Polyarteritis nodosa

Polyarteritis nodosa is a rare, serious autoimmune disease. Your own immune system — the very authority that is supposed to protect you — turns against the walls of your medium-sized arteries. The vessels become inflamed, thicken, form nodules. The blood supply to nerves, kidneys, intestines, skin, and heart can be restricted. Several organs come under pressure simultaneously. It is a serious illness that demands specialised medical care — often over a long period, sometimes lifelong.

And yet, alongside the medical reality, it is worth asking a second question. Not instead of the first — alongside it. The question is: What is actually happening here when you read the body not only as a biological system but also as an expression of an inner life?