What does the loneliness of illness really mean? From short term infection to life-threatening disease that can overtake us physically, illness invariably brings with it invisible walls of alienating loneliness. Although we possess different natural aptitudes, enduring capacities, and varying experiences to withstand loneliness, when it arrives as a consequence of the body's illness, we're never really prepared for its interruption to the well-being we've enjoyed and continue to expect. The intensity of loneliness depends on our sense of attachment, the degree of impairment, and how much we feel that our body has "let us down." Open-up to a new dialogue about our bodies, our hopes, our stamina, our mortality, and how caregivers -- friends, families, and health care professionals -- can be supportive when the loneliness of illness seems to hold like a hammer-lock.