Somewhere Ogre the Rainbow

stupid-elf:

kineticpenguin:
kineticpenguin:
It is increasingly obvious that most people have no idea how to indicate an illness is slowly killing someone without making them cough up blood. Doesn’t matter what it is or if it has anything to do with your respiratory system, if you’re dying, you’re coughing up blood.
Writers found out about tuberculosis and were like “damn this slaps” and we’ve been stuck with it ever since
As a person the doc told had all the symptoms of something that kills people (procedural testing confirmed it was something else so that’s neat, I’ve been given steps to mitigate it so what I actually have won’t be a problem that could kill me for quite some time) I have some other options
1. MAKE THEM FALL OVER. Seriously most things that will kill people cause some bodily system to fail at some point, and having somebody be walking upright, then suddenly grasping for something to hold onto, then hitting the deck can be a far more dramatic moment than “oh no mystery illness, I’m coughing a lot, uh-oh there’s blood now.”
2. Cognitive dysfunction. One of the body’s common responses to “oh that’s no good” is to focus all of the attention on the problem, and that can make people with chronic illnesses ‘zone out’ for no reason. If you have a normally witty, innovative, or otherwise mentally present character having them sit in a chair talking and then suddenly drop out of the conversation, only coming back to it when somebody addresses them directly, and even then their eyes are perhaps unfocused, or they seem like they’re trying to say the minimum necessary to get you to move on. It can be a gut punch.
3. Lack of confidence. When something goes from routine to being something [malady] might prevent them from doing the person might suffer a loss of confidence. Maybe you have a strong character that has a stress-triggered case of syncope. They might hesitate to lift weights or work out again, fearing that sense of oncoming death that knocks when you realize your body is going to shut down on you and there’s nothing you can do to stop it.
4. The opposite of loss of confidence, the acquisition of false confidence. The inability to accept there’s things they can no longer do, punished by a demonstration of the fact they cannot do it. Maybe your character is a gymnast, but tore their rotator cuff. They might instinctively go to swing around a corner by the doorframe, a typical enough gesture for most, especially those accustomed to moving quickly, but the pressure of simple inertia causes them to cry out in pain and fall, their arm and torso spasming as a sense of hurt, failure, and doubt clouds their eyes.
5. Google illnesses with similar symptoms, then go read peoples’ stories. “There’s nothing more tragic than the truth,” and whatnot. Oftentimes an author cannot even imagine the pain of having something be one’s lived experience. So go look for people who have that lived experience. Then revel in the pain you can cause your character.