Health Experience Narrative Analysis

The health experience of the guest speaker involves the long and challenging journey in her fight through breast cancer. For the sake of confidentiality, my patient will be referred to as Mrs. M throughout this paper. Throughout her presentation she explained the steps leading up to her diagnosis, her experiences through chemotherapy and radiation, as well as her thoughts, feelings, and emotions during the most difficult time in her life. This paper will discuss the various determinants of health that have shaped her health experience, abstract concepts that stood out throughout the presentation, personal assumptions, and the overall meaning of her illness.

Health Experience Narrative

Mrs. M’s journey in her battle through breast cancer all

1). By taking into account our determinants of health and understanding the interrelations between them, it provides us with a greater picture into a person’s story and the various factors that have shaped their overall health experience. This is evident in Mrs. M’s story, as she exhibits several determinants of health that have been impacted in her fight through breast cancer. Social support networks, psychology, and personal coping skills were evident and greatly impacted her long and challenging journey. According to Kroenke et al. (2013) women who have larger support networks throughout their illness tend to have a greater quality of life (p. 525). Mrs. M not only had her family as support, but she had her physicians, surgeon, friends, and her mentors from Wellsprings. Luckily enough, her husband’s job was very understanding and even offered to pay for many of the extra expenses, such as her mastectomy, so that her husband was able to take time off work to be with and support her. Fortunately, the Alberta Cancer Foundation paid for the procedure, which alleviated the financial stress they may have had. Not having to worry about the payment resulted in a greater support network as her husband was able to take time off of work, ultimately increasing her quality of

348). Uncertainty can be triggered by various events, some of which may include: the initial diagnosis of cancer or meeting with a specialist for the first time (Schapira, 2013, p. 1). These events directly apply to Mrs. M, as the feeling of uncertainty began as soon as she was diagnosed with breast cancer. Hansen et al. (2012) described uncertainty as the feeling of “something hanging over them, spoiling their environment” (p. 272). Mrs. M experienced this feeling during her family trip to Disney Land, right before she told her children the news. It was difficult for her to keep her feelings and emotions together, and she would often have to sit down to prevent herself from having a panic attack. She was uncertain as to how she would confess her illness to her children, wondering whether or not she would ever be able to go on holidays with them again, whether or not she was going to die, and how everyone in her family would