ABSTRACT

Individual Narratives This chapter presents the first part of the results, that is, the eight individual narratives of all the informants who participated in this study. Based on the original descriptions provided by each informant in the research interviews, these eight individual narratives will be presented separately. Presentation of case studies in such a manner allows for further exploration and comparison of similarities as well as differences reflected in the informants’ accounts of experiences. To truly characterize and report what each informant went through and how he or she was feeling about this unique experience, each story follows as closely as possible the initial descriptions and meanings rendered by each informant. With this principle in mind, what are frequently incorporated into this process of narration, whenever possible, are the informants’ original statements used during the interviews. Although each story is being told in the third-person, the story’s accuracy and truthfulness has been verified and validated by each respective informant. For anonymity, the informants’ real names have been replaced by pseudonyms. For abbreviation and terseness, only one of the stories (i.e., the story of GI) will be presented in its full length. The other seven stories will be presented in summary.