Catharsis
An ongoing series of paintings where I document (and process) my journey through illness, disability, and survival. Each piece has its own story, but the combined artworks tell the story of my disabled experience.
Stay tuned, and listen for the heart monitor beep.

These three paintings depict the experience of “sick” - long hours of agonizing in pain in the dead of night in a sterile emergency room, waiting to be seen by medical staff, the feeling of falling apart into ribbons on exam tables while waiting for doctors, the hollow pit of medication withdrawal. In those moments you feel anything but human, you’re just a jumbled ball of flesh and guts, saliva, sweat, and malfunctioning parts.

“Emergency Room on a Friday Night” is a painting I made following a particularly rough trip to the ER out in Tennessee. Since I have experienced so much medical trauma over the past several years, the emergency room has become an especially triggering place. Working on this series and making art following these trips has become my way of processing my experiences. In this circumstance, the buildup of medications in my system had reached a toxic level, and it had taken ten attempts to place an IV for fluids and to take blood because I was so severely dehydrated.

“Bedridden” is a work depicting a time in my life where I was bedridden for the better part of several months due to severe illness and ongoing seizures. During this time, we had brought home my future service dog, Rico, as a puppy, and I needed to rely heavily on my partner, family, and trainer to raise and train him. Due to my unstable health, I was unable to bond with or participate in much of Rico’s training. The experience of the world moving on, and seeing my service dog brought up without me while I laid in bed for months was devastating. Thankfully due to the collective efforts of my support system, Rico was successful in his training, and was even able to provide medical alerts for various episodes (including my seizures), making life more livable.

“Chronic Migraine” is a piece addressing my struggles with migraines that I have had since my teens. These migraines are treatment resistant, and have forced me to try an array of medications across several health providers that caused serious side effects. I now get regular injections, both in office and at home, to combat these episodes, but continue to have breakthrough migraines.

“Drained” is a depiction of one of the more unexpected realities of what it is like to be chronically ill. Unending blood draws and tests, ER trips, hospitalizations, and IV treatments put undue stress on veins, and don’t allow them to properly heal before being accessed again. Constant access eventually builds up scar tissue, making veins inaccessible, and getting treatment and emergency help especially difficult.

This work is a snapshot of my medication refill day (Wednesdays). A mountain of meds often comes with the territory of having multiple illnesses and conditions, and achieving equilibrium can be an elaborate balancing act. Some of these medications focus on certain systems and organs, some regulate my pain, and some counteract the side effects of other medications. Dosages and prescriptions change frequently, and keeping track of everything takes a tremendous amount of organization and focus. This is one aspect of living with chronic illnesses that makes your health a full time job.

This work depicts a major change in my life and independence, where, following a multi-day EMU stay in a hospital to get to the bottom of my seizures, I was told that I could no longer drive until I could go three months episode-free. At the time, I was having up to seven episodes a day (and had stopped driving prior to my admission because of it).  My car that took me on so many memorable adventures became covered in debris from not being used, and with no immediate hope of being able to drive again, I was forced to sell it. I eventually got a referral for a mobility device because my fatigue was so severe, and I was regularly passing out and having episodes in public. It felt like these changes happened overnight, and I was left reeling.

“I experienced the beginning of the pandemic from the inside of an inpatient facility and then from the top of a hospital attached to wires during a five day EEG watching the red sun as California burned. The way I see it, the world is still burning”

This work details the tangle of wires I lived with during the most surreal experience of my life. COVID-19 was spreading at an alarming rate, and the world was in a pandemonium. Protocols for the pandemic were being developed and revised as I was being hospitalized, and I had just resurfaced from medication withdrawals that culminated in unending seizures. Because of this, I transferred to another hospital, and had to be monitored by a multi-day in hospital EEG. All the while, summer fires were raging across California, and during those long days I spent tethered to my bed and machines and working in my sketchbook, I watched smoke billow across the sky. It truly felt like the end of times.