Stop Your Pain. Start Your Life. Regenerative Spine and Pain Regenerative Spine and Pain Institute Taking the Fight Against Chronic Pain to New Levels

Stop Your Pain. Start Your Life.

27 different therapies available to patients, Dr. Patel offers a range of treatments, often combined to attack highly specific causes of pain. Among the most promising and innovative treatments:

Botox for migraines. Stem cell injections to regenerate tissue and organs.

Gummy Bears infused with THC. Platelet-Rich Plasma to treat conditions from sports injuries and wounds to hair loss from chemotherapy. These are just a few of the cutting-edge therapies used by Dr. Ronak Patel, the founder and medical director of Regenerative Spine and Pain Institute in Plainsboro.

Botox for migraines. Stem cell injections to regenerate tissue and organs. Gummy Bears infused with THC. Platelet-Rich Plasma to treat conditions from sports injuries and wounds to hair loss from chemotherapy. These are just a few of the cutting-edge therapies used by Dr. Ronak Patel, the founder and medical director of Regenerative Spine and Pain Institute in Plainsboro.

“Many of these treatments may come as a surprise to patients suffering from chronic pain, especially those who think that their pain — and poor quality of life — is something they have to endure,” Dr. Patel notes. A double board-certified anesthesiologist and pain management specialist, Dr. Patel focuses on treating pain in the back, neck, face, and joints as well as pain related to cancer and chemotherapy.

27 different therapies available to patients, Dr. Patel offers a range of treatments, often combined to attack highly specific causes of pain. Among the most promising and innovative treatments:

Regenerative Medicine/ Stem Cell Therapy. Regenerative medicine is a fastgrowing, highly developed treatment that helps the body heal or rebuild itself. Dr. Patel uses stem cell therapy to treat ailments, particularly low back or neck pain, caused by degenerative vertebral discs or joint pain in the shoulders, hips, or knees caused by osteoarthritis. The patient’s stem cells are removed, purified, concentrated, and injected into the injured or weakened tissue. Stem cell therapy can also speed recovery and help avoid surgery.

Cannabis Therapy. The legalization of medical marijuana has brought new treatment options. “We are very excited by the potential of cannabis-based treatments and we comply fully with New Jersey’s evolving regulations,” says Dr. Patel. He uses a local dispensary to provide treatments, which include edibles such as gummy bears and cannabis-based rubbing and vaping oils.

With so many different pain-causing illnesses, injuries, and conditions, treatments must be carefully customized to fit the needs of each individual patient. Dr. Patel partners with orthopedists, physical and occupational therapists, and chiropractors to provide a variety of approaches and treatments. With

With so many different pain-causing illnesses, injuries, and conditions, treatments must be carefully customized to fit the needs of each individual patient. Dr. Patel partners

Platelet-Rich Plasma (PRP). A favorite treatment for sports injuries, PRP uses the patient’s blood to produce a platelet-rich plasma that targets a host of chronic and acute pain conditions, including muscle strain, arthritis, tendinosis, cartilage injuries, joint inflammation, and wound care. The treatment is also used in orthopedic and plastic surgery. By synthesizing platelets and releasing proteins, PRP can aid in generating new tissue. And it has helped chemotherapy patients grow back hair faster and thicker.

Minimally Invasive Therapy. Dr. Patel offers a wide variety of minimally invasive therapies. These include epidural steroid injections, facet joint injections, radiofrequency ablation, and spinal cord stimulation for patients suffering from chronic neck and back pain stemming from herniated discs, degenerative disc disease, or spinal stenosis. His goal is to help his patients avoid surgery and at the same time regain functionality.

Thanks to these and other game-changing treatments, pain levels can be greatly reduced or eliminated and quality of life enhanced. Says Dr. Patel, “Stop your pain. Start your life.”

Thanks to these and other game-changing treatments, pain levels can be greatly reduced or eliminated and quality of life enhanced. Says Dr. Patel, “Stop your pain. Start your life.” her own, married lawyer Richard Stockton, one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence.

The well-connected couple called a property in Princeton, Morven, their home. William Penn, Richard’s grandfather, had given him the land, and Annis decided to name the mansion after the Gaelic word for “big hill.”

Morven served as the state’s first governor’s mansion before it was historically preserved in honor of its many cultural and artistic contributions.

Annis expressed her feelings in verse as she awaited her husband’s return—first from his general travels, but especially following his imprisonment by British forces during the Revolutionary War.

Despite the two’s eventual reunion, Richard died only a few years after his release.

