Table 4.

 An example of a “restitution narrative” told against a background of a “chaos narrative” in which little changes over the 18 months study

Time point	Quotation	Context and field notes recorded immediately after the interview
Interview one (May 2007)	“It started off as a chest infection that I couldn’t get rid of. It was going and it sort of cleared up then a month later it was back again. Then that sort of cleared up and finally got it cleared up then, but then it was largely my fault because I have always been one for ‘oh I’ll work it off’: just didn’t work off.”	The episode selected as the beginning of the story was the one that finally triggered a diagnosis of COPD. He blames his lifestyle rather than an underlying disease for the slow resolution.
	Interviewer: “What have you been told about your illness, the cause and treatment, and the progress?” “Well, I’ve been told; I think I’ve been told what they know, which isn’t really a great deal considering.” “I’ve never heard of COPD. I think it’s just a catch all for asthma, bronchitis, emphysema, and that.”	Typically for a chaos narrative, there is a general lack of enquiry about and “evaluation” of this new diagnosis perhaps because in reality he had been symptomatic for many years.
Interview two (November 2007)	“I had been having a lot of chest infections, had two in three weeks, but now I feel fine again. I am not so tired as I used to be and I am breathing better, not much but . . . I am getting on better at the gym. I am actually feeling much better.”	The researcher’s field notes record a fragmented conversation in which he was “trying to give me answers but with no story to give.”
		Descriptions of intermittent chest infections interrupt times when he is back to “normal.”
Interview three (July 2008)	Interviewer: “So how are you?” “I’m very well. Well, I feel very well. They tell me I’m not.”	The most positive of the interviews because the patient has not had an exacerbation for some months, allowing him to tell an upbeat public story which is almost a restitution narrative.
	Interviewer: “I really just came to catch up with you know, what’s happened since last time.” “Well, I’ve improved!”	There is, however, a dual narrative: in reality nothing has changed.
	“Nothing’s changed. Same old same old! And I’m quite happy with that.”
Interview four (May 2009)	“Now I’m fine, but I had a bad time over Christmas. I got a chest infection at the beginning of December and it took me till Feb to shake it off. But no, I’m fine again now. Back to normal.”	The field notes describe a “punctured tale of recovery” owing to a troublesome exacerbation.
		At the end of the study the researcher noted “his story is that things are the same after two years—they are not worse, they are not better either, so now we are back to the chaos narrative.”