Holding Hope
Make no mistake, the journey of living with a chronic illness forces us to relearn what hope actually is. At first, hope may be tied to cures, dramatic turnarounds, or a return to the life you once had. I know this path, the pills, supplements, IVs, and injections. Looking for the answer in the traditional medical approaches, but also veering off into the functional medicine approaches. From peptides to ozone IVs, I have turned over all the stones looking for the one missing piece. But as symptoms persist and uncertainty stretches on, that version of hope can begin to feel like a setup for disappointment. The disappointment walking back to the car after a medical appointment does not go as expected and now you’ve lost your sense of what to hope for. 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 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. While these words may ring true for you, the day to day lived experience can understandably remain a struggle. If you wish to discuss this struggle from someone who has existed as the doctor and the patient, reach out and we can see if any of the perspectives I have earned through my journey can assist you with yours.
Dr. Jeffrey bone