文章基本信息

标题：Illness narratives online
本地全文：下载
作者：Piret Paal
期刊名称：Elore
印刷版ISSN：1456-3010
电子版ISSN：1456-3010
出版年度：2010
卷号：17
期号：2
出版社：Finnish Folklore Society
摘要：According to sociocultural expectations, after cancer is removed or its spread stop- ped, people get a chance to continue with their daily lives. According to patients’ experience, the return to ‘normal life’ after having cancer is full of challenges. During post-recovery, or the period that in cancer narratives is often signified as ‘afterwards’, people make attempts to return to their everyday activities, but are still confronted by medical follow-ups and the constant fear of cancer reoccurrence. Returning to normal life or ‘the life before cancer’ may be challenging if not impossible, as the surgeries and other cancer treatments are radical and leave their imprint in the body. Furthermore, the fact of having a life-threatening illness also makes people suffer psychologically. Based on written cancer narratives, which I have analysed in my doctoral thesis (Paal 2010), and online discussions analysed in this article, pain, tiredness, confusion and depression are daily companions for many cancer patients, who are, in the eyes of specialists, cured of their illness and should thus be, according to cultural expectations, healthy again and therefore act accordingly.