The Patient Writer: Finding Meaning in Authorship and Illness

If a person lives with chronic illness, is there “a person” that can be separated from the illness? I suppose many people would say, “Of course there is.” There must be some essence there, some self untainted by disease, some true soul within the sick body. Perhaps the true self, however, is not a form of essence, but rather a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.