This has been an intense decade for me. Prior to my most recent medical challenges, I spent a few years caregiving for loved ones with severe medical crises of their own. Since 2016, I’ve spent a lot of time in cancer centers, the neuro-trauma ICU, and hospice rooms. The physical nature of some of the care I provided in those spaces (wheel chair transfers, lifting, dressing, carrying, cleaning, etc.), very likely accelerated the ligamental instability in my spine.
I didn’t know I was creating countless micro-injuries in my back. Because of my genetic disorder (hEDS), none of those injuries got to heal fully. Then, at the end of that gauntlet of caring for loved ones, just when I thought I was about to take some time for some personal healing, we headed into a global pandemic. COVID-19 came along and was, literally, the inflammatory last straw that broke this camel’s back.
Welcome to the World of the Medical Survivor
Today, I’ve joined the ranks of several of my author clients—writers who are “medical survivors.” My life now has a vivid before and after. I am doing a bit better than I was two years ago, thanks to some novel treatments that can slow the degeneration of my vertebral ligaments—and therefore protect my spinal cord.
But those treatments have their limits; they’re not a cure. There are many ways that my life will never be the same.
I have had to accept that, in my late forties, I experience many physical limitations that are more standard for someone in their eighties or later. I use several adaptive devices to make my desk work more comfortable. I can no longer carry a backpack. I need a cane or trekking poles to walk, and I am limited to about a mile max if I am to avoid a severe neuropathy flare-up afterward.
My own mother, over 30 years my senior, walks 6 to 8 miles a day—and without the cane she used when relearning how to walk after a serious brain trauma.
Some folks get total miracles. It’s beautiful and astounding when that happens. But most of us medical survivors live with scars. Today, I am a different person living in a different body, and there’s no going back.
I’ve also learned some hard and invaluable lessons along the way—about self-compassion, rest, acceptance, and committing to see beauty in the midst of hard times. I’m grateful for those gleanings. Though I won’t lie: I wish there had been an easier way to receive them.
When writers survive life-threatening and life-altering circumstances, we want to make sense of it all. We write about it. We want to share our story to declare that we survived and, hopefully, offer up our experiences to help other people in similar situations.
As a memoir ghostwriter, editor, and coach, I’ve helped other people with their stories of medical survival. Now I’m applying those skills to write my own story.
I am already in the process of finalizing a manuscript about a massive medical crisis that my mother miraculously survived about six years ago. That project is keeping me busy enough. But simultaneously, these past two years, I’ve taken plenty of notes about my own recent journey through the medical system. Yes, maybe a couple years from now, I’ll transform all those sketch notes into another book of my own.
Meanwhile, I thought I might share some behind-the-scenes tips.
Applying My Own Advice
Finalizing the manuscript about my mother’s medical miracle, and thinking about writing my own medical survival story, I’ve certainly been pondering all the instruction I’ve provided for other emerging authors over the years! In the world of literary memoir, “medical survival memoirs” present a few unique challenges.
These survivor stories can quickly become:
- Boring. Too scientific to engage the heart and soul of the reader. They read like a medical textbook or physician’s “after-visit summaries”.
- Morbid or depressing. Too gory or too much of a downer to attract a broad readership. These manuscripts read like horror stories or depression-journals. Both extremes can be off-putting to a literary reader.
- Shallow. So action-driven and emergency-driven, they lack character development and depth. They read like a non-stop chase-scene.
Thankfully, there are several literary techniques and strategies that address all three of those vulnerabilities at once. Here are few.
- Find your inner stories. Plot chart your inner spiritual growth as well as all the external “action” that happened to you. Alongside all those high-stakes ER moments and surgery scenes, remember to include scenes that focus on the inner spiritual challenges and changes. Similarly, develop plot charts for key relationships and conflicts (side plots) that occurred alongside your medical survival experience.
- Get sensory. Never say “I felt sad.” Those “I-feel” statements are crucial in day-to-day communication with loved ones and in therapeutic contexts. But on the page, they make for bland story-telling. Instead, use sensory language to vividly describe: body sensations, physical action and movement, interactions, and the environment around you. Let the scene itself communicate the sadness. Or anger. Or joy. Or anything else you felt at any moment in your story. Instead of writing “I felt sad”, describe: the dim light, the crack in the ceiling, the way everyone turned completely still and said nothing for several minutes. When the scene comes alive through rich, sensory description, the reader will spontaneously feel the emotion. That’s your goal.
- Vary your pace. Sensory description is powerful, but should you use it all the time? When should you “slow time down” and get super descriptive? How often should you do that? It is definitely possible to have too much of a good thing. Constant, slow-time description will bog a book down. At the other extreme, constant, fast-time summary will leave a reader feeling unattached. The answer is to find a compositional rhythm. Vary your pace and depth. Get “slow-time sensory” at key turning points and high-stakes moments. Then pull up and back, speeding up time in between those primary scenes.
When I ghostwrite, I implement these strategies and techniques myself. When I coach new authors on writing their own medical memoirs, I provide intensive sessions to equip them to write at this level.
During an initial coaching package, my goal is to help my authors master these techniques as they write 3 or 4 sample chapters on their own. After the first four to six coaching sessions, the author is ready to head out on their own, completing a first full draft without too much involvement from me.
As for My Own Projects
It’s fascinating and humbling to apply these principles as I edit and revise my own work now—whether polishing second-draft scenes for my mother’s medical miracle story, or sketch-drafting a few scene ideas for my own survivor memoir. So far, I feel good about both projects. But editors need editors. I do not content-edit or line-edit my own work.
I hope to send a “first shareable draft” of my mother’s story to one of my favorite coaches this coming summer. I’ll let you know how that goes. Stay tuned for more behind-the-scenes updates!
Do you have a unique “survivor story”? Whether you survived a medical crisis, or any other kind of trauma, did that experience transform you? Anika works primarily with authors who have survived and come through shining, despite (and maybe even because of) the scars. If you hope to write a story that draws readers closer to their own transformative change, contact Montana Coauthor about ghostwriting, author coaching, or editing services.
