As you may have noticed, I haven’t posted in a while. Mostly I’ve just been busy—working, teaching, writing my dissertation, and trying to having something of a social life. Basically I’ve been playing at being a normal person. And I did a pretty good job at it, too. This weekend though, all the small complaints that I had been collecting over the past few weeks (feet too sore to wear heels, intense morning stiffness, knee pain, fatigue, photosensitivity, GI issues) seemed to snowball together, and now I’m lying on the couch feeling sorry for myself. I like to think I’m getting better at not blaming myself and riding the wave of flare and remission, but it’s still really hard. Sometimes I feel like as soon as I get everything under control and establish a routine, something new pops up to wipe me out again.
Between the Arava and inflammation I’ve lost more than 10 pounds since August, despite still being on a low-moderate dose of prednisone. While for many people that would be a victory, for me it isn’t—I’m already at the low end of normal BMI. The GI symptoms I’ve had recently, which may or may not be from the Arava, have not helped either. I’ve been tracking my stress levels and watching the foods I eat, cutting out wheat and dairy, but it just seems to be totally random and unpredictable. I’d like to exercise too, but I don’t have the energy (yes, that old chestnut). And it’s hard for me to take the compliment when people tell me how good I look, since I feel so unwell and unfit inside. I suppose I should be pleased that my make-up skills are good enough that I don’t look like death warmed over.
All this makes it sound terrible to be me, but that isn’t really the case. I’m just frustrated with my body. I really am grateful and content most of the time. I have lots of love in my life and people who are looking out for me; I have a job that I find satisfying and fulfilling; I have my academic work—which I love, even if academia makes me a little crazy sometimes; I’m financially stable and I have decent health insurance, though I often have to fight to get what I need; and I have various volunteer and social commitments that keep me engaged in my community when I’m able. It’s a good life, even if it’s not the one I thought I was going to have.
patient
(adj)
1. able to wait without becoming annoyed or anxious.
(noun)
1. a person receiving or registered to receive medical treatment.
2. Linguistics the semantic role of a noun phrase denoting something that is affected or acted upon by the action of a verb.ORIGIN Middle English : from Old French, from Latin patient- ‘suffering,’ from the verb pati. (from the Oxford American Dictionary)
Sharon’s prompt for this month’s PFAM (Patients for a Moment) blog carnival at “After Gadget” asks if I refer to myself as a “patient,” and why or why not. To be honest, I rarely refer to myself as a patient unless I am describing myself as being under a particular medical practitioner’s care, as in “I’m a patient of Dr. Smith,” or when I call myself a “Patient Advocate,” which has to do with my advocating on behalf of other people like me who are tangled up in the healthcare system.
In re-reading the definition above, I’m struck by the difference between French and English when it comes to labeling individuals who receive medical care. In French, as in English, the term patient (or patiente) is used when a doctor describes an ill person in his or her care (a sick person acted upon by a doctor). But an ill person or a hospitalized person is a malade. While we can hear the echo of the English word “malady” here, malade doesn’t have the same combined wallop of the noun “patient,” connoting suffering and passivity.
Yes, I suffer, as all living things must eventually, but I am rarely resigned and uncomplaining in the face of that suffering, particularly when there are things I can do or change to help alleviate it. Even if the change is as small as altering my perception of an event or experience.
I’m not sure, however, that I would have used the term “patient” much to describe myself anyway, even if I didn’t know the etymology. I’ve been doing academic work in gender, sexuality, and disability studies for too long not to have internalized the argument against using someone’s difference as their primary description (e.g. “He’s gay,” “She’s disabled/handicapped,” etc). The lessons of identity politics have trained me to be sensitive to these kinds of reductive statements, instead using phrases like “He identifies as gay,” or “She’s a person with a disability.”
While I’m sure this kind of verbal gymnastics seems either basic or unnecessarily complicated to some people, it prevents us from reducing an individual into his or her most prominent—or visible—identity category. So in essence, I’ve been trained intellectually not to think of myself as a patient, but rather to think of myself as a person with a chronic illness, just like I’m a person with a gender and a nationality, and a whole bunch of other identity categories with which I identify to varying degrees. When someone asks, I generally say “I have an autoimmune disease” or “I have a disabling chronic illness.” Not “I suffer from…” or “I am a patient with…” or “I am disabled by…” but “I have.” (And sometimes, as a bit of a pep talk, I remind myself that I may have lupus/RA, but they don’t have me.)
Perhaps it’s easier with an “invisible” illness and disability, but I rarely feel as though there’s any danger that acquaintances or strangers will reduce me to my illness (or if they do, once I tell them, then I have simply saved myself a great deal of heartbreak in the long term). I find that I struggle more often with trying to get my close friends and family to understand how having a chronic illness affects me, and to find a balance where they can be flexible and receptive to my needs, but not treat me as though I were impossibly fragile all of a sudden. Because if having a chronic illness has taught me anything, it’s that I’m far stronger than I ever thought I was.
Am I kind? Yes. Am I tenacious? Yes. Am I (a) patient? Only when I must be.