The analysis
illness
A narrative analysis was conducted looking at the themes that emerged during the interviews as well as how the tellers structured their stories of self. The themes and structures are discussed separately. Firstly, themes and topics of concern to the participants were identified and considered together to develop larger groupings of themes and categories. Second, we re‐read participants' stories to determine how they were constructed, meaning we looked not only at the contents of the narrative but also its form (i.e., temporal course, plots, and subplots) in order to achieve insight beyond the spoken words.The structural part of the analysis was largely inspired by Arthur Franks book RestitutionThe restitution plot reflects the desire to recover from illness and has become the narrative that models how illness is to be described.ChaosThe chaos plot imagines life never getting any better.QuestThe quest plot is defined as the survivor having accepted his illness and believes something is to be gained through the experience. These storytellers accept illness and seek to use it. There is a sense of purpose, and the survivor may desire to help others.