Toxic Medicine: Part 3 – The Gastroenterologist Mark Fesenmyer (Ignorant or Lazy)

I should have read up on the reviews for Dr. Mark Fesenmyer… They suck! He’s not very well received, and now I know why. So the main question I have after seeing him…

Dr. Mark Fesenmyer are you ignorant or lazy?

CHECK OUT HIS HEALTHGRADES REVIEWS HERE

YOU CAN READ MY GOOGLE REVIEW HERE

In the words of Julie Andrews, “Let’s start at the very beginning. It’s a very good place to start.”

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How I’ve Kept My Sanity: Crafting Through Misdiagnosis… (Part 2)

Nuno Felting!

Yes, Nuno Felting is so much fun! I started working on them when I got really sick from my negligent doctors, but now I am up and running with them! (My white blood cell count is now within normal range!!!!) They were so much fun to make, and it was nice, because when I was sick, it allowed me the chance to make something in stages, instead of all at once. I could felt it over 2 or 3 days, and it was a great experience! It’s not exactly the fastest thing in the world, but it is quite fun! Maybe I’ll even teach a class on it soon!

For those who don’t know, I was quite under the weather for quite a while, and you can read about that here!

Follow the jump for some of the first scarves I made!

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Toxic Medicine: Part 2 – The Infection (Hang In There)

So, as you know, I picked up an infection during my colonoscopy procedure. After the procedure, I had some really nasty side effects. I had lots of pain and discomfort, on top of quite a bit of drainage, and even bleeding. This was not quite what I signed up for. When I complained about these things, and asked why Dr Foley didn’t perform the fistulotomy, she responded with, since there was muscle tissue, she did not want to do the fistulotomy. When you cut muscle tissue, she said there were quite a bit of complications that could involve severe side effects. So I took her out her word. That was a huge mistake.

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Toxic Medicine: Part 1 – Original Treatment (Infectious Nurse)

I printed the image from the Intro. I thought it turned out lovely, and I even have a couple more digital prints done, and ready to put on substrates. Sorry this has taken so long, but to be honest, it’s exhausting going over all of this. It’s like reliving the last 3 months of nonsense and confusion, and it’s tiring. I get to relive all of the mistakes and ignorance I’ve dealt with over the past few months. I have a new surgeon now, and I recently did an MRI so hopefully I’ll have some more answers shortly. So let’s get down to business…

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Toxic Medicine (Intro)

Oh man, it has been a long few weeks. I got misdiagnosed by a doctor. Then when I asked her about her misdiagnosis she had the nerve to try to gaslight me about it. Seriously, she actually tried to make me feel like I was unreasonable. She’s the one who misdiagnosed me, but, in that same breath, told me asking questions about her treatment was ‘confrontational’.

I didn’t know how to process it at first. She was the first bad doctor I ever had. She’s the first doctor to actually make me sick, ignore the fact that I was worse off than when I started, and then refused to answer questions because she was worried about getting sued. Alas, this is the American medical system, and it sucks. I don’t think Dr. Foley is the only doctor who does things like this, but she is the first one I encountered. She even recommended another doctor to me, Dr. Fesenmyer, who made things even worse.

I was thinking I would do this in 6 parts, each with its own art piece. Above is the digital artwork for a print I plan on making. I’m not sure if I want to print it on fabric, or mount it to canvas, or what, but I’ll figure it out. Each post will have clips from my medical records, voicemails, recorded visits, emails, and quotes from the doctors and staff who treated me. Maybe at the end I’ll even make a video that incorporates all of the pieces along with the sound clips, and some narrated medical notes. If we are really lucky, maybe I can snag a couple medical/psychological experts to give us some extra input as to how things went wrong, and how we can improve in the future. I’ll even be reaching out to Dr. Foley and Dr. Fesenmyer for comments.

As each story posts I’ll link it back here for everyone.

Part 1 – Original Treatment (Infectious Nurse)

Part 2 – The Infection (Hang in There)

Part 3 – The Gastroenterologist (Ignorant or Lazy)

Part 4 – The Apology (Ego is the Enemy)

Part 5 – Radio Silence (The Ignored)

Part 6 – The Gaslighting (The Forest is Burning)

*** As of the time of publishing this article on 10/20/20 at 6:00pm, Dr. Foley has not returned request for comment.

How I’ve Kept My Sanity: Crafting Through Misdiagnosis… (Part 1)

I haven’t uploaded, or updated much lately, but things have been a bit hectic, and I have been a bit tired. I just wanted to let you all know… I’m still plugging along; I’m just doing it at a slower pace these days. Which is quite the bummer… I’m used to doing things quite efficiently, and with full force! At one point I did make over 100 quilts in 3 years.

So let me tell you why I’ve been down and out for a bit. I have Crohn’s, and it was misdiagnosed with a Crohn’s flare up, when it was a bacterial infection that got overlooked… and it was overlooked several times… by multiple doctors…

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I’ve Been Nuno Felting

I was in Minnesota for the past 2 weeks, just running amok… well, not really running, and not really amok either. I just visited some people, and hung out at my friend’s house most of the time. Lot’s of outdoor walks, and socially distanced brunches. It was lovely.

Now, while I was at my friend’s house, we made some Nuno felted scarves. If you don’t know what Nuno felting is, here’s the quickest answer: it’s when you take loose feltable fibers and embed them in sheer fabric. Now of course, I wouldn’t just do that alone and be happy. I blended roving with some fun additives, and felted it onto some vintage sari silk.

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I Know Black Lives Matter

As a human, and as someone who has friends and family that are people of color, I will always use my voice to support them. A lot has been going on lately, in my personal life, as well as in the world, and I haven’t had the time, nor the energy to update my blog, but as I sit here typing this, I am both sad and hopeful. I’m sad to see how many people are resisting change for the better, and hopeful because I see how many people are demanding it!

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Make Postcards With Us!!!

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My cousin Valerie and I are doing a Postcard art exchange. You can check out her amazing work here!

In this time, Covid-19 has had many people shelter-in-place, and reduced our methods of communication. We want to help people communicate, and we think this is a fun way to go about it! I did a postcard exchange Valerie hosted about 10 years ago, and I loved it! I made some postcards for mother’s day, and it got me thinking, we should do this on a grander scale. I reached out to Valerie and she loved the idea. So here we are, in the time of Corona, missing people, missing art galleries, missing art classes, missing each other. Let’s remedy some of that!

It’s really up to you how you want to make your postcard. Collage, fabric, embroidery, paint, whatever you want, just put it on a postcard. You can get really creative with this!

Click here to sign up!

The cutoff is May 31st. An email will go out on the 2nd of June with the name and address of the person you are sending your card to. You can send it as a postcard, or put it in an envelope if you make something that would get damaged in the mail. By signing up, you get to connect with 2 different artists: the one sending you the card, and the one you are sending the card to.

For the quick Youtube tutorial on how I made the postcards in the picture, follow the jump… Continue reading

Mounting Printed Images to Canvas

I’m going to come right out and say it. This was a hot mess on the production side of things. I bought some video editing software, had nothing but issues with it, and even got a refund on it. So I’ll be the first one to say, the editing is not perfect, but you’ll still know how to make something fun and interesting by the end.

This was going to be a Patreon video, but I have something else in mind for Patreon, and that should be up by this weekend. I’ll be breaking out the drum carder, and making some batts for yarn!

Wish me luck!