Dear Art Studio,

Dear Art Studio,

Thank you for patiently waiting while I focused all of my energy these past three years on the pursuit of living through a breast cancer diagnosis. During that overwhelming time, instead of being a refuge for creativity and artistic expression, you became a dumping ground for the endless amounts of cancer paperwork and medical bills. That must have been hard for you, but you accepted the change without complaint. Thank you for that.

Most days, I didn't even have the strength to stand at the easel, much less the mental acuity to focus on the process of painting. All of that is about to change.

I'm excited to announce that I'm organizing the medical paperwork and clearing out the mess, and preparing to paint again! Even though chemotherapy seems to have forever, or at least so far, damaged the sharpness of my thought processes, I have had a lot of time to think, and consequently, have some new ideas of what to put on canvas.

Soon, we'll listen to classical music and podcasts and create beauty together. I'm extremely grateful for this second chance at living, and look forward to your part in helping me transition back into the life of a thriving artist.

Thank you, again, for being silently affirming and supportive, and a reminder of what once was and can now be. Let's get busy!

Love,
Sarah

Sew What

6th and final (?) surgery - January 29, 2020

Back in February, barely a week after my last breast reconstruction (revision) surgery, I was invited to attend a trip to Rome in late April with a group of breast cancer survivors through the organization, Send Me On Vacation. With the generosity of those of you who supported this trip by buying a painting, I bought my plane ticket before the scope of the corona virus epidemic was fully understood. Without delving into the minutia of the timetable of plane rerouting again and again, and eventual cancellations, the trip was officially postponed until October. Again, minutia, but at this point though I've agreed to go on the trip in October, I've not yet bought my plane ticket, in large part because the ticket price is considerably more expensive, but also, with KLM I got a ticket voucher, not a refund, so I'm limited in purchasing options, and who knows what is going to transpire in the coming months?

Before the trip was postponed, I was preparing as if I would be going to Italy by, in particular, walking and sewing. Getting back in shape after each of the medical assaults on my body over the 2.5 years of chemotherapy, radiation, and six surgeries has been rather difficult. So I knew that if I was going to walk all over Rome, I'd need to step up, so to speak, a work out routine. Many of you know that a very long time ago, I was a competitive runner, which means that my go-to exercise of choice is running. With the aforementioned accumulation of medical procedures added to age, at best, what I do is wogging -- a combination of walking and jogging. It is what it is. 

In early/mid March, I got an undetermined sickness that had many similarities with Covid 19 -- fever, loss of smell and taste, blue splotchy feet and hands, small rash on the back of my leg, and more recently, hot itchy feet and sore pinky toe, but because I hadn't traveled to China, wasn't tested for the corona virus. I was tested for strep, flu, and x-rayed for pneumonia -- all results were negative. The Amazing Reese and I went to get an antibody test, and though I had a faint line that suggested I had been exposed to the virus, the conclusion was that we tested negative for antibodies.

Getting pricked for corona virus antibodies a second time because the first test was inconclusive. 

One thing I'm not is a great seamstress. I am big on ideas and enthusiasm and have been slowly attempting to reconfigure some of my clothes to adjust them to fit this torn apart and put back together body of mine so that I can look cute and feel cute when and if I eventually go to Rome....or anywhere. In this instance, frugality + desperation + time = creativity.

This was a small silk robe that no longer covered me properly, but I loved it so found a kimono at the resale shop and cut it up to add both length and width to the robe. Now, it's both cute and modest. Hat tip to Lacey Crawford for inspiring the idea. The ever Amazing Reese said the old lady house slippers had to go. 🙂 (I saved the pom poms for an upcoming project.)

This was a very cute sweater that I didn't feel confident in because the deep indention in my armpit area where my lymph nodes were removed showed. I actually took this one to the tailor and she added the silk sleeves for me and voila -- it's dreamy and covers my armpit area completely. 

This shirt I totally built from scratch -- no pattern, just a strip of fabric. I sort of copied one of my shirts, but turns out I didn't have enough fabric to do exactly what I had envisioned, so I improvised. If you see me in person wearing this, don't look too closely at the seams. It's a blue eyelet jersey fabric. 

The worldwide corona virus self isolating quarantine is not that different from how I've been living since starting chemotherapy back in 2017. Self isolation is hard, but why would I go through all the work of surviving breast cancer only to disregard the world's health experts? I've always been a team player, and to support Team World, I'm happy to wear a mask in public, sewn by our daughter, Anna.

Expect a hug from me two weeks after the end of worldwide quarantine restrictions.

Happy hour six feet apart on the front porch drinking wine through a straw with maker Anna in the background. Under the mask, I'm smiling.