Learning to Live with Osteoporosis: A Metaphoric Narrative

A philosophical hermeneutic research approach was chosen to explore the meaning of living with osteoporosis, a degenerative bone disease, through the narratives authored by twelve participants. The findings provided in this article offer a perspective of how one's shifting sense of self-renewal was expressed through osteoporosis-specific metaphors, which explicated a transformative process of how one learns to live well with osteoporosis. Three metaphors were identified and interpretively named the shattering, the surrendering, and the dance. Consideration was given to how an interpretation of these findings, through metaphor, may benefit others living with osteoporosis, and how those diagnosed in the future can benefit from shared understandings and conversations about the meaning of living with osteoporosis. As persons endeavored to make meaning of living with their illness, metaphors provided a useful common ground and invitation for discussion, story-telling, and the development of supportive relationships - all implemented as educative methods to positively transition the impacted persons' physical, emotional, and social traumas toward the possibility of self-renewal.