Native American Case Study

Setting: Norway, 1996. Unni Wikan works a stressful job and is married. She has a son and was at home alone with him during this time of the incident. One Sunday morning Wikan’s eye shadowed over and her vision became unclear. First assumption was stress. Patient has been very healthy all her life with rare instance of illness. The pain and shadowing of the eye continued until she called an optometrist. The Doctor said it was nothing to worry about and made her schedule an appointment for a few days later. The discomfort still did not cease so she got a second opinion and was rushed to more immediate care. It turns out her retina had been separated from the eye; which is a very serious condition, often resulting in blindness. The surgery was a failure and to this day she has no vision in her right eye.

Analysis:

Unni Wikan used her case to symbolically show that this “eye” disease was not a physical illness but rather a personal one affecting her “I” or self. Throughout her life she felt invincible to disease’s hold because she had always mentally gotten over her illnesses. This time was different; she did not know how to be sick. Playing the “sick role” was a difficult thing for her and caused her to give up on herself and perhaps the healing too. Loosing faith, she felt, caused a negative side effect in her healing process because mentally she was just not ready to cope with all of this.

The way in which the story/narrative was created allows the reader to really understand the patient or the teller on a much more personal level. Opening the door of one’s past allows us to realize what events have triggered certain feelings and characteristics in their lives. Her increasing illness and face pace agenda were remedies for self-destruction and when Wikan was placed out of her element, she crumbled.