“Everyone who is born holds dual citizenship in the kingdom of the well and in the kingdom of the sick. Although we prefer to use only the good passport, sooner or later each of us is obliged, at least for a spell, to identify ourselves as citizens of that other place.” (Susan Sontag in Illness as Metaphor.)
Chronic illness picks us up, plops us down in the kingdom of the sick and locks the gate behind us. We might just as well have been transported to a village in Tibet or the jungles of Africa. We have to learn a new language. It took me forever to learn to spell and pronounce systemic lupus erythematosus, mycophenolate mofetil and pancytopenic anemia. And there are shorthand terms to learn like CBC, CMP, sed rate, ANA, and on and on. That’s not all! There is a brand new culture, the culture of medical providers. All the things we know about how two people interact are out the door.
Immigrants who succeed learn the language, the culture and how members of society interact. If they can do it, so can we!
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