Summary:

The article discusses the gap in medicine that perpetuates inequality based on age, which has been accentuated during the pandemic. It highlights the struggles faced by young, chronically ill, and disabled individuals who often find themselves left to decay without proper care or treatment. Navigating an ageist healthcare system can be challenging, but the article emphasizes the role of patients as educators in advocating for their own needs. The author shares their personal experience through the self-portraiture series "Outgrowing the Growing Pains" to educate others about the realities faced by young, disabled individuals.

Takeaways:

🔍 The pandemic has amplified the inequality in medicine based on age, particularly affecting young, chronically ill, and disabled individuals.

🌱 Being young does not guarantee good health, and older individuals can still be healthy. Age should not be the sole determinant of healthcare priorities.

💪 When faced with a healthcare system that fails to acknowledge your needs, become an advocate and educator for yourself. Knowledge is power.

🎨 Art can be a powerful tool to shed light on the realities of healthcare inequalities. The self-portraiture series, "Outgrowing the Growing Pains," serves as an educational platform to share personal experiences and inspire change.

🤝 By sharing stories and advocating for change, we can work towards ensuring that the experiences of young, chronically ill, and disabled individuals are not overlooked or repeated.

There is a gap in medicine that perpetuates inequality based on age.

The pandemic has accentuated this inequality to a dehumanizing extent leaving many young, chronically ill and disabled people in dire health circumstances.

Young is not synonymous for health and old is not synonymous for a lack of health.

But to be a young disabled person amidst the pandemic is to be left to decay until your body does not respond to conservative treatment.

It is to be left to become a case that is too complex for any doctor to take on – to be bounced around through endless referrals, holding onto hope that the next one will be the one.

Being a young disabled student during the pandemic, attempting to navigate an ageist health-care system, shines a light on the potential for self-teaching and the reality of what it means when it is said that knowledge is power.

When you are caught in a system that refuses to acknowledge you or to see you as a priority in needing care, you become the person educating providers about your conditions and their eminence.

The self-portraiture series Outgrowing the Growing Pains is a reflection of what can occur when our health-care system does not acknowledge the reality of young, chronically ill and disabled people.

It is, a reflection of my ongoing reality, and my attempt to educate from my own experience.

Outgrowing The Growing Pains is my relentless endeavor to ensure that my story is not repeated.