Writing and Publishing with a Chronic Illness

Academic research thrives under particular conditions. Material resources, time, reliable child care, access to library and archival materials, and the good health to pursue the work in a sustained way. I have all but one of these.

My health isn’t terrible, just not great, some days. Today’s one of those days. A week of increasingly unpleasant insomnia has meant that I wake at 3:00, and read and write. But I can’t fall back asleep, not even to nap, before 9:00 or 10:00 at night. Rinse and repeat. Wake up 7 or 8 times each night, for up to an hour each time. At this point, I’m sleeping for a few hours per night? This is putting me in a bit of a danger zone for more adverse consequences.

The last few days have been much worse. I anticipated the beginning of term not as the joy of teaching my classes, and there is joy, but rather as the commencement of another round of layoffs. The ones before Christmas meant that faculty members and staff in both employee groups lost their jobs. While we have total numbers, we also have minimal information about where the cuts are hitting hardest. Or who might be next. I have very little seniority, in part because of decisions made at my place of employment during COVID, which negatively impacted all of us who were expecting secure employment.

So. Some thoughts about academic research under the constraints of chronic illness. And, because I am a sunny optimist at heart, some perhaps surprising benefits to research conducted quite frequently from bed.

The disadvantages are fairly obvious. Like any endeavour, intellectual effort requires an expenditure of energy, and my Addison’s Disease means that I have less energy and more challenges. Insomnia, anxiety, muscle weakness from the steroids, shifting constellations of symptoms. These are exacerbated when I’m ill, even with a minor cold, so I put a huge effort into staying healthy. But I’m the only person in a mask on public transit, or my classrooms. In many instances I can’t teach in one, because of class members who have learning or accommodation needs that are undermined by my mask-wearing.

My travel is severely curtailed as well. I won’t go to in-person academic conferences anymore; I think of them as scholarly germ-fests. Go, have fun! Don’t invite me. Online conferences suit me just fine.

It’s trickier when it comes to archival research. I’ve been trying to formulate a plan to spend time in three archives, in separate cities, and I’m a bit stumped about how to manage it. The solution may be to hire a graduate research assistant in each location as my proxy. And this is a loss, because I love being in the archives. My ideal would be full digital access to the materials, but that is prohibitively expensive, and there are considerations of privacy/access/intellectual property that preclude the possibility. I’m grateful for what has been digitized.

Here’s my last Debbie Downer comment: scholarly productivity is already a bit challenging, in a college environment where only applied research is part of our mandate. I haven’t quite figured out what applied research looks like in literature, though maybe this blog counts. When the challenges of high teaching load and no research funding are compounded by chronic illness, it becomes trickier still.

But let’s turn to the upside, since I’m currently on hold with tele-health to speak to a nurse. (Hour 2!) I have, to my surprise, kept writing and publishing through chronic illness. One big advantage is that I do fewer things now, take on fewer commitments, which opens up a lot of space for research and writing. Because I know my energy is limited, I measure out my spoons with great care.

The other benefit I’ve noticed is that I am less concerned than I ever was, previously, about comparing my work to the achievements of fellow researchers. Just don’t give a toss. I used to–oh, shameful confession–spend a certain amount of time checking in on how much grad school and early-career peers had achieved. As if we were in a foot race. Academia encourages this kind of unhealthy and imaginary competition, but the combo of age, experience, and chronic illness has made it moot for me. My only concern is what I can do, and that changes, depending on the day.

A final, trivial upside is that I live with a finite sense of time and possibility. And that focuses scholarly work wonderfully.