29/04/2026
I painted this image as a way of marking the ten year anniversary of a life changing autoimmune diagnosis I received in 2016. It’s a difficult subject for me to talk openly about so thank you to anyone reading. In the spring of that year, I began experiencing some wild symptoms in my body. I was having increasing difficulty walking, and my entire lower body was going numb with pins and needles whenever I went further than a few steps. I started experiencing horrible fatigue, blurred vision, and my muscles became weak and heavy. It felt like my torso was in a vice all the time. It was terrifying.
I underwent a series of invasive and stressful tests and scans over the next few months. They discovered I had lesions on my brain and spinal cord, and I got handed a diagnosis that transformed my life forever. I had MS. To go from being an incredibly independent and active person to someone who struggled to walk down the driveway was devastating. I had to watch my whole life as I had known it fall apart and I felt so alone and lost, but eventually I discovered ways of reshaping myself and my dreams around this new reality. I fought to regain my health through diet and meds and some big life changes. I got better. It wasn’t a linear process, and it took years and so much hard work and loss and change, but as of today I am in remission. My scans have been free of new disease activity for almost five years. A whole decade has passed and I’m so grateful to have still been able to do so many things I feared would become impossible when I was first diagnosed. I gave birth to the most beautiful little person on Earth, and becoming a mom gave me so much strength to keep fighting for my health. It gave me the courage to escape an abusive spouse and start over as a single mom. I have been able to raise my son in a happy and safe home that I created for us, and I still run my business and grow food and way too many flowers. I can still walk and swim and bike and create art, and I’m just so thankful❤️ This painting, ‘Diminishing into Flowers’, is about finding peace and beauty and acceptance about the inevitable breaking down of our bodies.
