Liverwurst: Work Made At The Onset Of End-Stage Liver Failure And Until Live-Donor Organ Transplantation (December 2007-June 2009): Work Made at the ... Transplantation (December 2007-June 2009) - Softcover

Watson, Ella F.B.

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1463403984 ISBN 13: 9781463403980

Publisher: AuthorHouse Publishing, 2011

Synopsis

"The process of transplantation is a grueling one- demanding physical participation in a battery of tests and procedures as well as an emotional commitment to oneself and acceptance of the unknown. This is a beautiful catalogue of stories, photographs and drawings that tell Ella's story of chronic illness and her journey towards transplant. Throughout this process she demonstrates a remarkable spirit and strength despite loss, illness and ever present chance of dying. Through her art and words she provides a window into her soul as she faces her own mortality with grace, maturity and humor." ---Ariana Rose, Nurse Practitioner "The remarkable hospital sketchbook of artist Ella Watson chronicles her two year crisis battling end-stage liver failure. A young woman in need of an organ transplant, with no insurance, no money, no parents, no safety net: in drawing after luminous drawing she tells the story. It is a graphic tour de force. Her body inside and out, breached and cut open, perforated with tubes and pumps, fever dreams in emergency rooms, portraits of fellow patients, life-giving nurses, latex- gloved hands, monitors, pills, syringes, clocks (above all clocks): a gurney-eye tour of intensive care. She wins passage through the disintegrating U.S. social welfare system, through the veil of pain and time, doing the thing she knows best: drawing and writing for her life. Her eye and steady hand miss nothing. Ella captures -- for her doctors, for her brother and sisters, for us, and for art -- the misery and triumph of the life urge." ---Elizabeth King, Sculpture Department, Virginia Commonwealth University

About this title

About the Author

Ella Watson was born in 1983 and was the youngest of four children. She came into this world with a rare liver disease called Biliary Atresia, or stricture of the biliary ducts in the liver. After a risky operation and being close to death, Ella recovered and went on to live a somewhat normal youth until the early death of her parents a few years later. Her older brother, Bruce, became her guardian and Ella and her older siblings moved to Southwest Virginia. Ella and Bruce lived in Blacksburg, V.A., home of Virginia Tech, where Bruce finished his college education and Ella maintained a fairly normal, All-American youth in a small college town. After high school, Ella received a stellar art education at Virginia Commonwealth University in Richmond, V.A. where she learned numerous creative techniques and skills and graduated at the top of her class with two art degrees in Painting & Printmaking, and in Sculpture & Extended Media. However, it was not long after college that Ella became sick once more. Her disease had reemerged, causing her to become jaundice and sick. After two years of painkillers including morphine, Percocets, Dilaudid, and Oxycotin; external drains and catheters; and losing her job and her freedom, Ella found herself living in New York City with her family. Over the two years, she was hospitalized eleven times, spent weeks inpatient, had 20 procedures, and two surgeries. Ultimately, on June 16, 2009, Ella's older sister, Jen Watson, gave Ella half her liver to save her life. Ella is doing well and currently living in Brooklyn, N.Y. as an artist.

Edition details

• Publisher: AuthorHouse Publishing
• Publication date: 2011
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1463403984
• ISBN 13: 9781463403980
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 76