This set of photos used to be on the front page of this website. I've moved it here to the blog to free up some space on the site and to give it a bit more context. I was reminded that it's just over a year since these events took place which is why I was compelled to write down my thoughts on it all. This blog entry is a mix of the events as they happened, my thoughts of the situation at the time and my thoughts now. It's not really the story of things or a photography how-to, although I do obviously talk about photography. It's a stream of thought. And not always a particularly coherent one.
I'm really writing this blog outwith the actual timeline of things. This event took place in the 2 weeks of my final college assignment. I haven't yet got round to writing up that particular blog entry but you can of course see the photographs on the site.
The reason I mention this is because I think the situation is relevant to why this set of photographs came about. I had finished the photography side of things (Pamela is reading the book of the project in the photograph above) and was now just writing things up. I say 'just' like it was a formality. In the end, I handed in a 60,000 word workbook that detailed the project start to finish and all the related events. So I was quite stressed by this point. Pamela was as well as she'd had to deal with me and the work I had put in for the previous 6 weeks.
If you've read "It's not Business, it's Personal “, you'll know that I during that project (about my home town of Falkirk), I learned how photography could affect you personally. It makes you look at things differently. It makes you look at things again. And it makes you think.
"Memories of My Father" (which will someday be the subject of a proper blog entry when I get round to distilling that 60,000 word workbook into something more palatable) had taken what I learned from the Falkirk project and amplified it hugely. That project had such a huge effect on me that I've never looked at photography the same way since.
Which is why, when on Friday the 13th of May my girlfriend Pamela was taken to hospital with suspected kidney failure, I knew that I was going to be taking photographs.
On the morning of the 13th, I had been feeling pretty good about things. The book for my college project was 'out for delivery' according to the email I had received. It wasn't due until the 20th so I'd given myself enough time to order a replacement if there was a problem and a week to finish the workbook. Time management had been my downfall in year one and I ended up writing and printing a 12,000 word workbook in one day (and well into the next morning). I'd been far more organised this time round and was quite chuffed with myself.
That same morning I'd taken Pamela to get a routine blood test. I won't want to go into too much detail about Pammy's health but I will say she gets blood tests regularly due to having type 1 diabetes. Up until this point, the usual deal was that they'd phone in the afternoon, tell her that her blood sugar level was a bit high but other than that she was fine.
The phone call came earlier in the day this time round. She was to get to hospital immediately. Her kidneys were failing.
She phoned her dad to see if he was available to go with her. If not, I would take her. Her Dad was preferable though as me going would mean leaving the puppy on his own for several hours which was something we wanted to avoid. Her dad was able to take her.
She packed a bag of clothes and we discussed kidney dialysis. It's a huge change to your life. It would mean hospital visits every day, forever more. It was a lot to take in and I don't think either of us really wanted to think about that too much. One thing at a time.
She left for the hospital.
I would be visiting her that night. It's fair to say that I didn't get much work done that day while she was away. Of course my mind started wandering to the darkest thoughts. I had literally enrolled at college to try get a career that would look after us both. A career that could pay a mortgage and get us on holidays and see cool stuff. It had been a big decision to put everything on hold for 2 years while I went back into full time education as a mature student. Could it really be that after all this time, effort and stress, trying to make thing better for us, the rug was going to be pulled out from under us with a week to go?
The one college related thing I managed to do was to email my lecturer to tell him of the situation and ask if I'd be allowed to get a week's extension to the project. I couldn't concentrate on that and do this. It didn't help that it was a project about loss, grief and memories. Anyone who's done a project of that scale will tell you that you live and breath the project. It was having a huge impact on my thought process and outlook. When your mind is already awash with thoughts of death and mortality, and your girlfriend gets taken to hospital with failing kidneys, the second thing gets swept up into the first. It's overwhelming.
I arrived at the hospital late that night. She had a room to herself and was happily watching TV. Pamela spent lots of time in her youth in hospitals so is far better prepared for dealing with this kind of thing than I am. We chatted, she read through my project book that had arrived that day, we watched the Eurovision Song Contest and I photographed her. I stayed with her to the early hours of the morning.
I've never spent a night in a hospital. I've had to use A&E a few times for various small accidents that have occurred over the years. A sprained ankle. A broken hand. A bang to the head. A cut to my eye. I've been seen and sent on my way that same night on every occasion.
I admired her for it. Sitting there, almost enjoying herself. The treatment seemed to have had caught her kidneys just in time. You flush through fluid and insulin and hope for the best. Or at least, I hope for the best. The doctors have a better understanding of things than that. An infection had caused ketoacidosis. My limited understanding is that it's a condition that affects diabetics that turns your blood acidic and that it's as bad as it sounds. It had caused her kidneys to close down.
The doctor later explained to us that at one point, her kidney functions had gone down to 11%. Much lower than that and the damage would have been permanent and life changing.
I photographed her for my own sake. Maybe putting a camera between me and the situation ahead was shielding me from things. Maybe by breaking the situation into a series of bite sized chunks, I could deal with it more easily. Maybe it just took my mind off things for a bit. If I'm occupied with composition, lighting and camera setting etc, I'm not thinking about other things. Maybe it was because I knew this was an important part of our lives and wanted to make sure it stayed unforgotten. Maybe it's because once something is photgraphed, it becomes the past so I was pushing myself along one photograph at a time. Maybe it just made the situation a little more normal and recognisable for us.
I don't know the psychology behind it, really. It was almost certainly a mixture of all those things and some other things that I haven't thought about. I do know that it helped.
Pamela was in hospital from the 13th to the 17th. I saw her every day but only took my camera in again on the last day. By this point we knew she was in the clear so the stress of the situation had dissipated. By the end I was enjoying having full control of the TV in the house by myself
I took her home. It was hard to tell if she was more excited to see the dogs or vice versa. It was good to have her back. I had missed her. Pamela made a full recovery, the college gave me an extension and I finished my workbook.
Not for the first time, photography had acted as a sort of therapy. However, those previous situations had arisen through choice. I chose to look at the changing face of my hometown. I chose to do a project about memories of my Dad. I hadn't chosen this and it wasn't for a college project. This was different and it was real life. I was already in the midst of a seismic change in the way I viewed my own relationship to photography. This event happened during that process. I was learning how photography could help me deal with stress and mental health and within days I was trying it out in the real world. I don't believe in fate but that felt pretty close to it.
It's weird how when something creates such a big change in your life, it almost feels like a super power. Like I now have something to deal with this previously insurmountable issue. I was terrible before with dealing with stress. It'd get bottled up and pushed to the side but would manifest itself in other ways. Photography isn't a magic wand to remove all life's stresses and struggles, of course. It's just an outlet that can be used to alleviate things. Like running, or singing etc it takes all that bad stuff and focuses it into something understandable that you can process.
Thankfully, it's not something that I've had to put to use since.