones. Surgeons used metal rods and bolts to cobble together his fractured vertebrae. But despite the repairs, he was left with partial disability and intense chronic pain that he treated with opioids.
“Laid out before him was a dreamscape of images far more dazzling than anything on TV. In fact, virtual reality is to television what television is to daguerreotypes.”
Fortunately, this chimney sweep had also worked for 39 years as a high school science teacher. So when he looked for ways to reduce his suffering, guess which method he used? The scientific method. It became Jester’s road map, and his body became his laboratory. Harnessing the same spirit of experimentation that he’d taught to his students, he hit upon a revelatory finding little known beyond the pages of obscure medical journals.
His eureka moment happened while he was wearing a virtual-reality headset, which looks like futuristic ski goggles. But it’s what Jester saw inside those goggles that made all the difference. Laid out before him was a dreamscape of images far more dazzling than anything on TV. In fact, virtual reality is to television what television is to daguerreotypes. No matter how skillful the camerawork, even the best TV documentary about dolphins still boils down to two-dimensional, miniaturized animals moving across on a flat screen. You’d never mistake it for the real thing.
Watch a similar scene through VR googles, by contrast, and you’ll suddenly be surrounded by three-dimensional, life-size dolphins swirling around you, above you, and below you. It’s as if you’re actually there with Flipper and his friends in the ocean. Virtual dolphins look so palpably real that you’ll want to reach out and hand them a virtual fish.
For Jester, the effect of VR wasn’t just entertaining. It was transfixing. Whenever he had a flare-up, he’d pop on his VR headset and suddenly find himself swimming with dolphins. Or flying with the Wright Brothers. Or petting a virtual farm animal. Or wandering the ruins of Machu Picchu. The VR imagery transported him to a world so engrossing that his pain faded ...
Can’t sleep because of chronic pain? (And wondering if weed might help?) Get our new book, Cannabis Lullaby: A Painsomniac’s Quest for a Good Night’s Sleep. Available in print, ebook, and audiobook, it’s brimming with real-world, evidence-based answers. The author is Painopolis co-host David Sharp, an award-winning health journalist who nipped his pain-fueled insomnia in the bud. Buy a copy today at: painopolis.com/cannabis-lullaby/
Our toolbox:
Check out the following sponsored services we use and love.
Please support Painopolis:
Did you find this episode worth hearing? If so, kindly donate to Painopolis.
We appreciate it! Your donation allows us to keep bringing you great stories, strategies, and insights.
_____________________
After a horrific fall from a roof, Bob Jester needed opioids to get through the day. Then he found something better than pills: the pain-fighting power of VR.
In the time it takes to tumble off a roof, Bob Jester’s life took a calamitous turn. A professional chimney sweep, Jester had spent decades working at a job that involved climbing onto high, steep rooftops. Given the obvious danger, he’d always been a stickler about safety. Then one August day in 2016, he made a slight blunder, and that’s all it took. An instant later, he fell 18 feet and broke 19 bones. Surgeons used metal rods and bolts to cobble together his fractured vertebrae. But despite the repairs, he was left with partial disability and intense chronic pain that he treated with opioids.
“Laid out before him was a dreamscape of images far more dazzling than anything on TV. In fact, virtual reality is to television what television is to daguerreotypes.”
Fortunately, this chimney sweep had also worked for 39 years as a high school science teacher. So when he looked for ways to reduce his suffering, guess which method he used? The scientific method. It became Jester’s road map, and his body became his laboratory. Harnessing the same spirit of experimentation that he’d taught to his students, he hit upon a revelatory finding little known beyond the pages of obscure medical journals.
His eureka moment happened while he was wearing a virtual-reality headset, which looks like futuristic ski goggles. But it’s what Jester saw inside those goggles that made all the difference. Laid out before him was a dreamscape of images far more dazzling than anything on TV. In fact, virtual reality is to television what television is to daguerreotypes. No matter how skillful the camerawork, even the best TV documentary about dolphins still boils down to two-dimensional, miniaturized animals moving across on a flat screen. You’d never mistake it for the real thing.
Watch a similar scene through VR googles, by contrast, and you’ll suddenly be surrounded by three-dimensional, life-size dolphins swirling around you, above you, and below you. It’s as if you’re actually there with Flipper and his friends in the ocean. Virtual dolphins look so palpably real that you’ll want to reach out and hand them a virtual fish.
For Jester, the effect of VR wasn’t just entertaining. It was transfixing. Whenever he had a flare-up, he’d pop on his VR headset and suddenly find himself swimming with dolphins. Or flying with the Wright Brothers. Or petting a virtual farm animal. Or wandering the ruins of Machu Picchu. The VR imagery transported him to a world so engrossing that his pain faded ...
1h 11 min