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The "Invisibility" Of Illness

If you're a person who is chronically ill, you may have experienced some version of what I'm trying to portray here: the bad pain day. I mentioned a while back when I got covid that I had already been a chronically ill person beforehand, and that I had been wanting to do more portrayals of that. I had to get a couple spinal MRIs today and the concept for this image was running through my head while I was in the machine being vibrated. How could I portray what it can really feel like to be a person with an ongoing illness?

 

My health has not been great for a while, but has gotten more complicated recently. I'm as okay as I can be, it's all being worked on by the relevant medical parties (so no need for medical advice).. but it means lots of ice packs for pain, meds to try to manage symptoms, sometimes cold showers/baths to calm down nerves that are working overtime, and many phone calls setting up medical appointments and talking to my insurance company. I am tired and uncomfortable to say the least, but I have good days and bad days.

 

Some elements of my life that are not illness-related have been shifted out of focus for now, so they are portrayed that way in this image. I'm a visual artist in real life, and I used to work in kitchens as well until I couldn't. So elements of those lives are shown here, sunken to the bottom, with the focus being on the medications and the ice. My face is also somewhat out of focus for the same reason.

 

I do hope this image will be taken as it was intended -- a visualization of a bad day for a chronically ill person. I'm aware it could potentially be perceived as a substance abuse thing, so I wanted to be sure to include some info on my perspective and experience here. Just a bad day. I hope you can't relate, but if you can..... this is for you.

 

Wearing:

 

Head: Lelutka Halle

Body: Maitreya Lara

Hair: no.match - NO_CHEESE - Pack of BLACKS

Hospital gown: Sloppy Seconds - Women's Hospital Gown

^the mp listing for this did not say if it was rigged for mesh bodies but a reviewer said theirs worked well on Maitreya so I took a shot. It does in fact *not* work for *my* Maitreya body, and this took much editing to make it look like it does lol. So, just be aware, this is standard/system/XS-S-M-L sizing. But it was the only hospital gown I could find that actually looked like a hospital gown.

Mask: *Strela* - Medicine mask simple Blue

 

The build:

 

Room/background: ANTINATURAL[+] - Hospital for Souls - Hydrotherapy room

Bath tub: Schultz Bros. - Cast Iron Bathtub - Stone

Orange & white pill bottles: LD Mesh

Ice cubes: cYo - icecubes

Pepto: Grim Factory Outlet - Pepto bottle

Zanny bars: National Prefabrication - Xanax Tablet

Blue pills: Coffee Stains - Oxycodone M30

Camera: Apocolypse Zombie - Old Camera 124G

Hour glasses: Muniick - Llewellyn Desk Hourglass

Mic: MoYne - Stage microphone

Knife: Angry - Kitchen knife

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Uploaded on April 14, 2023