title: My Sister's Keeper: Sibling Social Support and Chronic Illness.
abstract: Through her stories and mine, my sister and I allow the outside world to see the ways in which we grapple with a critical health incident along her journey of living with lupus. Lupus is a chronic, autoimmune disease that is difficult to recognize and to diagnose. The ambiguous nature of the disease creates considerable confusion for the ill person as well as her support system. Using an illness narrative, I analyze a real life event linked to chronic illness, invisibility, living loss, liminality and family-and more specifically, to social support within the sibling relationship.
authors.affiliation: Communication Arts & Sciences, Penn State Berks, Franco 149, Reading, PA, USA. kmm410@psu.edu.
authors.forename: Kesha Morant
authors.initials: KM
authors.lastname: Williams
mesh_terms: D002908:Chronic Disease; D005260:Female; D006801:Humans; D012801:Sibling Relations; D012944:Social Support
keywords: Chronic illness; Family; Narrative; Siblings; Social support; Stories