Human Experience of Illness and the Key Role of the Environment

The key goal of the healthcare facility is to offer a environment where the sick will be at ease and to enable their body to regenerate. There are three principles for a healthy environment: seen, unseen, and storied environments. These ideas give us a deeper view of the healing environment, the illness, and the purpose of God, for God is always with us. The seen environment consists of a physical component of the atmosphere. It can be sensed, weighed, seen, smelled, sampled, and observed. Providing a hot meal, a clean room, or calming music will help the patient to recover. The patient will ease the mind and body with soothing music. Feed them with fresh and aesthetically pleasing food. The environment seen is not supernatural, merely psychologically created, or metaphysical, since there is no proof of creation. It is studied in physiology, physics, astronomy, chemistry, and so on. God has assigned the human race the task of creating and caring for the seen. In the observable world, his knowledge and strength are seen.

The unseen environment is all that is understood by faith. Realities or things that our five senses do not understand such as birth, pain, and death is something that reaches beyond the human body and is unexplainable by nature. The unseen environment can only be understood in a manner that is not directly influenced by something. John 1:18 says that the unseen is where God dwells. It is the best place where a human seeks the law of God and everlasting things. We're not looking at the problems that we can see now; instead, we're setting our eyes on issues that can't be done. The stuff we know today will soon be gone, but the ones we can't remember will last forever. An unseen environment may have a positive effect, where a person has positive thoughts and remarks. It will encourage regeneration and quicker recovery. On the other hand, adverse consequences can create anxiety and an unhealthy atmosphere due to the lack of anonymity and secrecy on the part of health practitioners. God is a mentor who gives us the strength to make the best choices.

The storied environment is the interpretation and perception of optimism. Hope is the anticipation of the target, the awareness, and the belief that there is a way out of difficulties. Healthcare practitioners, along with patients, can find motivation in optimism. To staff, the determination to perform their task, irrespective of the risks, and for patients, the expectation is that medical care, such as surgery and medicine, can continue to improve the health of the patient. At times, people's conditions are not optimistic, they contain false optimism. They've got a storyline, but without a narrator. Nonetheless, we must be hopeful and assume that the potential outcomes are promising for us. Our lives make sense in a bigger, more abstract picture. Without a storyteller, one of them is lost. No intent, no meaning, no pattern. The Bible views the history of humanity as linear, having a beginning as well as an end of intent and meaning. God is pure and limitless in his actions and knowledge. His dream will be achieved irrespective of the uprising of mankind. The tale of Christ is told in four chapters: Chapter 1—Life, Chapter 2—Rebellion and Sin, Chapter 3—Redemption, and Chapter 4—New Life. The very reality that God has created something new gives hope to health professionals to continue their work, particularly nurses, that God will restore his world. Revelation 21:4 states, 'He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes, and there shall be no more death, nor grief, nor crying, nor suffering. It's all gone forever'. The storied setting provides substance to spiritual terms such as righteousness and devotion, bravery and self-restraint. We apply ourselves to the way we communicate stories, but we also know about ourselves; it is a strong source of motivation.

Phenomenology is intended to enhance our knowledge of health by entering the disease-level review, a field of research that examines whether clinical circumstances are treated as essential to the environment; a summary of the main framework of each human experience. If a person becomes sick, life becomes frequently permeated with feelings of helplessness, fatigue, dizziness, weakness, loss of sense, or discomfort. In the death of Ivan Ilych's story, his wife told his friend Peter that her late husband and good friend had suffered in the last few days. He's been crying for hours, as if his life was now pointless and unbearable. Phenomenology of sickness and disorder also demonstrates how to cope with a disability; a patient can be anxious or puzzled. The story about Ivan Ilych and his family showed how Ivan built an unseen environment by making his family and friends uneasy to see him and be there. Ivan realizes the errors of his life and makes his way to God, repenting with all his sins, thus bringing him to salvation.

My own experience with illness comes at a time when I developed shingles, I never really considered myself a sickly person so getting this disease at a young age confused me. I was in high school on thanksgiving break at the time when I developed small blister like bumps on the left ridge of my nose. I was taken to urgent care to gain more insight of what I may have encountered when the Physician came in to see me his first response was to back up into the corner of the room, he then explain that I had shingles and that he had not had chicken pox before. We sparked up an intriguing conversation about shingles and how common the disease is to the elderly but anyone who has had chicken pox can still develop them. What I’ve learn from this experience is how to interact with patient that even though one may have a contagious illness it is important that the patient feel comfortable and less animus about their illness. A positive interaction I got with the physician is insight, knowledge is power, being able to fully understand what is going one with one’s body helps to ease the fear of the unknown as well as share that insight with others.

References

• Maude, L. M., & Maude, A. M. (n.d.). Leo Tolstoy: Death of Ivan Ilych - Christian Classics Ethereal Library. Retrieved Autumn 3, 2020, from https://ccel.org/ccel/tolstoy/ivan/ivan.i.html
• Shelly, J. A., & Miller, A. B. (2006). Called to Care: A Christian Worldview for Nursing (2nd ed.). Downers Grove, Illinois: IVP Academic.