Constructing the stroke: sudden-onset narratives of stroke survivors

Abstract

In this article, the authors explore the narrative production of stroke from the perspectives of survivors, that is, the stroke itself, not its implications for the individual poststroke. In the vast amount of literature on both sudden onset and chronic illness, the narrative construction of the onset of the illness, for the most part, has been ignored by social scientists, most notably in qualitative research. This is certainly true of stroke. Drawing on existing literature in both chronic illness and the body, the authors extend this to explore the phenomenological construction of stroke onset. Using data gathered from in-depth interviews with 111 stroke survivors postdischarge, they suggest three narrative mechanisms are used in the construct of the sudden-onset event itself: the use of typifications to construct the body during stroke, stroke as an internal communicative act, and stroke as a physical sensation and the mechanisms used to minimize bodily concerns.