For Grace leaders are Maryland bound this week to present at the Healthy Women Chronic Pain Summit. Sharing their expertise about how gender effects the pain experience, Cynthia Toussaint and John Garrett will talk about how they became advocates for women in pain and their caregivers, as well as For Grace's efforts to launch a California pain strategy. If you're in the Baltimore area, please consider attending this great event.

For Grace's fast-approaching educational briefing at the State Capitol in Sacramento aims to improve pain care in California and be a model for the rest of the country. Slated for August 14th, our press release details the event, one that will included world-class presenters in the field of pain management, research, advocacy and law. Presenters will urge the California legislature to establish a comprehensive Pain Center under the direction of the state's Health and Human Services agency.

For Grace has joined other pain advocacy organizations to forward the HHS's Inter-Agency Pain Management Task Force's recent report detailing  recommendations on how to improve pain care in the US. A letter, which For Grace leadership signed, will soon be sent asking Senators Lamar Alexander and Patty Murray to hold a hearing on the report as a follow-up to their February 2019 Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions (HELP) committee on pain.

Our July Story of the Month tells how Celeste Hall developed CRPS after being thrown from a moving car, leaving her with a broken leg and gangrene. For the next 20 years doctors told her she was a "high strung, nervous woman" because of her complaints of endless, burning pain. Finally one doctor believed her, but it was too late. Celeste's wish is that in the future women in pain will be taken seriously - and "get help in time."