The Green Monster - Disease Envy

By Donna R. Dinkin 

I didn’t expect to feel jealous of someone with bronchitis.

But there I was, in my pulmonologist’s office, listening to him describe a terrible cough he’d picked up during a flight home from a trip to Spain. He said it left him gasping and nearly passing out. The experience gave him more appreciation for what some of his patients deal with, he said.

His comment was not lost on me. I was one of those patients. A chronic cough from my own scleroderma-related lung disease pushes me to the edge of consciousness almost every time I climb the 15 stairs to my bedroom.*

My doctor then told me he’d been prescribed a steroid. Within days, he said, he felt better. That’s when a green-eyed monster suddenly entered my mind’s eye and asked, “Why isn’t there a treatment that could fix my illness, too?”

Unfortunately, this intrusive thought was also familiar. After my diagnoses, I remember thinking, I wish I’d been told I had cancer instead. At least then there’d be a plan, a shot at remission, maybe even a cure. I wrote that dark confession into a memoir I was penning a few years back, but my editor gently suggested I remove it, “it might offend readers,” she said. I was aware of others who had faced the terrifying journey of a cancer diagnosis, so I cut the line from my manuscript. But, the truth is that editing it out of my book didn’t erase the unthinkable thought from my mind.

This feeling, I’ll call it disease envy, isn’t something people talk about. It feels selfish to envy someone with an illness, even a serious one, simply because theirs is treatable. I am happy for them, truly. I don’t want anyone to experience the fear or pain that comes with a health concern. But I am also jealous.

Scleroderma is rare, progressive, and incurable. It’s slowly taking my lungs, my voice, my laugh, and my mobility. There’s no magic pill or quick fix, only careful management to slow the rate of devastation down. Some days, that reality makes me wish for a different battle, one I could win.

These thoughts aren’t pretty, but neither is chronic illness. And I’ve come to realize that having them doesn’t make me a bad person, just a human one. We’re taught to be brave patients, to find silver linings, to never succumb to envy or resentment. Silencing feelings, however, is a heavy burden to lay on an already overburdened body. 

When I told a friend that I felt jealous of my doctor’s bronchitis, she simply said, “I get it.” That understanding was enough.

So yes, I’m glad he’s better. And yes, I wish I could be better, too. Both thoughts are true. But now, when the green-eyed monster pops up in my head, I don’t view it as cruelty. I view it as the aching hope that someday, scleroderma will also be curable.

*I now use a portable oxygen concentrator to walk up my staircase.

About Donna Dinkin 

Donna Dinkin was diagnosed with Scleroderma-ILD in 2015 and Pulmonary Hypertension (Type III) in 2025. After a career as a Leadership Development Consultant, she began increasing her time as an advocate for  lived-experience experts (aka patients) in clinical drug trials. In 2023, Donna authored a memoir (Thursdays with Eugene) of her 4-year experience of working with gestalt-trained therapist to build her resiiience after her diagnoses. She is a scleroderma support group leader in NC and an Ambassador for the Pulmonary Fibrosis Foundation.