Includes bibliographical references (pages 311-317).
Summary:
"The Body Alone is a lyrical nonfiction inquiry into the experience, meaning, and articulation of pain. It is a hybrid account incorporating research, scholarship, and memoir to examine pain through the lenses of medicine, theology, and philosophy. Broken bodies tell broken stories. This is why the pain experience is portrayed through an engaging but tangled, cyclical narrative of primers, vocabulary lessons, prescription records, and hypothesized internal monologues. The Body Alone is fractured not for the sake of experimentation but because the story itself demands it. A personal account of a societal problem, The Body Alone will appeal to readers who experience or are impacted by chronic illness. Like the author, the majority of the 51 million Americans who suffer chronic pain identify as women and are young or middle-aged. Research reveals the uncomfortable truth that medicine continues to be a gendered institution where 70% of chronic pain patients are women but 80% of pain studies are conducted on men or male mice. This is one of the many disparities that leave women systemically underdiagnosed, misdiagnosed, and even gaslighted on account of inequitable access to research funding, clinical trials, and effective medications. Pain is more than personal; it is a political issue prime for reformation. In both form and content, The Body Alone represents boundary-pressing work that subverts the traditional narrative by putting pressure on the medical, cultural, and political systems that impact women's access to fair and equal healthcare. The Body Alone is more than an illness narrative. It is a battle cry demanding change"-- Provided by publisher.
This resource is supported by the Institute of Museum and Library Services under the provisions of the Library Services and Technology Act as administered by State Library of Iowa.