I’m sure you are well aware by now, since I’m pretty open about it, I live with a debilitating auto-immune disorder. Unfortunately, this lifelong condition does affect my work, and there are things I must do in order to work around it.
Freelance has proven to be a perfect solution for me. I can work when I feel well, and get the rest I need when I don’t. My good days and bad days are about split even. I push through the bad days when I must and relish the good when I get them. But sometimes the bad days are simply too much for even me to work through.
Every six weeks I go into the hospital for a two hour IV infusion. Every day I take several additional pills, including a high amount of prednisone. Three times a day I take insulin, due to the fact that prednisone raises my blood sugars significantly. All of this to battle my aggressive disorder. While these treatments leave behind a wake of side effects, the alternative is far worse.
Prednisone has been wreaking havoc on my blood sugars for a long time, but only in the last three years have I finally gone on insulin to battle back. The problem with the high blood sugars is that it affects my ability to think clearly, and this is never more evident than when I try to draw or design. It seems that when my blood sugars are high, access to the part of the brain that holds everything I’ve learned about art is unavailable. When I try to create with high blood sugars, the result is disastrous.
Thus, I have learned that when I sit down to start an illustration or painting, the first thing I do is test my blood sugar. If it is high, I take a small adjustment dose of insulin to kickstart it downward, and then I spend the next 30 minutes in some sort of exercise to help bring it back to baseline. I usually cannot start a project right away as a result. Knowing this, I must plan for long blocks of time to work on an illustration, as I prep my body and my mind to work.
Pain is usually a constant nightly companion, so the cliché all-nighter artist routine is not an option for me. Whatever is not finished by middle of the afternoon usually must wait until the next day.
These are my realities. I do not bring them up to try and say my life is harder than anybody else, because I know that this is simply not true. I am still very blessed to be able to do what I love as a career, even in the midst of my disability. I bring it up so that the casual admirer of my work will understand the entire process of what went in to create that piece of art.
