It's All in Your Head by Suzanne O'Sullivan

Author:Suzanne O'Sullivan
Language: eng
Format: epub, mobi
ISBN: 9781473511439
Publisher: Random House

6

ALICE

The colours of the chameleon are not more numerous and inconstant than the varieties of the hypochondriac and hysteric disease.

Robert Whytt, On Nervous, Hypochondriac, or Hysteric

Diseases (1764)

MOST DISEASES POLITELY restrict themselves to a finite number of symptoms. Heart disease largely appears as just what it is: chest pain or palpitations. People recognise the symptoms and seek the help of a cardiologist. Of course, occasionally it is sneaky and only causes fluid overload and ankle swelling with no chest-related symptoms at all. But for the most part many cardiological, respiratory, neurological and other organ diseases obey quite strict criteria of rules, with the greatest variation being not in the type of the symptoms, but in the severity.

There are diseases, however, whose pattern is so varied that they are easy to underestimate when you first encounter them. Autoimmune disorders, such as lupus, can manifest in myriad ways, maybe as a skin rash, or a joint pain, or just fatigue. Lupus affects multiple organs so it may produce a mixture of confusing signs that make it difficult to diagnose. As a result some patients may see a variety of specialists before their medical diagnosis is discovered.

But even compared to the most aggressive multi-system disease, psychosomatic disorders are noteworthy for how little respect they have for any single part of the body. No bodily function is spared or ignored. And how easily and quickly these disorders flit from one place to another, like little rodents evading capture. Just as one psychosomatic symptom is discovered it disappears and, watch out, there is another emerging somewhere else.

As we have seen, the ancient Greeks thought that the uterus wandered about the body causing symptoms. The wandering womb was called ‘an animal within an animal’. It was imagined that the womb might leave the pelvis and lodge itself in the throat causing an inability to swallow. The next day it might move to the stomach and cause pain and vomiting. And, however wrong this view might have been, there are elements of the description that are recognisable. But it is not an animal or an organ that wanders, it is sadness. And it is looking for a way out.

Alice’s story began with cancer.

At the age of twenty-four Alice had found a lump. She felt it just in the upper edge of her left breast next to her armpit. She first noticed it when she was in the shower before work and, as soon as her hand happened upon it, her heart immediately filled with terrible memories and feelings of dread. She did not go to work that day and instead made an appointment to see her doctor. Her doctor respected her fears and made an urgent referral to the breast-cancer clinic.

One week later Alice was sitting in the outpatient waiting room an hour early for her appointment. She was alone. She did not want to worry her family until she was sure that there was something to worry about. The consultant who saw her was kind and listened to Alice carefully.

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