The Human Health Experience: Teah's Story

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The Human Health Experience: Teah’s Story Each and every individual has a story to tell about his or her life experiences. On special occasions, some individuals will share those stories with us. Teah kindly shared her incredibly powerful story about her experience with cancer. In this paper, I will discuss Teah’s story and identify three concepts, coping, knowledge, and psychosocial issues, which arose within that story; furthermore, I will recognize my own assumptions regarding her story, which is crucial, as well as reflecting on the importance of the experience that was shared with me.
Narrative
Teah was a medical student in the United States, but she moved to Canada after meeting a Canadian graduate student, which she went on to marry. …show more content…

65). There are three main concepts in the story of Teah’s experience. The first of these three concepts is coping. Teah mentioned that she attempted to work harder to both deal with and forget her experience, which in the end did not work because it contributed to her extreme fatigue. Moreover, she utilized humour as a coping mechanism which had a positive result for her. Teah spoke about her use of humour as a communication method through her experience with cancer, as many cancer patients do. Beach and Prickett (2016) discuss how individuals utilize humour and laughter to communicate and achieve reassurance through awkward, uncomfortable, or stressful situations and moreover, to articulate challenging ideas and feelings into words (p. 792). Additionally, Beach and Prickett (2016) conclude that laughter and humour can be utilized to lessen the fears individuals have and be a way for doctors to recognize and speak to the concerns of the individual that have been communicated through laughter and humour (pp. 799-800). Rose, Spencer, and Rausch (2013) found that humour is a mechanism where patients are able to comprehend their situation, while veering away from the denial, the anxiety, and the psychological distress that stem from external and internal stressors (p. 4). Teah used humour to cope with having cancer through making jokes and laughing, but also through dressing up in silly costumes every now and then. She utilized her costumes not only as a distraction from the stressful situation she was in, but because it was also very fun for her to dress

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