With bated breath: diagnosis of respiratory illness

This essay recounts the author’s experience of diagnosis of a rare respiratory condition in order to open a broader reflection on the nature of diagnosis. Diagnosis is a pivotal moment in one’s illness experience, and it can be viewed as both a closure of possibilities and an opening of new, unanticipated ones. The notion of anticipation is also important to the illness experience, in that anticipation and waiting characterize the illness experience generally—in waiting rooms, anticipating test results—as well as the change in one’s attitude towards the future, which becomes fearsome in illness.