In the summer between third and fourth grade my mother and father sat my sister and I down and informed us that my mom had been diagnosed with multiple sclerosis. My mom’s experience of MS emulates narrative concepts detailed in Arthur W. Frank’s The Wounded Storyteller. In his work, Frank describes different kinds of illness narratives ranging from the morbid chaos narrative to the more inspiring restitution narrative. In accordance with Frank’s definitions, my mother has responded to the situation by using her body didactically and communicatively by proactively reaching out to an active community of MS sufferers, including recently diagnosed friends and family. She has used her body with discipline as well, through her commitment to a prescription …show more content…
The disciplined body, as Frank describes, tells its story “through the pursuit of the regimen” (42). Managing the her job as a cardiac nurse and taking care of my sister and I was not an easy regimen to continue with MS, but thanks to her bodily discipline, it was one she kept to without fail. Living such a stressful life, the loss of bodily function was impossible to accept. To prevent the symptoms of MS from worsening and “compensate for contingencies [she could not] accept,” my mom began a prescription of nightly intramuscular injections (41). Her medicine, which she continues today, does not “provide pleasure,” but her adherence to it has ensured her “predictability of performance” (44). Her treatment makes sure her pain stays manageable and has guaranteed her ability to work and help provide for our family. I think the regimen that gave my mother the most pleasure was simply returning to her normal life. She continued her 24-hour shifts wearing Band-Aids to cover the bruises at her injection sites and came home smiling for dinner. After ten years with her diagnosis, my mother’s condition along with the injections, have become parts of normal life to my family. In defiance of Frank’s assertion that “a self dissociated from its body will rarely seek and discover terms of association with others,” my …show more content…
In an attempt to both keep her knowledge of her disease as up to date as possible as well as to interact with the global community of MS sufferers, my mother subscribes to a handful of MS newsletters and magazines. These periodicals always include testimonials from patients and doctors alike, exemplifying the idea of storytelling as the “privileged medium of the dyadic body” (36). Through sharing their experiences with MS, this community “both offers its own pain and receives the reassurance that others recognize what afflicts [them]” (36). In a small way as a reader, my mother recognizes that the bodies of other people afflicted with her condition “[have] to do with [her], and [she] with [them]” (35). My mother’s body acts as a dyadic and communicative body on a more significant level in her relationships with other patients (37). About two years ago, my mother’s cousin Veronica was diagnosed with MS. Her neurologist recommended she too begin taking Copaxone to curb the progression of her symptoms. “[Seeing] others who [were] pained by her pain,” my mother became “a body for other bodies,”—calling and visiting Veronica more often and counseling her on managing the disease (36, 37). In this way, my mother “communes her story with others,” and so embodies the communicative body type (50). Moreover, her support was not only practical in nature but
These two essays are about two dissimilar disabilities. Nancy Mairs and David Sedaris act as examples of how an author’s writing can change the tone and meaning of a narrative. Mairs message was educational and encouraging as she explained her life with MS and how society sees her. Sedaris use of experience and memories portrays his life with obsessive-compulsive disorder; what he calls “tics”. These two writers take similar topics and pitch them in ways so the reader can see the illustration behind them.
Mairs’ piece is a careful examination of her experience with MS and her perspective towards her future. In contrast, Soyster writes humorously of a particular incident he had with MS and artfully weaves his ideas about the disease in with his story. In both instances, the authors share the purpose of narrating their encounter with MS to the world to raise awareness.
“I am a Cripple,” when people typically hear these words they tend to feel bad for that person, but that is exactly what Mair does not want. She prefers that people treat her the same as they would if she did not have the disease. Throughout the essay, Mair discuses her disease openly. She uses an optimistic tone, so that the reader will not recoil with sadness when they hear her discuss the disease and how it affects her life. In Nancy Mair’s essay “On Being A Cripple,” Mair uses her personal stories, diction, and syntactical structures to create an optimistic tone throughout the essay, so that the audience can better connect story.
