How I Rebuilt My Life With Chronic Pain and Remote Work: 25 Years of Resilience

My Life Before Pain

I grew up chasing the NHL dream. I was a AAA hockey player, skating daily, training like my future depended on it, because it did. Movement, strength, and competition weren’t just hobbies; they were my identity.

Life was structured, joyful, and full of momentum. Until it wasn’t.

Living with chronic pain and remote work isn’t a life I chose, it’s one I had to master.

The Day Everything Changed

At fifteen, I had what should’ve been a routine cyst removal under my tongue. Two weeks later, my body turned against me. Pain started in my toe, climbed through my legs, and within days, every step felt like fire.

After five months of tests and agony, the rheumatologist finally gave it a name: psoriatic arthritis. Just like that, everything I had built my life around was stripped away.

I still remember one night from that year. Window cracked, cool breeze rustling the trees, my hips and knees throbbing so badly I could barely shift in bed. I pulled the blanket over my face and cried, not for attention, but because I didn’t know what else to do. That was the first time I felt truly invisible.

The NHL dream was gone. The body I’d trained daily was unrecognizable. My teenage years weren’t just disrupted, they were derailed. But I wasn’t done.

Why Remote Work Became My Lifeline With Chronic Pain

My twenties were a grind of trial and error. Painting houses to pay bills while juggling school. Masking pain with ibuprofen until it burned a hole in my stomach. Spending hours in saunas and steam rooms just to loosen my joints enough to sleep.

Eventually, I landed in corporate tech. I thought a desk job might bring stability. Instead, it brought a different kind of battle: office chairs I couldn’t sit in, long meetings with no breaks, the quiet pressure to hide what I was going through.

Then came the realization: I thrived when I worked from home. Less stress. More control. Freedom to move. At home, I could stretch between calls. Work from the couch when my spine locked up. Breathe without pretending I was fine.

I remember gripping the sides of a conference chair during a team meeting, pain radiating through my ribs. My face looked calm, maybe even engaged, but inside I was counting seconds until I could leave. No one knew. I didn’t explain.

So I asked to work remotely, not for convenience but for survival. I framed it honestly: “I love what I do. But if I keep going like this, I won’t last.” My manager said yes. That single decision changed everything.

Wayne Gretzky once said, “You miss 100% of the shots you don’t take.” That was mine.

The Truth About Invisible Illness

Here’s the cruel part: you wouldn’t know it by looking at me.

Most days I live at a steady 6/10 on the pain scale. Some days are better. Others pull me under. But I’ve learned not to wait for pain‑free days. I move anyway. I work anyway. I live anyway.

What hurts more than the pain is what it tried to take: my identity, my momentum, my hope. Chronic illness didn’t just change my life, it forced me to redesign it from scratch.

My Systems for Living With Chronic Pain and Remote Work

I’m not pain‑free, but I’m powerful. These are the systems that keep me going:

• Sauna, steam, or Epsom salt baths (3–5x/week)
• Stationary bike (3x/week)
• Light weights (2x/week)
• Nightly stretching
• Remote‑first workflow: batch work, deep focus, rest intervals
• Boundaries as structure: protected mornings, guilt‑free breaks, time‑blocked recovery
• Supportive footwear + quality bedding: inflammation game changers

I use movement as medicine, structure as therapy, and honest self‑talk as my daily reset. These systems aren’t optional. They’re for survival.

For Anyone Else Living With Invisible Pain

If you’re here because chronic pain has taken something from you — your career, your identity, your energy — I want you to know you’re not alone.

RemoteResilient.com exists because I’ve spent 25 years building and testing systems to stay functional with chronic pain and remote work. Not theories. Not hacks. Real routines that held me up when nothing else did.

If you want to keep going, start with these:

And if you’re ready, I’d love to hear your story. You can reach me through my Contact Page.

You don’t have to do this alone.