Americans Have to Accept Uncertainty

In 2012, I got very sick after several mysterious bouts of bad health. It took nearly three more years to figure out what was wrong with me. Few problems showed up on my test results, so the doctors mostly shook their heads: Without measurable data, they couldn’t even say I had a disease. That is how modern medicine works; it relies on data, measurements, symptoms, all of which constellate into a specific “disease entity,” tightly codified and closely studied. To be ill these days is (typically) to have more certainty about the source of your suffering than humans have ever had before. ;;. Because I had no answers, I sometimes wondered if the problem was all in my head. Perhaps I was depressed. Slowly, though, I came to accept what my body was making clear: I was sick, very sick, even if no one knew why. Without