Although illness narratives are not novel or new, their prevalence in modern popular literature could be attributed to how these stories can be relatable, empowering, and thought-provoking. Susan Grubar is the writer for the blog “Living with Cancer”, in The New York Times, that communicates her experience with ovarian cancer (2012). In our LIBS 7001 class, Shirley Chuck, Navdeep Dha, Brynn Tomie, and I (2016) discussed various narrative elements of her more recent blog post, “Living with Cancer: A Farewell to Legs” (2016). Although the elements of narration and description (Gracias, 2016) were easily identified by all group members, the most interesting topics revolved around symbolism as well as the overall impression or mood of the post.
What symptoms classify a person to be diagnosed as sick? A cough, a sore throat, or maybe a fever. Often times when individuals refer to the word ‘sick’, they neglect to mention a common disorder, one which takes a tremendous amount of personal determination, courage and strength in order to overcome. Mental illness took the author, Joanne Greenberg, down a path complete with obstacles, forcing her to battle against schizophrenia, a chronic brain disorder resulting in delusions, hallucinations, trouble with thinking and concentration as well as a lack of motivation. This complex piece of literature was originally composed to fight against the prejudice accusations associated with mental illness, while providing the semi-autobiographical novelist
1. The body of chronically ill person is a nexus of living meanings made manifest by the patients articulations of pain and health, of sufferings and joy.
Nancy Mairs, born in 1943, described herself as a radical feminist, pacifist, and cripple. She is crippled because she has multiple sclerosis (MS), which is a chronic disease involving damage to the nerve cells and spinal cord. In her essay Disability, Mairs’ focus is on how disabled people are portrayed, or rather un-portrayed in the media. There is more than one audience that Mairs could have been trying to reach out to with this piece. The less-obvious audience would be disabled people who can connect to her writing because they can relate to it. The more obvious audience would be physically-able people who have yet to notice the lack of disabled people being portrayed by the media. Her purpose is to persuade the audience that disabled people should be shown in the media more often, to help society better cope with and realize the presence of handicapped people. Mairs starts off by saying “For months now I’ve been consciously searching for representation of myself in the media, especially television. I know I’d recognize this self becaus...
Multiple Sclerosis (MS) is a complicated chronic deteriorating disease that has an effect on the central nervous system (CNS). This disease causes destruction of the myelin around the nerve fibers. “The exact etiology of Multiple Sclerosis is unknown; however, it is thought to be an immune mediated disease. MS is characterized by CNS inflammation, demyelination, and axonal loss” (Compston & Coles, 2008). Typically, it is described by early relapses and remissions of neurological signs of the CNS. This is known as relapsing-remitting MS (RRMS). MS can be identified by a variety of known risk factors. Multiple Sclerosis can be brought on by a mixture of inherited and environmental risk factors such as smoking or an exposure to a virus like Epstein Barr. The inflammatory process has an interesting role on the central nervous system.
Though illness is an important step in the development of the world society tends to react, oddly to illness. Whether said illness is physical, mental, or a mix of the two, people just don't know how to react to the issue of sickness. This is present in both class books in multiple ways. In The Art Of Racing On The Rain by Garth Stein one of the main characters is diagnosed with brain cancer, as a result the protagonist Denny has to deal with this in lots of ways, and it doesn't help much that when people are told of his struggle they awkwardly remove themselves from the situation. When Denny waits for the bus with Enzo and Zoë to go to school another father befriends him, but it finally gets to the point when the man asks about Denny's wife, he replies, ‘“She's recovering from brain cancer.” The man dipped his head sadly upon hearing the situation. After that day, whenever we went to the bus stop, the man made himself busy talking to other people or checking his phone,” (Stein 131). In Still Alice by Lisa Genova, the main character Alice has to resign as a researcher and professor of Harvard as she is diagnosed with Early Onset Alzheimer's. As a result all the people she worked with previously had found out and one person in particular said, “Are you sure? You don't look any different.” (Genova 184). People always tend to believe illness entails that a person will somehow look different, obviously not always true, especially with mental illness. People always expect something to be different or something else to happen and that's not always true. Another part in The Art Of Racing In The Rain Eve finally comes home from being in the hospital and Enzo interprets it as, “I didn't like any of this, all the new furniture, Eve looking limp and sad, people standing around like Christmas without presents.” (Stein 118). All these
Multiple sclerosis is a chronic disease of the central nervous system. It is understood as an autoimmune disease, a condition where the body’s immune system mistakenly attacks normal tissues. In Multiple Sclerosis, the patient’s own cells & antibodies attack the fatty myelin sheath that protects and insulates nerve fibres in the brain and spinal cord, the two components of the CNS. This ultimately causes damage to the nerve cells and without the insulation the myelin sheath provides, nerve communication is disrupted. Hence, Multiple Sclerosis is characterized by symptoms that reflect central nervous system involvement (Luzzio, 2014).
