We do not arrive at understandings of the world around us neatly. Our perception of selves, identities, and events is shaped by all that we have experienced, including not only the real world we find ourselves in, but also the media landscape we are ever more immersed within. In order to pinpoint why identities, events, and, crucial to this book, illnesses are understood in the ways that they are, an engagement with the past is necessary.