The Disappointment! (1756)

An Ode to Mr. Stockton

I see my kind protector come To soothe my throbbing heart to rest.

He breaks that cloud’s o’erspreading gloom

And chases midnight from my breast.

No tis not him a shadowy sprite. So like my lover met my eyes

Some angel left the fields of light Touch’d with compassion at my sighs.

No more he joins the Social band

Around my cheerful fire side

Where friendships fascinating wand

Once made his hours serenely glide. Tis not for me that voice to hearWhence sprightly wit and manly sense

Can floe to charm the brow of care And wisdom’s choicest gifts dispense.

But he shall live within my heart — His image all my Joy supply And when death hurls the fatal dart I’ll bear it with me to the sky. Yes see the blessed hour arrives

Ev’n now the peaceful clime I view When gentle love and virtue thrives And souls their lapsed powers renew.

No disappointment enters there — The tender heart no absence pain —

For love refin’d is angels’ fare — For love eternal ever reigns.

Ellen Foos is a Princeton-based poet and the founder of Ragged Sky Press, a publication that “has historically focused on mature voices, overlooked poets, and women’s perspectives” since 1992. She is also a past editor for the Princeton University Press.

Evening Out (for Blossom Dearie)

We’re out to celebrate, me and Stan, in our modest way. Sure, other day-trippers are doing the same, having a little fun too, we’ll try not to spoil the scene.

Once we lived here, drank the water, bought cheese on the Avenue. Now to catch a little romance we overpay, wedge our way in, sport last year’s couture. We may hold hands and when the piano plays lean back, adjust our chairs. If we miss the revolution or get to it late someone please hold the door.

Henry Van Dyke was a theologian who graduated from Princeton University— where he would later teach English—and the Princeton Theological Seminary in 1873 and 1877, respectively.

A Presbyterian minister by trade, Van Dyke also wrote poems and short stories. He began his career by reading his works “aloud to his congregation in New York as sermons,” according to his Britannica biography.

While these pieces share a similar theme, the first is written as a sonnet.

Love (1902)

Let me but love my love without disguise,

Nor wear a mask of fashion old or new,

Nor wait to speak till I can hear a clue,

Nor play a part to shine in others’ eyes,

Nor bow my knees to what my heart denies;

But what I am, to that let me be true, And let me worship where my love is due, And so through love and worship let me rise.

For love is but the heart’s immortal thirst

To be completely known and all forgiven, Even as sinful souls that enter Heaven:

So take me, dear, and understand my worst,

And freely pardon it, because confessed,

And let me find in loving thee, my best.

Love in a Look

Let me but feel thy look’s embrace, Transparent, pure, and warm, And I’ll not ask to touch thy face, Or fold thee with mine arm.

For in thine eyes a girl doth rise, Arrayed in candid bliss, And draws me to her with a charm More close than any kiss.

A loving-cup of golden wine, Songs of a silver brook, And fragrant breaths of eglantine, Are mingled in thy look. More fair they are than any star, Thy topaz eyes divine — And deep within their trysting-nook Thy spirit blends with mine.

Luray Gross currently resides in Bucks County, where she was named the 2002 Poet Laureate.

A graduate of Trenton State College, now the College of New Jersey, she went on to become a Geraldine R. Dodge poet and the recipient of the New Jersey State Council on the Arts Poetry Fellowship.

The Love Poem I Haven’t Written for Paul

After all this time, the love poem

I haven’t written for you had nearly given up hope, not realizing it didn’t need to be constrained or controlled, could swoon or soar if it felt like it.

Though it’s been terribly timid, lately it’s been practicing a quiet whistle, rather like the hum in the ears of a fifth-grade girl coasting her bike down a hill that’s barely a hill, just enough slope to keep her upright without pedaling. There’s no breeze except the breeze her moving body teaches the air as she passes through it.

This poem wants that girl to know she owns something no one else does, wants her to feel the ache, only enough to be sure.

The poem might start singing at any moment, quietly as first, trying this word and that, a phrase or two, just something to get a rhythm going. It might be hard to hear, but if you stay still and lean in, I’m sure you’ll hear it call out your name.

Francis Hopkinson, known as Bordentown’s own Founding Father, signed the Declaration of Independence just as Richard Stockton did.

As “America’s first poet-composer,” the humorous harpsichordist worked in law and on his lyrical abilities.

When not working as a judge, Hopkinson wrote original secular songs, which the subsequent poem became, as well as satirical pieces.

