Illness
By Havi Carel
An Art of Living Series title
Published: 18th September 2008
“The experience of illness and its sweeping effect on every aspect of life shocked me into thinking about these issues. This is a book founded on my experience of living with a degenerative and potentially fatal illness. An illness that has no treatment…”
“I learned to cope, to surrender vanities. I adjusted. I learned to live a Janus-headed life: young but old, healthy-looking but ill, happy but also incredibly sad.”
Havi Carel is a philosopher, lecturer and writer. She is also one of only 120 women in the UK to suffer from the potentially life-threatening illness, Lymphangioleiomyomatosis (LAM), a rare lung disease. On diagnosis, in 2006, Havi was told that life-expectancy was approximately ten years. Since then, her life has changed beyond recognition and yet, at the same time, has remained the same. Despite being young and healthy looking, she has had to reinvent her life, rethink her aspirations and plans and, more than anything, learn to love the life she has.
While Illness, a unique and often moving book, is founded on Havi’s experience of living with a degenerative illness, it was her training as a philosopher that pushed her to reflect more generally on health and illness. For the ancient Greeks, philosophy was a set of practical skills intended to enhance and improve life by helping people to think clearly about it. Philosophy was an aid in challenging times. Could the same set of skills, with its focus on personal understanding and reflection be applied to illness in the 21st century? This book presents a positive reply to this question. Havi found that the theories and language used to describe illness today are, all too often, inappropriate and misleading. They are too detached, clinical and “third-person”, lacking focus on the actual experience of the ill person, her fears, her hopes, the way she interacts with others and, ultimately, experiences life. This neglected dimension is the focus of this book, which offers a fresh perspective on illness, as well as practical suggestions on how to live well with illness.
“Illness can be a journey. Like some journeys, you do not always know where it will take you. This particular journey moved from personal experiences of illness to a philosophical exploration of their meaning… It ends, or rather stops, here, in the middle. In the present. Where I am now. I do not know what the future will bring; no one does. But being here, now, is enough.”
Bringing together two perspectives, a own personal account of life with illness and the philosophical account – Illness takes us on a thought-provoking journey through life as it is affected by illness. From the betrayal of the body to the geographical changes encountered by an ill person (what may seem near and easy to a well person may be distant and difficult for the ill), from how the ill are seen by others (healthcare professionals, family, friends and strangers) to changes in the social world of the ill (the ability to participate socially, for many, become restricted), this clearly-written book begins to unravel the tension between the universality of illness and its intensely private, and often lonely and isolating nature.
By focusing and reflecting on the experiences of personal growth, adaptation and rediscovery, Illness offers a genuinely new and, most importantly, a practical and positive way of looking at a matter that will, without doubt, affect us all.
Havi Carel is Senior Lecturer in Philosophy at the University of the West of England, Bristol
Havi Carel is happy to be interviewed and to write articles. If you would like to arrange to speak to her, or would like to see a proof copy of Illness, please contact:
Kate Shepherd, The Oxford Publicity Partnership Ltd, 5 Victoria House, 138 Watling Street East, Towcester, Northants, NN12 6BT Tel: 01327 357770 and /or Home Office Tel: 01993 815835
Email: kate.shepherd@oppuk.co.uk
Illness – By Havi Carel – paperback – £9.99 – ISBN: 978-1-84465-152-8
About LAM: Lymphangioleiomyomatosis (sporadic pulmonary LAM) is a rare fatal lung disease that affects women from all racial backgrounds in their childbearing years. There currently is no effective treatment for the disease. An estimated 50,000 women world-wide suffer from LAM. While a lung transplant is an option of last resort if a matched donor can be found, there is a critical shortage of lungs available. For more information on LAM contact www.lamaction.org.
The Art of Living is published by Acumen Publishing
We live in a world where people are searching for new insights and sources of meaning. Religion often seems questionable; work and the consumer treadmill unbalanced; and self-help worthy but simplistic. Philosophy is the great untapped resource of our generation. From Plato to Russell philosophers have engaged wide audiences on matters of life and death. The Art of Living series aims to reinvigorate philosophy and open up the subject’s riches to a wider public once again. Taking its lead from the concerns of the ancient Greek philosophers, the series asks the question “how should we live?” Authors draw on their own personal reflections to write philosophy that seeks to enrich, stimulate and challenge the reader’s thoughts about their own life. For further information go to: www.acumenpublishing.co.uk
Other titles in The Art of Living series:
• Clothes – John Harvey
• Deception – Ziyad Marar
• Fame – Mark Rowlands
• Hunger – Raymond Tallis
• Pets – Erica Fudge
• Sport – Colin McGinn
• Wellbeing – Mark Vernon
• Work – Lars Svendsen
Anybody who is new to any kind of breathing disorder may likely be asked to perform what is called a “PFT” test or Pulmonary Function Test. This provides your physician, or your specialist/pulmonologist with a baseline of how your lungs perform in a series of test situations.