Multiple Sclerosis is a nervous system disease that affects the spinal cord and the brain by damaging the myelin sheaths that protects nerve cells. Destroyed myelin prevents messages from communicating and sending properly from the brain, through the spinal cord, to internal body parts. In the United States, more than 350,000 people are diagnosed with this disease. Anyone can get this disease, but it is more common among Caucasian women. MS symptoms begin between the ages 20-40 and are caused by nerve lesions being present in multiple areas of the Central Nervous System, symptoms differ on the lesion’s location.
Changes after a devastating illness can alter one’s identity. How does the author see himself after the stroke? How do others see
Smith’s narrative embodies Eric Cassel’s interpretation of suffering, in his essay, “The Nature of Suffering and The Goals of Medicine, “This woman’s suffering was not confined to her physical symptoms, [the second] is that she suffered not only from her disease but also from its treatment, [The third] is that one could not anticipate what she would describe as a source of suffering” (Cassel, 8). During our conversation I did my best to let her lead and restricted my input to the minimum. She did speak of her treatment when I asked about it but in the sense of her overall story, it was surprising to find that most of her suffering due to her illness occurred outside of hospital walls. The pain and constant nausea were hard to tolerate but it was the consequence of these symptoms that affected her the most, it was the context of the illness that caused her the suffering she believed important to speak during our limited time. When looking at Mrs. Smith further than her physical body and rather as a whole person, the extra time it took her to get ready that caused her to be late to work in the mornings and those two SQF audit points is what really hurt her spirit. Likewise, the lymphedema itself caused her pain and discomfort, but the real suffering came from it permanently slowing her pace leaving her feeling like she couldn’t efficiently do what she considered was her great contribution to her
As soon as your life takes a traumatic turn like Tug and Morrie your mind starts to appreciate things more. “And I watched an eagle as it was flying” (Mcgraw 2). Tim’s father started to appreciate nature after he was informed that he was carrying a fatal brain tumor. In the same way, Morrie teaches us to appreciate the little things like the rain falling and the people who make us who we are. “I look out the window everyday. I notice the change in the trees, how strong the wind is blowing. It’s as if I can see time is almost done, I am drawn to nature like I’m seeing it for the first time” (Albom 84). Once you know that your time on Earth is almost over, you start to appreciate the little things around you because in the end sometimes all you see are the small things that you never noticed before. “The loving relationships we have, the universe around us, we take these things for granted” (Albom 84). Many people in this world only pay attention to materialistic things and do not realize the perfect world they have without those objects. Appreciate what is in your life already before it is too late. In addition, do not fear what comes unexpectedly, but accept it and live your life to the highest expectation. “And I loved deeper and I spoke sweeter, And gave forgiveness I’d been denying”(Mcgraw 2). Once Tug found out he was sick he did not fear or ignore his issues, he overcame and fixed them. In “Factors that facilitate and hinder the manageability of living with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis in both patients and next of kin” patients did not do this. “Earlier episodes, attitudes and hatred of the disease obstructed acceptance of the situation. Thoughts about the future frightened them, because they were afraid they would be unable to plan and adequately organise their lives during the disease process and after the death of the
As a reader, we get to know Hazel in a distinctive approach. She has clearly cut back on her social life and normal activities teenagers suppose to engage in. Still Hazel is an ambulatory girl despite the effect the illness has on her body and life. To make her parents pleased, she attends a weekly Support Group, which “featur...