Bit quiet here..buried under assignments. Has meant I have had time or energy to think or feel much which isn’t a bad thing….though today ended up a low after some random thoughts (not helped by barely sleeping last night!).
One of the assignments I’ve been working on recently was about infertility…..we had to hand a draft in & then the tutor gives feedback, we can make changes then hand it in for grading. One of the pieces of feedback was around a choice of word j used and it got me thinking.
I described infertility as a chronic illness (I was relating to some of the similarities about it and other chronic illnesses, she reckoned it should be described as a chronic condition. But when I looked up the World Health Organisation definition of infertility….it called it a disease!
So then I’ve been trying to figure out what the differences between an illness, a diesease and a condition are…..seems everyone agrees their different, but not how they differ.
I’m no wondering, how do you think of infertility? Is it an illness, a disease or a condition (or something else) to you?
Sliding Doors 
That is a hard question. I had to look up the definitions for all of them, and it really could be all three. Lots of diseases and illness fall under chronic condition. I think it comes to your preferences. I, however, would go with illness over disease or condition.
LikeLike
Yeah that’s my thoughts too. I guess it’s also harder with infertility as there are so many other factors…like it could be PCOS, or tubal damage etc that change it too.
LikeLike
Or often times multiple factors contributing.
Disorder may be the best term. Since your life feels in such disorder when you have the medical disorder of infertility. 🙂
LikeLike
Haha yes that’s a good point!
LikeLike
I guess I think of it like a condition. That sounds the most correct to me. Because with the world condition there is maybe the idea that there might be a possibility for the condition to change.. Like for couples who have unexplained infertility for instance but then eventually manage to have a baby. However when there is no chance then maybe the word disease better.
LikeLike
I get where you’re coming from. I think part of the issue with choosing a word is that even if a person has a baby, they can still be infertile.
Maybe because there are so many possible causes of infertility it’s hard to clearly label it.
LikeLike
I would go with disease or condition over illness depending on the specific diagnosis. (Genetic? Overgrowth? etc) Mostly because I think of illnesses as being something that can get better or as having a cure (also something you catch like a bacteria or virus) which isn’t the case with infertility.
LikeLike
Some others had similar thoughts – but then how do you explain endometriosis which I’ve always though of as a chronic illness, and which there isn’t a cure for. I’ve come to the conclusion there is no cut & dried correct answer 🙂
LikeLiked by 1 person
Yea there’s definitely a lot of overlap. And I don’t think it would be wrong to use any of those terms. I personally would use ‘chronic disease’ for endometriosis because it’s somewhat like a tumour and typically cancer tumours are considered diseases.
LikeLiked by 1 person