What is a disease? Can we name it in a coherent way, precisely defined and is it only one? Or is the disease as many as those who are ill, or all of the practices where it appears? A few years ago I was diagnosed with autoimmune hepatitis, which could be a rather serious illness. I experienced bodily changes, had alarming liver values and got side effects from medication, but - ill? To handle the discrepancy, I tried to keep apart "having a serious illness" and "being sick".

Drawing on Mol's concept Multiple Realities I describe how the disease is performed in various practices and my attempts to become comprehensible when coordinating these practices. At the clinic, in the laboratory, in treatment and in my body the disease is enacted as simultaneous versions. It is not the same disease although it has the same name. One version is available as numerical values in a diagram, in another as questions from a doctor to a patient or as text on a web page. The bodily version is almost invisible to me, but is related to gender, class and other categorizations - that affect relationships and interpretations in all practices. The different versions of the disease consists of human and non-human actors; not just me and the doctor but also tablets, conversations, syringes, computers, edema and compression stockings, Thus, reality does not exist in advance.

With my disease as an example I discuss what multiple versions of reality can offer beyond what multiple perspectives on the same reality can. Moving away from structures and discursive perspectives to reality as multiple enacted versions, there will be less importance in agreeing on understanding or interpretation. Instead we focus on coordinating, informing and intervening.