Naming Hope

I deal with at least three chronic conditions.  None are fatal, but they can render life rather challenging.

In trying to improve my health, lately I have been researching my diagnoses.  I have discovered that many people seem to become 'diagnosis collectors'.

I think I might have this tendency, so what I say bears no malice whatsoever!

One has to wonder why people become collectors of diagnoses.  I think I may have it.  It has to do with hope.

It seems people believe that if they find just find the right diagnosis, the illness can be cured, or at least successfully treated. 

In the case of some illnesses, of course this is true.  In the case of far too many others it is not.  At least not now.  There are a host of conditions which the medical community has trouble diagnosing, never mind treating.  Two different conditions may be given the same diagnosis, depending on the practitioner, and many conditions seem to show up together.

I think people find it important to be able to put a name to what is bothering them.  I know I do.

Many times in life I've found myself bothered by something persistently, and it's not until I figure out the source that the problem goes away...often almost immediately!  I have sometimes found myself restless and it's not until days later that I realize that I have somehow been reminded of something unpleasant, which is trying to pull itself out of the dark corners of my mind.

I think this is why some of us go after diagnoses.

In Madeleine L'Engle's books (the Wrinkle in Time series.  It's been so long I cannot remember exactly in which this book this occurred) Meg, the protagonist, ends up embracing and naming the Echthroi.  If memory serves, this removes the evil power of the Echthroi.

I am not, of course, advocating embracing evil for any reason, but Meg's action of naming the evil that had been plaguing her family really struck a chord with me. 

For those who are ill, I think the search for a workable diagnosis gives hope.  When you have hope, you have a reason to keep going.  For those who do not have friends and supportive family (and I am discovering how truly blessed I am to have both!) hope may be all they have.