Get well soon!

I have in the past been as guilty as anyone else of sending people cards with this message without knowing whether it is appropriate or not. Obviously when someone first becomes ill they and their friends and family all hope that this is a temporary state of affairs. You go the doctor, or the hospital, you are treated, the nasty thing goes away and you are back where you were.

Chronic illness doesn't work like that, unfortunately. You are not going back to normal, although you might be one of the lucky ones whose disease has been found early enough for a bit of improvement, or at least for you not to get any worse in the near future, and for it to be managed successfully. That wouldn't have quite the same snappy impact as a greetings card offering, of course - "Don't get any worse" wouldn't get a lot of custom, I suspect.

As time goes on it may be more apparent that it is not the right message. A chronic illness is very often progressive, even with periods of remission and allowing that some of these conditions can keep you in their grip for a long time (years in some cases). After a while, the expectations of friends and family can be a bit oppressive, and the message, however well meant, can imply that it is up to you not to be ill - go on, get well! Behind this lies bafflement at coming to terms with the idea that this might not happen ("nonsense, they wouldn't let you out of hospital if you weren't getting better") and perhaps some confusion over the difference between having an incurable disease and having a terminal diagnosis (not necessarily the same thing - although this might seem a rather moot point).

There is also a bit of finger-pointing at the sick and the disabled in society at large which basically seems to suggest that our fate is entirely in our hands. Gaining weight? You are eating too much fat and sugar and not exercising enough. Losing weight? You are not eating properly/enough. There can be serious medical causes for both weight loss and gain which have nothing to do with diet and exercise, and this constant background noise of blame is unhelpful and can distract from addressing the actual causes, which may not be in our own hands at all. This is, of course, a scary thought for everyone.