Art for Healing

My wife is an avid reader also. She has been reading more books on her tablet. She can check out books from the local library on her tablet. And Amazon has great marketing. The first book in a series is always free. When she gets hooked on a series, she has to pay for the rest of the books to find out how the series ends.

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@marvinjsturing Great minds, as they say. I was thinking about you this morning and wondering how things are going. Any news from your sister or an anonymous donor? I hope things are moving along and that everything will come together at the perfect time. You are on my prayer list, so I pray for you every night. I keep hoping for the news to come in and that it will be on ready!
I read mostly on my Nook and get every day a free list of books that are very inexpensive. Bookbub.com is the site. If your wife goes there, she will get a list every day of five or six books. The books are sometimes free, .99 cents or maybe $1.99 or $2.99. Sometimes they have a series. You can buy with a credit card. It has saved us a lot of money since my husband and I both read constantly. Have her try it and see if it works. It's fun to try some new author for less than a dollar.
Stay in touch with your situation.
Carol

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@lioness, Oh my gosh! I did not 'see' any particular image. I was focused on the beauty of the colors and the transparency and flow of the watercolors. I am attracted to shades of color. I drive my husband crazy on vacation because I will take repeated photos of the same scene throughout the day because to me, each change in lighting makes a new view. He sees only repeats of the same photo.

I had to go back and look again, and I can see lilies.
Did you see the link to the video? It is at the end of the reading section.

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@retiredteacher Hi, Carol. My wife already is getting the daily emails from bookbub. My sister has the first round of chemo done. She has been going into the hospital every 2 or 3 days to have fluid drained so her lungs don't collapse. That time is beginning to increase and she says she is starting to feel a little better. She has chemo again on the 29th. This round is so toxic, she has to be admitted into the hospital for 3 days. The chemo will leak out of her pores and tear ducts, so they need to make sure she showers often and gets eye drops. As for myself, I figure that my kidney transplant is on God's hands and will happen in His time
Thanks for your prayers.

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@lioness, Oh my gosh! I did not 'see' any particular image. I was focused on the beauty of the colors and the transparency and flow of the watercolors. I am attracted to shades of color. I drive my husband crazy on vacation because I will take repeated photos of the same scene throughout the day because to me, each change in lighting makes a new view. He sees only repeats of the same photo.

I had to go back and look again, and I can see lilies.
Did you see the link to the video? It is at the end of the reading section.

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@contentIandwell I am the same way. Once I start a good book, everything else is at a standstill. I have to credit my mother and my being an only child with a love of reading. She read to me from the day I was born, and I learned to read early to entertain myself. When I started teaching, I loved reading even more and teaching the books, plays, and poetry I assigned to my students. Reading to teach and reading to relax are entirely different, but I loved reading both ways. I read now for relaxation and do not choose books that are complicated. I enjoy mysteries and non fiction and occasionally go back to my Shakespearean plays and Chaucer and the British lit. I taught. It never gets old.
Carol

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@retiredteacher Hi, Carol. My wife already is getting the daily emails from bookbub. My sister has the first round of chemo done. She has been going into the hospital every 2 or 3 days to have fluid drained so her lungs don't collapse. That time is beginning to increase and she says she is starting to feel a little better. She has chemo again on the 29th. This round is so toxic, she has to be admitted into the hospital for 3 days. The chemo will leak out of her pores and tear ducts, so they need to make sure she showers often and gets eye drops. As for myself, I figure that my kidney transplant is on God's hands and will happen in His time
Thanks for your prayers.

Jump to this post

@marvinjsturing Great minds, as they say. I was thinking about you this morning and wondering how things are going. Any news from your sister or an anonymous donor? I hope things are moving along and that everything will come together at the perfect time. You are on my prayer list, so I pray for you every night. I keep hoping for the news to come in and that it will be on ready!
I read mostly on my Nook and get every day a free list of books that are very inexpensive. Bookbub.com is the site. If your wife goes there, she will get a list every day of five or six books. The books are sometimes free, .99 cents or maybe $1.99 or $2.99. Sometimes they have a series. You can buy with a credit card. It has saved us a lot of money since my husband and I both read constantly. Have her try it and see if it works. It's fun to try some new author for less than a dollar.
Stay in touch with your situation.
Carol

Jump to this post

@lioness, Oh my gosh! I did not 'see' any particular image. I was focused on the beauty of the colors and the transparency and flow of the watercolors. I am attracted to shades of color. I drive my husband crazy on vacation because I will take repeated photos of the same scene throughout the day because to me, each change in lighting makes a new view. He sees only repeats of the same photo.

I had to go back and look again, and I can see lilies.
Did you see the link to the video? It is at the end of the reading section.

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@harriethodgson1 Wow! I'm so glad you opened this discussion as I've wanted to talk about how important art is for healing and I loved seeing all the art at Mayo. It's kind of like an art museum with some doctor's offices and labs attached and lots more art in the hospitals. I realized that within my own personal experience, I had a lot of resources to help me as a patient. I took my own advice and I used art and music as my therapy to help get past my fears and embrace the surgical treatment that I needed. I am an artist and I was loosing the ability to hold my arms up and control them, and I had worked so hard in my life to achieve that ability. I had long held fears about going through painful tests and surgery, and I was faced with a choice. If my fear made my choices for me, I would have become disabled in a lot of ways, and I would not be able to continue to paint at the level I expected of myself. I also have a biology degree and had worked in research before changing careers to fine art, so I understood medical research that I read, and I understood why I needed spine surgery. When I came to Mayo, I brought one of my own paintings with me to comfort me and give me a place to mentally escape if necessary. I hung it on the wall and looked at it during the nerve tests. I brought it with me when I met my neurosurgeon because I wanted him to understand why getting his help was so important to me. I had already been turned down by 5 surgeons before Mayo because my case was a bit unusual. I brought my camera and asked my surgeon if I could do sketches of him. I told him I needed to like him and this was my way to connect through my art. He liked my art and gladly posed for my camera. I sent him images of my drawings of him. Another painting accompanied me on my surgery day. It was of a trail I had hiked along a creek in Rocky Mountain National Park and I knew it intimately because I had been there and had painted it. Not only did I learn to defeat my biggest fear, but I came through with flying colors. During my recovery, what I wanted to do the most was to paint a portrait of my surgeon, and at one of my follow up appointments, he posed for my camera again and he had a lot of fun doing that. When I came back at my one year follow up, I had a watercolor portrait of him that I painted as a gift. I had to do some rehab to get back my stamina for the physicality of painting. During all of this, music helped me reduce stress and lower my blood pressure. I was measuring it before and after listening to music with deep breathing, and I could drop it significantly. Music also gave my mind a place to go when I was worried. The night before surgery, I was doing my best to loose myself in that painting and the music in my headphones, and in the morning when I met my surgical team I was calm and ready and doing just fine. Coming to Mayo exceeded my expectations and changed my life, and I brought my own creativity as my guide.

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