Chronic illness rewrites the relationship between the self and the body — the body ceases to be the invisible vehicle of a life and becomes the condition that all plans must negotiate. The person with chronic illness lives in constant translation between what they know they could do and what they can do today, between the identity they built before illness and the one being assembled in its wake. This is not only loss; it is also, sometimes, the path to a more honest and compassionate account of what it means to be embodied.
Each step builds on the last.