Type of Submission: Health Story

Wait times: Slipping through the cracks in the emergency room.

A man tells the story of watching his wife suffer agonizing pain for several hours from an ovarian torsion, eventually losing the ovary, and uses that as a starting point to describe how often women's pain is dismissed by doctors and other caregivers, especially other women. The story could also prompt discussion of how to account for the health care provider behavior in this story. Do we blame incompetent and insensitive health care providers? What features of their working conditions might produce the behavior this story recounts?

The cookie jar

A rare Stephen King short story that's both publicly available in a literature magazine and on point for a health narratives course. It has the SK mark of supernatural weirdness/ unexplainability and also nicely profound messages about why human beings turn down unlimited good things - like fresh baked cookies - in favor of something horrible, like war. Mental health struggles become a superpower and there's symbolism to keep a literature class well engaged for a class period.

The ART of infertility

This is the link to a website for a national arts organization based in Michigan and Wisconsin. The organization curate art exhibits that portray living with infertility, designes curricula and writing worksins, plans outreach events, and advocates for infertility rights. They dsribe their missions as follows: "Through art, we break the silence around reproductive grief and push back against common misconceptions. We invite you to join us in our fight to make infertility visible." The site includes galleries of exhibitions, including photos with artist statements and a blog that features personal narratives about the experiences of infertility.

Consolarte: The Artist’s Grief deck en espanol.

A collection of artistic images paired with concrete suggestions for dealing with grief. The "deck" began (and continues) as an Instagram page that allows people to submit artwork+activity, and now exists in physical form as a card deck. This link goes to Spanish language version; the physical card deck and original Instagram site are in English. The suggestions described on each card could be used as discussion activities in intermediate level and up courses, and might be particularly well suited for community groups.

Cigarettes

Juice WRLD (Jarad Higgins) was a rapper who was open about his struggles with addiction, depression and anxiety. He died of a drug overdose in 2019. Many of his music videos can be read as illness narratives. This one has an ultimately upbeat message, as the protagonist goes to AA and gets sober. It begins with a "Text this number for confidential help" message onscreen. This could work in any music/popular media class to talk about health narratives or could be part of an assignment to build a play list around a topic with annotations.

Aftershock

This documentary tells the stories of two Black women who died during or after childbirth, through interviews with their family members. The film examines the higher rates of infant mortality in the US, and especially for Black women, who are 3 to 4 times more likely to die from childbirth-related reasons than White women. The film shows how family members became activists for maternal health care. The award-winning film premiered at Sundance in 2022 and is (at the time of this writing) available on Hulu. It could be used to show how narratives can bring statistics to life, as well as the power of narrative for social change.