"Things Are Happening That I Don't Understand": A Narrative Exploration of the Chaos of Living with Pelvic Floor Disorders.

Pelvic floor disorders (PFDs), including fecal and urinary incontinence as well as pelvic organ prolapse, are common medical issues faced by one-third of all women across the lifespan. Despite this prevalence, many women are unaware of them, have highly stigmatized perceptions of them, and thus do not actively seek support or treatment for them. Given that PFDs can drastically impact quality of life to the point of social isolation and depression, this study examines chaos and desire as both lived and storied constructs that ultimately influence whether and how women with PFDs assert control over their social and corporeal disruption. Guided by narrative sensibilities and informed by semi-structured interviews with 22 women living with varying PFDs, our analysis highlights how chaos serves as a catalyst for continued chaos (i.e. barriers to seeking medical care), mitigation (i.e. resignation and/or public bodily containment), and/or change (i.e. motivations to seek medical care). These findings offer both theoretical and practical implications for helping individuals grappling with the dis-ease of PFDs (i.e. patients, providers, and practitioners) to envision and act otherwise.

Brave. Bold. Gold: Athletic Activism and the Realities of Childhood Cancer.

Turn It Gold is both the name of a Houston-based nonprofit and a mandate to rally support for childhood cancer with gold, the color officially chosen to represent childhood cancer awareness. Athletic activism is an important part of their mission, as evidenced by burgeoning partnerships with schools and universities across the country. In this essay, we explore the collective impact of professional and collegiate athletes who use their personal platform for public good. Athletes cannot diminish the grief and loss surrounding childhood cancer. Even so, they can stand in solidarity with impacted families and communities.

Defining Moments Telling Stories to Foster Well-being, Humanize Healthcare, and Advocate for Change.

Health Communication launched the "Defining Moments" forum in 2009 to showcase the social and material power of storytelling. On its 10-year anniversary, we take stock of how authors have enacted "Defining Moments" including what was narrated, by whom, and why. In eight loosely coupled thematic clusters, we revisit the more than 75 published essays to date, finding value in ways that speak to the emerging and enduring issues of concern for health communication scholars. Across the essays, the maturation of health narrative theorizing is revealed by the sheer scope of topics addressed, coupled with the expanded voices and ways of voicing experience. Collectively, these essays have enlarged academic conventions and offered diverse entry points for refiguring the experience of illness and well-being.

Patterns of family health history communication among older African American adults.

This qualitative study examined patterns of communication regarding family health history among older African American adults. The authors conducted 5 focus groups and 6 semi-structured interviews with African Americans aged 60 years and older (N = 28). The authors identified 4 distinct patterns of family health history communication: noncommunication, open communication, selective communication (communication restricted to certain people or topics), and one-way communication (communication not reciprocated by younger family members). In general, participants favored open family health history communication, often resulting from desires to change patterns of noncommunication in previous generations regarding personal and family health history. Some participants indicated that they were selective about what and with whom they shared health information in order to protect their privacy and not worry others. Others described family health history communication as one-way or unreciprocated by younger family members who appeared uninterested or unwilling to share personal and family health information. The communication patterns that the authors identified are consistent with communication privacy management theory and with findings from studies focused on genetic testing results for hereditary conditions, suggesting that individuals are consistent in their communication of health and genetic risk information. Findings may guide the development of health message strategies for African Americans to increase family health history communication.

"That was grown folks' business": narrative reflection and response in older adults' family health history communication.

Given the importance of family health history and the pivotal role of older adults in communicating it, this study examines how African American older adults (a) characterize their understandings of health-related conditions in their family histories and (b) rationalize their motivations and constraints for sharing this information with current family members. Using narrative theory as a framework, we illustrate how the participants reflect on prior health-related experiences within the family to respond to moral and practical calls for communicating family health information to current relatives. Specifically, our analysis highlights how storied family secrets--as constructed by 28 participants in group and individual interviews--reveal and inform shifting cultural and generational practices that shape the lived health behaviors and communication of older adults at greater risk for health disparities.

Old friends make the best friends: A counter-narrative of aging for people and pets.

This study examines the counter-narrative of aging-Old Friends Make the Best Friends-that nonprofit animal rescue organizations collaboratively construct to encourage the adoption of senior dogs and cats. Textual analysis of organizational websites revealed three coordinated strategies for challenging negative assumptions and changing public sentiment: education and advocacy, supportive services, and appeals to altruism. Together, the organizations endorse senior pets as potentially damaged but always resilient, deserving of care and still capable of meaningful life. In doing so, they disrupt dominant scripts of aging as decline with support for the human-animal bond in later life. Ultimately, this counter-narrative normalizes the lived realities of aging for pets and people: It champions the promises of old age by advocating for senior animals and pet guardianship in later life, and it acknowledges the inherent challenges of old age by providing financial, material, and emotional resources to manage the care of senior pets, older adults, and the relationships that sustain them.

Though much is taken, much abides: the storied world of aging in a fictionalized retirement home.

This study explores one elderly author's accounts of life within a fictionalized retirement home to understand how meanings of age are storied within a collective community and offered as alternative narratives to the dominant discourse of aging in our society. An examination of the five novels in content and form reveals how older individuals, acting as embodied and social beings, can reclaim meanings of age through the stories they share. Rather than perpetuate a one-dimensional view of later life, octogenarian Effie Leland Wilder deliberately stories her novels with multifaceted accounts that acknowledge the positive and negative experiences of growing older. Narrative medicine and narrative gerontology position imagination as essential for recognizing, understanding, and empathizing with the lived realities of disparate individuals. This study offers an important understanding of the ways in which storytellers and story-listeners can make sense of aging through fictive stories and literary ways of knowing. Implications for future research and practice are also discussed.

The communicative role of companion pets in patient-centered critical care.

OBJECTIVE: This study examines a personal pet hospital visitation program dedicated to preserving the human-animal bond during chronic, critical, or terminal illness to understand the novel ways companion pets facilitate meaningful communication between patients, providers, and families in hospital settings. METHODS: I thematically analyzed data collected through a variety of qualitative methods, including participant observation, informal and semi-structured interviews, and a review of organizational materials. RESULTS: The presence of a patient's personal pet prompted stories and behaviors characterized by (1) compassion, (2) connection, and (3) response between patients, providers, and family members. CONCLUSION: Personal pet hospital visits facilitate storied conversations, foster healing relationships, and offer alternative ways of knowing that can promote greater understandings of the patient's psychosocial context for more personalized care and improved well-being. PRACTICE IMPLICATIONS: Patient-centered critical care requires meaningful consideration of a patient's health, well-being, and comfort. When appropriate, the therapeutic benefits of companion animals and the deep personal bonds between patients and their pets should be acknowledged and provided as part of this care.

Aging with service, socialization, and support: The work of faith-based stories in a lifetime community.

This project explores the impact that stories told through the church have on rural older adults and their perceptions of community resources, possibilities, and responsibilities as they age in the same small town where they have lived most, if not all, of their lives. I combine qualitative research practices with narrative theorizing to understand the ways in which faith-based stories work with, for, and on community members. I seek to understand how these stories foster a culture of altruism and spirit of stewardship that can ultimately build an inclusive community, nurture a sense of responsibility across generations, and enable residents to age in place with meaningful connection, purpose, and support.