diagnosis

The Big Reveal

Posted on by Wendy Kennar
Screenshot - Image courtesy of COPE Magazine

“The appointment was set for early morning so I could make it to my fourth grade classroom before the school bell. I took this as a good sign. No doctor would deliver heartbreaking news and then expect me to go teach a roomful of nine and ten-year olds. Whatever Dr. W had to tell me couldn’t be that bad.  
“That’s what I kept telling myself, because that’s what I needed to believe.”

The words above are taken from my personal essay, “The Big Reveal,” which I’m pleased to share has been published in COPE Magazine, Issue 4. The theme for Issue 4 is Diagnosis. 

In its current form, “The Big Reveal” is the first essay in my memoir — I can’t believe I get to write this, but here it goes — which will be published in Spring 2028!!

The morning I received my diagnosis is one of those days that got filed into my memory, and not until many years later, was I more fully able to process what it meant then, and what it means now, to be diagnosed with an incurable chronic condition. 

Screenshot - Image courtesy of COPE Magazine

I hope you’ll read my essay, and also take time to read the other published pieces and marvel at the artwork that together make up COPE Magazine, Issue 4. (You can access the issue online and/or order print copies.)

It’s Not the Final Answer

Posted on by Wendy Kennar

“After a year and a half of talking with one doctor after another, it was Dr. W, a rheumatologist, who explained my mystery illness.

‘It’s an autoimmune disease called Undifferentiated Connective Tissue Disease. UCTD,’ he told us.

My husband and I had no idea what that meant except for one thing. My gut instinct told me that not knowing those letters, not immediately recognizing the name Undifferentiated Connective Tissue Disease, was a good thing. If UCTD was truly bad, it would have been a familiar term. A term you hear about a lot in relation to walk-a-thons and fundraisers. Multiple sclerosis. Muscular dystrophy. Even if I didn’t know the specifics of those illnesses, I knew their names. I knew they were complicated. UCTD sounded okay.”

The paragraphs above are from my personal essay, It’s Not the Final Answer. I’m pleased to share that my essay was selected for publication in Please See Me, Issue #12: Diagnosis. You can read the essay in its entirety by clicking here.