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“We all carry scars...inside or out. You’re no different to the rest of us.” --Downton Abbey, Mrs. Hughes to Mr. Bates, who uses a cane Whether the disability is visible or not, we need to look at the commonalities rather than the differences between people with disabilities and people without. Darla Nagel is a biomedical copy editor who has an invisible chronic illness. She wants to educate healthcare professionals and encourage patients. If you want to receive quarterly updates from her, email darla.nagel{a}gmail.com.
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 Darla Nagel is a biomedical copy editor who has an invisible chronic illness. She wants to educate healthcare professionals and encourage patients. If you want to receive quarterly updates from her, email darla.nagel{a}gmail.com.
I read an article that is part reflection on the cultural or philosophical purpose of illness memoirs and part review of What Doesn’t Kill You: A Life With Chronic Illness by Tessa Millerby. The article, “The Consolation of the Illness Memoir” by Anna Altman at The New Republic, caught my attention as the author of an illness memoir. Some intriguing quotes from the article:
The article’s author notes that she has chronic migraine. Even if illness memoirs so far have failed to revolutionize American health care and cultural treatment of people with chronic illnesses, I believe the books are well worth writing and reading, for the benefit of patients and those closest enough to them to truly listen. Have you written one? If so, let me know, and I'll read it! Darla Nagel is a biomedical copy editor who has an invisible chronic illness. She wants to educate healthcare professionals and encourage patients. If you want to receive quarterly updates from her, email darla.nagel{a}gmail.com.
Did you know there is a scholarly field called disability studies, and did you know there is a disability justice movement? Both shed light on the experiences and societal needs of people with disabilities and seek the inclusion of a historically shunned group. To learn more about disability justice, read the works of activist Tobin Siebers and check out the Twitter hashtags #ThingsDisabledPeopleKnow and #DisabledAndCute. Quote from Siebers: “Disability marks the last frontier of unquestioned inferiority because the preference for able-bodiedness makes it extremely difficult to embrace disabled people and to recognize their unnecessary and violent exclusion from society” (Tobin Siebers, quoted in Amanda Leduc, Disfigured, page 209). Read my review of Disfigured below. Darla Nagel is a biomedical copy editor who has an invisible chronic illness. She wants to educate healthcare professionals and encourage patients. If you want to receive quarterly updates from her, email darla.nagel{a}gmail.com.
Amanda Leduc’s Disfigured: On Fairy Tales, Disability, and Making Space opens our eyes to how the portrayal of disabilities in fairy tales sets children up to shun disabled people, and she advocates for more accurate narratives of these excluded people. She weaves in her personal account of growing up with cerebral palsy, which keeps the book from becoming a scholarly work inaccessible to the majority of readers. You’ll never view the Disney princesses the same way again. This book was educational even for someone who has spent 10 years creating and sharing her own narrative of life with a disabling chronic illness that doesn’t have the classic fairytale happy ending, an ending which, according to Leduc, is not only unrealistic but also psychologically unhealthy. Great quotes from the book: “We exist in a world where happiness is synonymous with not being disabled—anything less than this comes across as undeserving, simply through virtue of not meeting the able-bodied ideal” (page 210). “This conceptualization of disability—at best merely a metaphor for psychological ills that can be overcome, at worse a punishment or judgment that can be reversed through magical or spiritual means, though only if one deserves it—does a disservice to the actual lived experience of what it means to occupy a different body in the world….denying the lived reality of what it means to be a disabled body in the world denies the possibility of growth on the disabled person’s terms” (page 216).  A girl of color with cerebral palsy walks. Photo: Exceed Worldwide, Flickr Creative Commons Darla Nagel is a biomedical copy editor who has an invisible chronic illness. She wants to educate healthcare professionals and encourage patients. If you want to receive quarterly updates from her, email darla.nagel{a}gmail.com.
“Attitude is not everything, but it's almost everything.” —Mary Pipher This is a good quote to keep in mind as we rebuild following the worst of the COVID-19 pandemic. Happy Fourth of July, everyone! Darla Nagel is a biomedical copy editor who has an invisible chronic illness. She wants to educate healthcare professionals and encourage patients. If you want to receive quarterly updates from her, email darla.nagel{a}gmail.com.
“Let nothing dim the light that shines from within.” —Maya Angelou Bonus quote: “See the light in others, and treat them as if that is all you see.” —Dr. Wayne Dyer Darla Nagel is a biomedical copy editor who has an invisible chronic illness. She wants to educate healthcare professionals and encourage patients. If you want to receive quarterly updates from her, email darla.nagel {a} gmail.com.“Be who you are and say what you feel Because those who mind don't matter. And those who matter don't mind.” —Dr. Seuss Darla Nagel is a biomedical copy editor who has an invisible chronic illness. She wants to educate healthcare professionals and encourage patients. If you want to receive quarterly updates from her, email darla.nagel {a} gmail.com.
“If plan A doesn’t work, the alphabet has 25 more letters – 204 if you’re in Japan.” —Claire Cook Darla Nagel is a biomedical copy editor who has an invisible chronic illness. She wants to educate health care professionals and encourage patients. If you want to receive quarterly updates from her, email darla.nagel{a}gmail.com.
“Live for what tomorrow can bring, not for what yesterday took away.” —Author unknown, quote posted in the Michigan Vascular Mobility Center in Flint, MI Darla Nagel is a biomedical copy editor who has an invisible chronic illness. She wants to educate health care professionals and encourage patients. If you'd like to receive quarterly updates from her, email darla.nagel{a}gmail.com.
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