Take Back Storytelling: Today I Am Sick But Tomorrow I Will Be Better
Receiving a cancer diagnosis is challenging. Finding the words to stutter out a new chapter in your story is also difficult. In our culture of fitness and wellness, what important things does a sick person have to say? Are there keys to communicating your sickness story so people will listen? I believe there are. Today we will talk about the most common way we tell our stories: Take Back Storytelling.
When I was first diagnosed with breast cancer in 2009, I made the decision that I would finish treatment, kick cancer in the teeth, and get on with my life. Fighting the battle and winning the war against cancer were the words I used to tell my story.
Fight like a girl!
Together we will win!
Nobody fights alone!
Join the fight!
I didn't know it then, but I was speaking the most common way we all tell our sickness stories: Take Back Storytelling.
Take Back Storytelling is simply this: I am sick, but I will get back everything that the illness has taken from me and I will return to the life I had before the illness. (The Wounded Storyteller by Arthur W Frank. He calls this type of storytelling Restitution Narrative.)
Illness is seen as a temporary condition that can be overcome by managing the symptoms. Personally, I couldn't wait until cancer had become an inconvenience in my rearview mirror and I would drive away, as good as new.I want to be clear in saying that there is nothing wrong with this type of storytelling. We have been conditioned to tell our sickness stories this way since we were very young.
For example, have you seen the commercial for Nyquil on TV? A miserable mom with a stuffy, red nose tells her family that she needs to take the day off tomorrow as the camera swings to show her husband and kids all packing to leave on a vacation. "Moms don't take a sick day," the narrator claims as we see the mom then sleeping peacefully after taking the medication. Moral of the story: Take the Nyquil and return to your normal life with no complications and little bother.
Take Back Storytelling.
Take Back Storytelling is about following THE PLAN, whether that plan involves exercise, medicine, surgery, chemo, dietary changes, or a combination of all of them. The underlying belief is that if a person follows The Plan, he/she will get back the life they enjoyed before the disease. The Plan is allowed to change, but there is always a plan!
It was also helpful for me to realize that doctors speak Take Back Storytelling. (And most of our friends!)
Doctors are comfortable dealing with symptoms and medical terminology. The challenge for a cancer patient occurs when, as a patient, they speak Chaos Storytelling - the words often spoken in the mayhem of a diagnosis when life is the OVERWELMING NOW. Doctors don't have the time for Chaos Storytelling. In the same way, if the patient wants to talk about the why's of suffering (Quest Storytelling which we will talk about next week!), most doctors are uncomfortable with that type of narrative also. Doctors speak the language of possible answers and solutions--Take Back Storytelling--and will almost always steer a patient to talking in those ways of telling stories and when they do, a patient can feel unheard and uncared for.
I wish I had understood this when taking care of my mother at the end of her life. I quickly learned which doctors on my mom's medical team had a good bedside manner and which didn't. In other words, I learned which doctors took the time to listen to my mom as she strayed away from Take Back Storytelling, when she talked about her fears and the why's of her diagnosis.
How have you told your cancer story using Take Back Storytelling? What was a part of the plan you followed--exercise, medicine, surgery, chemo or dietary changes? Do you have one specific memory when you declared, "Cancer will not win today!"?
Do you remember a time when you spoke to a doctor (or a friend!) and you felt unheard or uncared for because you strayed away from speaking Take Back Storytelling?
See you next week on Thursday for Quest Storytelling.Other Posts in the Series:
Take Back Storytelling: Today I am Sick But Tomorrow I Will Be Better (that's this post!)
What Luke Skywalker and Frodo Baggins Have in Common with Sickness Stories
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