Holding Hope

Living with chronic illness often means relearning what hope actually is. At first, hope may be tied to cures, dramatic turnarounds, or a return to the life you once had. But as symptoms persist and uncertainty stretches on, that version of hope can begin to feel like a setup for disappointment. There are days when appointments blur together, when treatments fail, when your body feels like an unreliable narrator, and hope starts to seem naïve or even self-protective to abandon. Philosophers like Albert Camus wrote about the tension between our longing for order and the reality of chaos; chronic illness can feel like that tension lived out in the body. And yet, hope does not have to be denial. It can become something steadier and more honest, closer to what Viktor Frankl described as the human capacity to find meaning even in suffering. In the landscape of chronic illness, hope may no longer mean believing everything will get better. It may mean believing that your life can still hold connection, beauty, and purpose even if your symptoms remain. That kind of hope is difficult to maintain because it asks you to grieve what has been lost while still choosing to participate in your life. But it is also the kind of hope that can endure the truth.

Dr. Jeffrey bone