Stigmas In The Wounded Storyteller

Susan introduces and explores the literal meaning of illness by citing evidence of the widespread treatments to cancer and tuberculosis patients. She argues in the chapter 1 that “cancer patients are lied to, not just because the disease is death sentence, but because it is felt to be obscene” (9). Susan organizes the discussion centering on the theme that illness divides people apart in the rest of the chapter. She uses the example of cardiac patients who are not so much avoided by relatives and friend because they consider cardiac is a mechanism failure, unlike cancer is caused by something obscene. She ascribes theses commonly found phenomenon to the effect of metaphors. “The metaphors attached to TB and to cancer imply living processes of a particularly resonant and horrid kind” (9). I like the second part of the essay where she explains the phenomenon by associating it with metaphor. It introduces the title of the book, Illness as Metaphor, and intrigue me to read further.

What is in an illness? Is it just a physical ailment or abnormality? Well, in real life it may, but the presence of disease in literature seems to symbolize a lot more than what meets the eye. This is what Thomas C. Foster brings up in Chapter 24 of his work How to Read Literature like a Professor. Essentially, the chapter examines the importance of disease in literature from a symbolic standpoint.

Story Theory proposes that story is a narrative happening wherein a person connects with self-in-relation through nurse-person intentional dialogue to create ease. (Smith & Liehr, 2005) Ease occurs amid accepting the whole story as one’s own. This is

Acknowledging how the patient perceives illness and health, helps in understanding the beliefs and how they relate with preventing

First of all, I recognized that I was dealing with humans, and not just dealing with a disease process and application of the nursing process in the aspect of restoring patient health. I was dealing with emotions, and families, and cultural beliefs that influenced individual’s aspects of care. I started to see that health did not just incorporate healing the disease, but also recognized the importance of making sure patient’s felt that their

Those with a devastating illness often have a need to tell their stories. How can others ensure that they are able to tell their stories, and how does telling one’s story impact the way patients are treated?

In the book, How To Read Literature Like a Professor, Thomas Foster, the author, talks about diseases in literature and how they are never what they seem to be. The symptoms and the side effects all mean something more than the disease- or at least they do in literary diseases. He also states that there are 3 key elements to know if a disease or fever is significant to the plot and the character. First of all, the patient is usually very picturesque in the sense that their body and appearance shows their deterioration. Secondly, the patient does not know the whereabouts of their disease and would not know he or she acquired it - a mystery factor. Lastly, there is always symbolism about the character’s lifestyle and their actions that is shown through the disease. Overall, Foster claims that literary diseases almost always have a deeper meaning than what they seem to be or cause

Elliot Kukia of New York Times argues in his earlier article,”In My Chronic Illness, I Found a Deeper Meaning,” in this article it talks about his illness and how it will affect his life, but in given cases like this, he gives his opinion to show everyone what is to suffer from illness and what is not to suffer. He supports this argument first by describing what is the feeling of being on incapacity, and therefore he goes on to express the majority of plans he could’ve achieved and plans that can’t be done because of the disabilities that hold him back, in other words, he uses ethos and logos to slowly drag the reader to understand what he feels and he wants them to feel. Elliot’s purpose is to show the readers that suffering is not an ordinary

I realize that the most capable physicians can heal because they have been sick and are able to fix because of their own brokenness. In other words, adversity builds character and changes people for the better. In my case, my disadvantaged upbringing has made me a better person, son, father and potentially a better public servant. After my parents divorced in 2000, my mother and I moved to Little Rock, Arkansas where we struggled to get by. Enduring that hardship with her changed me from an early age. Some nights I stayed at my best friend’s apartment, because we had no electricity. In a sense, this deprivation allowed me to mature and understand that in life you must sacrifice for a larger

Furthermore, in this book, Frank argues that the modernist perception of disease is a structure of "colonization," which also means that the sick individual surrender his or her body, and the narrative of his or her life to biomedical skill. In a post-modern conception, the sick individuals will find the defense and strength to tell their own story, regain the expert and energy to recount his or her own story. It takes one to create a new lifestyle narrative from the

The first stage of this framework is coming to know the client, which requires the nurse to understand that the personal meaning of health and healing is individualized and the context of this area is highly subjective. Gillespie and Paterson (2009) state that “clinical decision-making processes are triggered by recognition of a cue from a patient” (p. 167). In the case of this patient, the decision was based off a cue; a change

Un untrustworthy storyteller is a character whose recounting the story is not totally exact or tenable because of issues with the character's mental state or development. Some scholarly commentators contend that there is no such thing as a solid first-individual storyteller since each character is influenced by his or her past encounters in the recounting a story, yet most first-individual storytellers endeavor to give the most precise variant of the occasions. An untrustworthy storyteller, be that as it may, holds a misshaped perspective of the occasions, which prompts an off base recounting the story. This can allow perusers/watchers to offer their own elucidations. The term 'questionable storyteller' was first utilized by Wayne C. Corner

A twist on the "patient's perspective" approach is to describe a time when medicine failed to save or heal someone close to you. The purpose of this tactic would not of course be to rail against the medical profession, but rather to show how a disappointing loss inspired you to join the struggle against disease and sickness.

He feels Christopher’s instability means that ‘he isn’t ready to go’ (26). This is coupled with the fact that he knows Christopher ‘doesn’t have any people,’ that he ‘didn’t grow up [where he lives], he doesn’t know anybody and he hates it’ (25). Evidently, he has taken the time to get to know his patient and recognised that Christopher is without a proper support system in the community. Thus, Bruce demonstrates engagement with narrative ethics, which ‘approaches problems by looking at the patient’s situation as a whole’ (Brannan et al 11). Narrative ethics also posits that since ‘one must tell of what one undergoes in order to understand it … health professionals have a responsibility to [hear out their patients]’ (Charon 209).

Nurses, on the other hand, seek to understand the experiences of their patients to provide care that is effective for meeting the patient’s needs. “For health providers…the need to understand the integrity of a patient's life course may be central to understanding or diagnosing the illness itself or in seeking amelioration by treatment plans of ambitious or conservative design” (“Medicine, Nursing…”). Narrative psychology can provide a foundation for nurses to effectively acquire this understanding and provide patient care on a more intimate level.