itsthebunk?

You might know me from itsthebunk, from my days and nights and months and years in patient advocacy, patient engagement, patient-centered design, and more.

I chose the handle circa 2009/2010, when I began my being-out-in-public experiment by way of Tumblr and Twitter. With a third primary cancer diagnosis recently under my belt, I felt too vulnerable to use my own name. Wracking my brain for something snappy, the delightfully absurd phrase from Preston Sturges ("If you can't sleep at night... it isn't the coffee, it's the bunk") popped into my consciousness, and @itsthebunk was born.

Later, as my patient advocacy developed, Regina Holliday—whom I had met at the first Stanford Medicine X in 2011—painted this incredible portrait of me for The Walking Gallery and I have used it as my avatar ever since.

Some itsthebunk etymology: watch this trailer from Christmas in July by writer/director Preston Sturges, for the full phrase in context: