This post was written for the current PFAM blog carnival, hosted this round by Sharon at Bed, Body, and Beyond.
I have been avoiding writing this post. No, scratch that, I have been avoiding writing. Period. I could say this is because it’s the end of the semester, that I’m busy with teaching and editing and advising. I could say that I’ve been busy preparing for the holidays, that I haven’t been home much. But none of that would be entirely true.
I have a Flannery O’Connor quote in my profile that reads “I write to discover what I know.” And right now? I’m avoiding writing because I’m afraid to face what I already know. I never wanted this blog to be only a place for me to whine and complain, and I feel like lately that’s all I’ve been thinking about. I’ve been moping about all the things that illness has taken from me. Because the truth is that despite a few good days, the past month has been immeasurably difficult. And part of the difficulty comes from the fact that I persist in the charade that I am still as able-bodied as I ever was. When I’m not.
As the holidays approach, I can’t help but think about all the things I used to do that I can’t do right now: crochet and knit, hand-make holiday cards, roll out cookies and pie crusts, stand in the kitchen cooking and baking all day, making preserves and candy and sauces to give to friends and family as gifts. I have always shown my love with the work of my hands. I hope that there will be a day in the future when I can do all these things again. But I don’t know that. Because my desire to do those things can only take me as far as my body’s new limitations. And to be truthful I feel physically worse right now than I have in a long time. I’m frustrated, I’m sad, and I’m struggling to be hopeful. I knew all that already, but it still stings when I type it out in the little Blogger “new post” window.
I’m not very good at asking for emotional support when I need it. I don’t like to be seen as needy, or melodramatic, or weak, and so it’s hard for me to reach out. I suppose this blog is my tiny way of reaching out. Extending my life and my empathy in the hope of multiplying the amount of care I am capable of both receiving and giving.
Tomorrow I see a new rheumatologist and continue this convoluted journey of diagnosis and treatment. And I will continue to write about it. Even if my insights about myself and my life sometimes sting. Because ultimately I write for you: young, old, newly diagnosed, undiagnosed, long-diagnosed, wise, innocent, happy, sad, hopeful, disabled, able-bodied, brilliant, contemplative, compassionate you. Thank you for being my reader. You help me to know my self and the world.
No matter what these illnesses take from me, they will not take my ability to think and create in some form. No matter how fast—or slow—I type, it’s still always one letter at a time.
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.