Learning to laugh at life, and yourself.
The brain loves to make connections. The particular connection I felt spark up inside my skull today was around ‘breathlessness’.
Those who have been reading my previous posts know that I’ve been sick for most of this year, firstly with a cold, that turned into a chest infection, then pleurisy, then… wait for it…
Pneumonia. Taadaa!
I apologise for being so flippant, but this post is about learning to laugh about yourself. I went up to the hospital again yesterday because the previous course of antibiotics hadn’t made me feel any better. I’m pleased that I had the doggedness to go back up there, as I can sometimes wallow in self-pity when I am unwell and hide away.
So, I had the same tests as last week, blood, chest x-ray, urine and additionally, a sputum sample. From the X-ray and the blood test, they found that I had pneumonia. Please don’t worry, I was sent home to rest, I have been sleeping an extra 3-4 hours per day and it’s helping. I’ll be back to myself in no time.
Breathlessness, the link I made above. I’m feeling breathless and coughing a lot from pneumonia. It reminded me of when I had anaemia back in 2021.
The first time I noticed the breathlessness then was walking up a small but steep hill with my wife’s side of the family. It was only about 4 metres and about 45 degrees, but at the top, I felt unwell and couldn’t talk for about 5 minutes while I got my breath back. I was thinking how unfit I was, but despite a history of being overweight, I have been of average fitness (sometimes good), so this felt unusual.
It got worse over the months thereafter and despite multiple GP appointments, they didn’t find anything. (Mini Rant: IF ONLY THEY DID JUST ONE BLOOD TEST, THEY WOULD HAVE FOUND IT EARLIER!) Because I thought it might have been asthma, that’s what they were looking for. Anyway, this post is about laughing, not crying, so I’ll move back in that direction now…
*Clears throat*
So, art has been incredibly cathartic to me since I picked it up again in 2019. I’ve created some, shall we say, sombre yet heartwarming pieces to help with my illnesses, and on the other side of the coin, I’ve used humour to laugh at my plight.
This piece, in particular, has become very popular with people, I too am fond of it because of its simplicity. I’m a sucker for a pun and I like to think I have a good sense of humour to boot. So this piece came in a series of superhero-related comic covers (I’ll reveal the others another time, they are on my website if you ever wish to look).
So my thinking behind the piece was how darn exhausted I had felt previously, so I took a photo of my my face with my eyes closed and used that as a reference photo. I painted the background black and after it dried, I painted acrylic layers over the top, I love the way it looks a bit like chalk on a blackboard. The colours pop on the dark background.
I’ll tell you a little secret about this piece that I haven’t told anyone… This artwork was painted over an Iron Man wall art!
As you can see on the finished piece below, I painted over the lettering (very roughly on purpose) I’m a huge art deco fan and loved the font. You can also see the faint hand in the top right, showing through the original wall art.
THE ANAEMIC SUPERHERO (2022) – 60 cm x 80 cm – Acrylic painting on wood framed board
“Very low Iron Man” is a humorous take on my previous chronic kidney failure and anaemia encounter.
Very Low Iron Man is in trouble, his blood haemoglobin is critically low and is very anaemic. He doesn’t know this yet, all he knows is that he’s exhausted and gets out of breath very easily.
Iron infusions were administered to him regularly but they didn’t help him feel any better. It wasn’t until he started having dialysis to remove the toxins from his blood, that he started to feel like himself again. He had his powers back, and joined forces with Kidneyman to defeat the evil Nephropath!”
As you can see, this artwork has travelled all over the country, I do hope it has been enjoyed. The main thing as I always say, is the the enjoyment of the creation itself. Then people enjoying it, or even reacting negatively to it, is a bonus.
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