Our stories are the most powerful tool we have when communicating about our lives. When we are facing health challenges, the power of communication becomes even more important because it’s our link to care, treatment, and quality of life.
Because of our illness, we feel betrayed by our bodies, experience guilt, anxiety, frustration as a result of the new challenges we face. We experience a sense of confusion about what we believe went wrong.
Following the diagnosis of a chronic or life-threatening illness, our assumptions about how life is supposed to be are shattered. We’re faced with new realities and that includes learning a new language, the language of medicine and the language of hope and healing.
Creative expression allows you to break down the barriers between us as patients and our providers. We’re able to communicate more effectively with our treatment partners when we can stand strong in our convictions about care and can accurately communicate our experience of illness. Pain, fatigue, and emotional strife aren’t the foundation for good communication. How we communicate our illness experience impacts how medical providers diagnose, treat, and understand our illness. Having a comprehensive toolbox of information for our providers increases accuracy of diagnosis, increases the ability to alleviate symptoms with proper treatment, and the understanding we all need and deserve as patients.