Courses for a Cause: Help Support Patients of CRPS

Scrum Alliance® is proud to promote two fundraising courses taught by our Certified Scrum Trainers^® (CSTs^®), Anil Jaising and Rick Waters. The proceeds from these courses will benefit patients with Complex Regional Pain Syndrome (CRPS).

The first fundraising event will be an online Certified ScrumMaster^® (CSM^®) course taught by Rick Waters, CST on 20-21 September 2021. 100% of the proceeds from this fundraiser will go towards three specific grants at the Burning Limb Foundation: the Elle Seiden Memorial Grant for young women under the age of 25, the Becca Clark Memorial Grant for young women under the age of 20, and the General Fund Grant that is dedicated to United States veterans and their family members.

The Burning Limb Foundation gives those suffering from CRPS and related Chronic Illnesses advocacy and action through a lens of compassion, hope, and understanding. The mission at The Burning Limb Foundation is to help people suffering from Chronic Illness find hope and financial assistance: “We believe everyone, regardless of ability to pay, should have the same opportunity to heal.”

The second event will also be a virtual CSM course taught by Anil Jaising, CST on 16-17 October 2021. The beneficiary of this event will be sixteen-year-old Laetitia who has suffered from CRPS since 2017.

Read more about her story in her mother’s words: 

“Laetitia, a resident of the Netherlands, has been in the United States for the past year undergoing treatment, but her mother ran out of funds. To continue Laetitia's treatment, her family needs a machine (ARP Wave) that is very critical in her treatment. This device ensures that Laetitia's muscles are reactivated, become stronger, and recover, but most importantly, to reset the brain so that the nervous system will function better and the pain will reduce. Laetitia is on the right track with this, and it is important now that Laetitia can continue this treatment in the Netherlands and continue to work on her progress at home using the ARP and online sessions with her therapist. To achieve this, we must urgently collect enough money to purchase the ARP before we leave back home, so we can take it with us to the Netherlands.”

What is CRPS?

CRPS is a rare neurological condition that starts with an innocent sprain, injury, or surgery that leads to a non-stop, excruciatingly painful journey.  The nervous system becomes over-stimulated and takes on disproportionate forms while continuing to send overactive pain signals to the affected body parts, and, at times, other parts coupled with:

Severe burning or aching pain that increases with even the slightest touch or breeze

• Fluctuations in skin temperature between hot and cold
• Rapid growth of hair and nails
• Muscle spasms and joint pain
• Allodynia (nerve pain)
• Light sensitivity

Meet Ananya Jaising, a young CRPS warrior

These charitable courses taught by our CSTs are being organized by Ananya Jaising, a young CRPS warrior who would like to support those who suffer from CRPS that may have difficulty paying for treatment. 100% of the ticket sales for these two courses will go to the Burning Limb Foundation and Foundation Hope for Laetitia.

You can read Ananya’s story in her own words:

“I was diagnosed with CRPS in February 2020, but my actual injury dates back to August 2019. I had just started my freshman year of high school, and during cross country practice, I sprained my ankle. This small injury led to CRPS spreading through my full body and made it almost impossible to live my life normally. 

After almost two years of not knowing what would help soothe my pain, we found a clinic, and there I learned what I needed to help other people like me. The Spero Clinic is not a large place concerning the work they do. It’s a homey building filled with rooms of offices, blue-green couches, and people that all share the same vibrating energy of hope. This is where people like me come to seek relief from chronic pain syndromes, such as CRPS, Fibromyalgia, POTS, EDS, and Gastroparesis— all neurological conditions that manifest their existence through unending spontaneously generated pain. 

Yet when I arrived at the end of my first week, people were leaving, still carrying all of their pain with them. I could have never imagined leaving the one place that might give me any relief from the burden I had been facing for the last two years. Somehow hearing the words from the mother-daughter duo, “We ran out of funds and are going to come back after doing some fundraising,” was the most heartbreaking scene. CRPS is hard to deal with beyond pain and tiredness— it triggers you on an emotional level by taking away parts of yourself that you treasure. You are constantly confronted with your own raw broken bleeding heart, and forced to deal with feelings and anxieties you were never prepared for. When living life with chronic pain and seeking treatment is this tumultuous and arduous of a process, money should never have to be a factor in receiving the best treatments. 

That’s why I made it my goal to help support the people in my community to fund their treatments by partnering with Scrum Alliance and the Burning Limb Foundation to donate money to low-income groups who do not get access to proper medical help. I also hope to continue to generate awareness for chronic pain and the overall gaslighting patients of invisible illnesses have had to face from the medical community. The most meaningful lesson I have learned from having chronic pain syndrome is that people fill in each other’s gaps and that’s why we need to help each other, so we can create a beautiful puzzle.”

Take a Certified ScrumMaster course to support those with CRPS 

You can support patients of CRPS while receiving world-class Scrum training and the highly recognized CSM certification by registering for these courses:

Sign up for Rick Waters’ CSM course for the Burning Limb Foundation on 20-21 September 2021

Sign up for Anil Jaising’s CSM course for Foundation Hope for Laetitia on 16-17 October 2021