Getting through cancer treatment with art

When I was diagnosed, I am not going to lie, my entire world fell apart. I experienced fear at a new level, sleepless nights of terror, hours of googling in search of positive outcomes or cancer survivors on Instagram.

A few months in my treatment, my self-esteem was at its lowest and my mind was packed with a list of unhelpful thoughts: “I hate those scars on my body, I want my hair back, I want my fit body back, I am always in pain, I am scared, I want this nightmare to end, why do people go through so much pain, I don't want cancer to steal my life with my partner, I don't want to lose him”, and the list went on… they were all anxiogenic.

One morning I got up after two days spent in bed, my vision was blurry and my brain foggy. I tried to open the fridge but didn’t have the strength to pull the door open so I sat at our kitchen bench feeling a little sorry for myself. The intensity of the sunlight through the window on the other side of the bench made my eyes watery. The colours outside were spectacular, it was one of those beautiful sunny winter days. The window was slightly frosty, the sun golden and the grass in our backyard a dark beautiful green due to heavy rain in the previous days. I felt my heart skip a beat, I was onto something...

That morning changed everything. For the first time in months I felt inspired and creative. I rushed in Kristian’s office and pulled out his art equipment box (always useful to live with an artist). I found a watercolour paint palette he bought and never used. That was it, as simple as this! I was going to teach myself watercolour paint! (as you do haha).

I loved baking so I decided I would paint food illustration and that way combine the two. My idea was to paint all the beautiful pastries I saw on my Instagram feed.

This project became an obsession. I was going to bed every night planning my next painting for the morning and falling asleep thinking about it. Scrolling through Instagram had become fun, I was in search of beautiful treats to illustrate which was way more entertaining than the hashtag page #lifewithcancer...

I was trying to paint an artwork a day which meant that I was solely concentrating on my paint brush and mixing colours for about 3 to 4 hours every day, it was an amazing escape and almost a form of mindfulness. I even started to take my little kit to hospital and tried to paint while the chemo drip was on to divert my thoughts. At the time, due to Covid-19 restrictions, visitors were not allowed in my ward  and it wasn't easy to keep positive when I was alone for three to four days so when I managed to concentrate on painting it helped me stay at ease.

My creative mind was switched on and was pushing away all the nasty negative thoughts. I am not going to say that it solved all problems, but it definitely changed me for the better. I gain some self-confidence back at a time that I felt so lost and disconnected from my old self. I desperately needed to find self love again. With art I finally had something I felt proud of. Also it gave me the satisfaction of accomplishing something almost every day and the ambition to take it further by painting custom artwork. I had dreams again and a future to look forward to.

Thank you for reading, I hope it inspires you to do what you love and to listen to what your inner voice tells you as you could be onto something too.