Re-finding Your Identity after / in Chronic Illness
Over-night
a person can go from their "normal life" to a life-changing catastrophic
illness or injury. Or a person suffers an injury that is expected to
improve - but never does. A friend of mine named Jenny was
at work one day, preparing to draw blood from one of her home care
patients. A very caring nurse, Jenny is also one of the brightest people I
know. But, that day, standing in front of her patient, Jenny wasn't
sure at first what was wrong. And even as she began to make sense of what
was happening to her, she was unable to communicate what she knew to the people
nearby. Luckily, one of the people present in addition to the patient was
the patient's home health aide. And the Aide recognized the signs of the
very thing Jenny couldn't say because the words wouldn't go from her brain to
her mouth: I've had a major stroke! From a busy Registered
Nurse serving home care patients, responsible for communicating to doctors,
other nurses and caregivers, patients and families, Jenny suddenly found herself
unable to speak. And the things she could say came out as a garbled
hodge-podge of sounds that no one could understand. Yet, inside Jenny, she
KNEW not only what she wanted to say, but also that her attempts to speak
sounded all mixed together! And as a nurse, she was very aware of what was
happening to her, what she needed from doctors -- but she couldn't communicate! What a frightening moment in time! Tests
soon revealed the stroke in her brain, and assessments showed the new deficits -
all the things Jenny could not do that she once could do. Speech came back
slowly, in halting one and two word sentences. All the words she
"knew" she had trouble speaking -- and often a word she intended to
say was scrambled up with letters and sounds that didn't belong in that
word. And Jenny KNEW the sounds she just made was NOT the word she had
tried to speak! I remember calling one day after she'd
been released from the hospital and listening to her struggle for words.
At one point she started to tell me how many days she had been
hospitalized. But instead of saying the number of days, she had to count
up to the number she wanted. Her brain would let her speak the number, but
only after counting up to get to the right number. It was like always having to go back to
the letter "A" in order to say a word that begins with
"M." More
than Physically Recovering Of course Jenny received all
the therapies recommended after a major stroke, and her husband and family
helped her each step of the way. But, there's so much more than physical
recovery in a major illness (however much "recovery" is
possible). There's also a whole other realm to going through a major
illness or injury that changes one's life and turns it upside down.
For Jenny, the stroke meant that she would never work as a Registered Nurse
again. I remember in those first weeks and months silently mourning for
her loss. I didn't bring it up; I guess I feared bringing up thoughts to
her when she was already burdened with such a huge change in her physical
life. She was still learning to speak again, still re-gaining her stamina
and strength. Recently, she brought it up to me. It seems the
human spirit is much the same for everyone with the question: "Who am I
now? What is my identity NOW?" For
people like Jenny, who had schooling and a career, life-altering disease can
shatter one's identity, especially as it concerns one's occupation.
I can remember going through my own questioning when I had to quit my job as a
nurse because of physical injuries. It felt like my world - just -
stopped. One day I was a nurse - the next day I was at home, not
working. For Jenny, the inner pain and turmoil was just as severe.
WHO AM I NOW? The Process of
Re-gaining One-Self In between dealing with physical
problems and goals, the question of identity never goes away. But,
re-finding oneself and a purpose is a process, a process complicated by what we
remember of our former lives and acknowledgement of where we are now. For
me, I kept hoping I'd be well enough "one day" to return to my job;
For Jenny, the stroke took away much of the same hope almost immediately.
Slowly, we both acknowledged what we could no longer do physically. Yet,
our spirits are still invested in nursing. There's a saying "Once a
nurse, always a nurse." Nursing as a vocation becomes as much a part
of the nurse as breathing is to every human. It IS who we ARE.
So when that role is taken away, WHO are we? It is much the same as a
woman who has invested her whole life into motherhood and parenting. When
the kids grow up and move out, there's often a traumatic identity crisis.
That crisis is even more profound when one devoted years of education and
employment into the same occupation. So,
HOW does one re-find their identity when their usual role has been taken away by
a major or chronic illness? Jenny is now in this crisis, one she described
as "the valley of the shadow of death," the same place I
described as "the most lonely and desolate place I've ever had to be
in."
In this section, I'd like to share some stories of how some have made their
way through this very dark and lonely time of questioning and pondering, and eventually found different purposes for their new
lives.
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