Give Me Thy Heart

(1789)

Give me thy heart as I give mine, Our hands in mutual bonds will join, Propitious may our union prove, What’s life without the joys of love?

Should care knock rudely at our gate, Admittance to obtain, Cupid shall at the casement wait, And bid him call again!

Give me thy heart as I give mine Our hands in mutual bonds will join, Propitious may our union prove, What’s life without the joys of love?

Roberta Clipper’s poetry and fiction have been published nationally.

The Bordentown resident is a former professor at Rider University, where she retired from the English department in 2021 after serving as chair and instructor.

Ode on an American Email

“More happy love! more happy, happy love!

For ever warm and still to be en - joyed, For ever panting and for ever young.”

— John Keats

Letters typed four hundred miles away spatter the white screen like the sunflower seeds he throws across the snow for hungry birds. You are a woman, clearly, he types back, who lies about her age. How could she be older than the long-haired girl who sat beside him in his Montreal Peugeot trying to stop him from behaving as her elder, the teacher she has told him she has now herself become?

Oh for the belief in a religion that bears us once again to the moments when we did not act. Then might he be a boy, his beard mere shadow on his icon of a face, his heart unbroken, and hers the one inscribed with past betrayals, propriety that would not let her love.

It might be her car then, her hand, the back of his neck, and she the one who says, “It’s time for you to go.” But he said it. And she went.

How innocent they were, discussing Keats’ unravished bride, the boy who longs for consummation, and the luck they had to stay in love because they had no chance of falling out of it. Let us grow new memories on memories we do not know we have. Let us pray for an incarnation in which both of us are still nineteen, our hearts intact, and our hands not yet touched enough to not yet touch.

Philip Freneau, a sea captain with a proclivity for poetry and politics, was the staunchly Jeffersonian editor of the “National Gazette.” His narrative style earned him the moniker “poet of the American Revolution.”

Freneau, an alumnus of Princeton University, spent a significant amount of time at sea on trade voyages. He likely wrote this poem lamenting the waves of separation between him and his wife, Eleanor Forman.

According to “The Poems of Philip Fre- neau,” a free eBook by Project Gutenberg, “To Cynthia” first appeared in print with two variations before the author settled on this final version.

Before opting for “Jersey,” Freneau’s initial line spoke of “Monmouth’s,” the county where he lived, and then “Morven’s vale” as a homage to the Stocktons’ famous Princeton estate.

To Cynthia (1789)

Through Jersey groves, a wandering stream

That still its wonted music keeps, Inspires no more my evening dream, Where Cynthia, in retirement, sleeps.

Sweet murmuring stream! how blest art thou

To kiss the bank where she resides, Where Nature decks the beechen bough

That trembles o’er your shallow tides.

The cypress-tree on Hermit’s height,

Where Love his soft addresses paid By Luna’s pale reflected light — No longer charms me to its shade! To me, alas! so far removed, What raptures, once, that scenery gave,

Ere wandering yet from all I loved, I sought a deeper, drearier wave. Your absent charms my thoughts employ: by son of Black

I sigh to think how sweet you sung, And half adore the painted toy That near my careless heart you hung.

Now, fettered fast in icy fields, In vain we loose the sleeping sail; The frozen wave no longer yields, And useless blows the favouring gale.

Yet, still in hopes of vernal showers, And breezes, moist with morning dew, I pass the lingering, lazy hours, Reflecting on the spring — and you.

Todd Evans is a Trenton-born poet and arts event coordinator. He founded the Don Evans Players Theater Group as a tribute to his late father, Don Evans, a playwright who taught at numerous area institutions—Princeton High School, Princeton University, Rutgers University, but most notably, the College of New Jersey, where he served as the chair of the African American studies department.

Todd’s pen name, “Son of Black,” honors Don’s legacy, as well as how his father smoked Captain Black pipe tobacco.

(for HER lest we NEVER forget) uplift HER, submit to HER, commit to HER, acknowledge HER, appreciate HER, love HER, pray with HER, pray for HER, trust HER, and maybe just maybe you will keep HER, in your heart and you in HER”S do this try your best, and never forget give no less for a relationship...is always a work in progress

Consider yourself a new secret admirer of these poets? Take a cue from Fanny Parnell—be bold by showing your affection the first weekend of February in Bordentown, then keep the momentum through Valentine’s Day and beyond.

Stop Your Pain. Start Your Life. Regenerative Spine and Pain Regenerative Spine and Pain Institute Taking the Fight Against Chronic Pain to New Levels

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