Essay about Illness: Medicine and daily Lives

Submitted By Sammyliben
Words: 662
Pages: 3

During our lifetime we will all encounter tragic events that will completely change how we view illness. Illness is something that many of us today generally don't think about until it actually plays a role in our daily lives. Chronic illness can physiologically damage organ systems and also alter ones identity by negatively impacting ones self values, relations, and overall outlook on life. Certainly dealing with an illness is extremely hard but it challenges one to recreate their identity and find their own coping mechanisms that fit best for them. It is important to become fully aware of the effects that illnesses take on a particular individual and the limits it sets on personal activities, physical functions, and social rules. It becomes clear that chronic illnesses negatively impact individuals whole life experience. Dealing with an illnesses can take effect on how one feels about themselves. "Chronic illness also means the loss of confidence in ones health and normal bodily processes (Chapter 2, pg. 45)". Normal daily routines change completely and everything that was once taken for granted is now a struggle. I personally have experienced someone in my life who was effected by their illness influencing their identity. My aunt was just a normal young women when she was diagnosed with diabetes mellitus. Diabetes is a chronic disease in which a person has high blood sugar either because cell don't respond to the insulin that is produced or the pancreas doesn't produce enough insulin. This illness took a huge tole on my aunts identity because she couldn't eat the foods that everyone else was eating. She was constantly checking her blood sugar and it was always a constant battle to stay healthy. Having these problems made her feel almost that she was inferrer and most of the time she was resenting other people. She became very jealous and depressed because diabetes took over her whole life. Diabetes is an illness that takes up a lot of your time and its hard to do as you please without being truly effected by it. "Chronic illness is a betrayal of that fundamental trust. We feel under siege: untrusting, resentful of uncertainty, lost. Life becomes a working out of sentiments that follow closely from this corporeal: confusion, shock, anger, jealousy, and despair (Chapter 2, pg.45)." Having diabetes completely changed who my aunt was she went from an optimistic, driven, hardworking women to someone who was constantly depressed, anxious and lazy. Chronic illnesses certainly change ones identity but they also alter ones relationships and daily activities that would normally be performed. "There are