LIFE’S A JOURNEY

When the Category Becomes More Visible Than the Person One of the greatest challenges facing healthcare and support systems today is not whether categories exist. Categories are necessary. We know healthcare, research, insurance, and government programs use them.  Without categories, large systems simply could not function. The problem begins when the category becomes more visible than the person. Recently, I was reminded of a conversation about a young woman living with a high spinal cord injury. Someone remarked that she “wouldn’t let the nurses do what they needed to do.” But I’ve thought about that statement differently. What if she wasn’t resisting care? What if she was trying to protect the individualized care that years of living in her own body had taught her was necessary to remain healthy? That is a very different story. People living for years—even decades—with complex medical conditions often become experts in their own physiology. They learn: what prote...