Illness narratives: fact or fiction?

First off, I found this essay to be confusing and hard to follow.

In this paper the author begins by explaining the importance of medical narrative in the past, how that was stifled, and how it has found rapid growth in the present, now being seen for its value in the sociological and anthropological sense.  In this writing the author breaks medical narrative down into multiple descriptions " `contingent narratives' which address beliefs about the origins of disease, the proximate causes of an illness episode, and the immediate effects of illness on everyday life; `moral narratives' that provide accounts of (and help to constitute) changes between the person, the illness and social identity, and which help to (re) establish the moral status of the individual or help maintain social distance; and `core narratives' that reveal connections between the lay person's experiences and deeper cultural levels of meaning attached to suffering and illness." He then discusses how these definitions have arisen and each narratives purpose in the life of the patient with the illness. Medical narrative serves many purposes in the life of the terminally ill. They use narrative as a way to explain how they contracted their illness, or what caused their illness, and then use it to explain to others, and verify to themselves. Also, it serves as a description of themselves, because their illness then becomes a part of them, it can also be used as an excuse as to why they are unable to do what they used to do, or makes them seem more heroic when they are still able to do it. Lastly, in the end they attempt to change the story righting past wrongs and trying to improve themselves, so any stories told of them in the future will carry a positive connotation. 

I feel that this paper did well exploring the multiple uses of medical narrative and properly allocating stories to represent their explanations. 

The definition I have drawn from this is, a story cultivated by the sick to explain their condition, glorify their current existence through struggle, and personally define the "self."