Living and working through health uncertainty: An analytic autoethnography of identity, strain, and future-making.

Abstract

Background: Prolonged health uncertainty extends beyond diagnostic processes and clinical encounters into everyday life, reshaping work, relationships, self-understanding, and the capacity to imagine a stable future. Yet the occupational and relational burden of living under uncertainty often remains hidden when outward functioning is preserved.

Method: This analytic autoethnography examined how prolonged health uncertainty was lived and negotiated across work, family life, and selfhood. The analysis drew on a curated archive of self-authored materials, including contemporaneous written reflections, retrospective accounts, and selected self-narrative documents. Materials were interpreted thematically through the lens of biographical disruption.

Results: Four interrelated themes were identified: 1) health uncertainty beyond the clinic, 2) carrying competence under strain, 3) silence, disclosure, and institutional vulnerability, and 4) rebuilding a livable future. The findings show that uncertainty became embedded in the ordinary structure of life rather than remaining a purely medical issue. Continued functioning at work depended on self-monitoring, emotional containment, selective silence, and repeated efforts to preserve a coherent professional self. Uncertainty remained unresolved, but was incorporated into a more fragile, still livable continuity.

Conclusions: Prolonged health uncertainty should be understood as both a medical problem awaiting clarification and a disruptive occupational and relational condition. This article highlights the hidden labor involved in remaining apparently functional while living and working through uncertainty.