#hospitalglam
I specify both #ChronicIllness and #disability because the former is part of the latter, and many people think they shouldn’t ID as #disabled or have difficulty finding their place within the community. Recognizing that your ability level fluctuates does not shut you out. Most of ours do. While not all chronic illnesses are consistently disabling, if you have one, you have likely needed the protections afforded by the #ADA. Chronic illnesses are #InvisibleDisabilities. You belong.
#HospitalGlam
https://www.instagram.com/karolynprg/p/Bwhy688gnox/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=o29oo8505lsa
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When I talk about #Hospitalglam, and healthcare being a luxury good, I’m referencing the absurdity of needing to pay down necessary procedures and treatments for years, through collections, making the worst bargains, because the other option is giving our LIFE. Not the social or perceived life, which we give anyway to illness, but our beating heart. We get layaway plans and collection plans and things to keep us under the water but gasping for that life we might have again. Beauty sells our bodies back to us, at a premium none of us can afford. Through creating our own images; through recreating the visibility of disabling illness, we can take the reigns even from our gurneys.
Fuck this Shit let us live
https://www.instagram.com/karolynprg/p/Bvz9iADHL2I/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1rnqoylqw5i3o
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#Hospitalglam: I had an echocardiogram this morning, at the big LA hospital I go to which feels like my home because I’m always there and almost everybody is so great with me. The receptionist checking me in said I had a great aura, and raved about my @marinafinionme earrings. I smiled and was happy when the tech called me in a few moments later. She was warm and we talked easily about patient agency and how hard it was to be seen; as a chronic patient, as a woman. She told me how much she felt it was an exchange of information and energy- that she learned from her patients- and that she was so happy to be there with me, as she moved an instrument over my heart to chart its rhythm. It’s hard to be disabled and navigate the medical system, especially in the US, but I am so grateful for the time I get to spend with caregivers like the one I had today, where I barely noticed the procedure due to the amazing connection I had. In this photo, I was not paying attention to the photo over the conversation I was having. It was incredible and I can only hope I cross paths with this amazing person again. #ehlersdanlosgrrls #echocardiogram #cardiology #chronicillness
https://www.instagram.com/karolynprg/p/BvkgSFGnIgn/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=10ewwse6tb44b
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In light of Tumblr’s recent censorship measures, HospitalGlam will be archived on this platform and moved to another. The tag is in widespread use in Instagram, and a FB community page has also been made available. I’ve loved our time here, but we need to grow.
Also: I’ve gone through the process of trademarking HospitalGlam, so it can’t be co-opted and used to sell goods. It’s for patients to use to take up space and own their experiences, and that’s it.
With gratitude,karolynprg.
I left LA a while ago, after some follow up tests that let me know I’d be better off taking a break from my immediate environment. I hope your holiday season keeps you out of harm’s way. Thank you to everyone who participates in #HospitalGlam, and finds better care through it. I hope 2019 is good to us all.
https://www.instagram.com/p/BroWLnEntoz/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1ismcz5vuumjv
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‘4:30am ambulance to a new ER to explain my medical history and current symptoms to new docs’ vibe coming in strong
#hospitalglam
[#imagedescription: I’m wearing a green and blue hospital gown + a yellow mask on a blue-sheeted gurney.]
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bq2R_ElHNLc/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=ow1qu8jd4lkh
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Thankful I’m not here today. A day without posting #HospitalGlam is a good one. Wishing the best possible day to you & yours, wherever you are. [#imagedescription: #tbt selfie from a stress test, in a hospital gown, strapped to the hilt, eyes closed, lavender lipstick, preservation blonde braids.]
https://www.instagram.com/p/BqgA-Ian2-W/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1wvqvjnu7bf6w
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Reminder: we’re currently in the abbreviated open enrollment period for 2019 healthcare plans. It will end December 15th. Go to https://www.healthcare.gov to sign up.
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#HospitalGlam #Healthcare #ACA #Reminders [#imagedescription: I’m standing against the wall in a clinic room, on the wrong side of a pulled back privacy curtain.]
https://www.instagram.com/p/BqIP-gJHcO0/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=wmi76mce21xd
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Beauty is an anesthetic//
Wellness is a commodity//
Be who you are and take up your space #HospitalGlam
[#imagedescription: I’m clad in black with blue lips on a medical bed. My gaze is directed towards someone offscreen. Yours is directed at me.]
#disabled #saytheword #disabledandcute #invisibleillness
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bp_U6F7HJpp/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1oy2arlizdwie
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I had the incredible pleasure of getting to visit and chat with @toitroutman for a little while last week. This woman is a badass who’s been living with #lupus for decades, and told me a lot about her recent admits. Swapping stories about hospitalists and the confusion that comes with the gap between how we look and how our bodies behave felt like a deep exhale. Sometimes there’s nothing more healing than community. #HospitalGlam
[#imagedescription: a shot of Toi and I standing next to her hospital bed, taken by her son. Toi is in the foreground, showing me how to work some tech offscreen, and I’m standing behind her watching and smiling, because this is also part of illness]
#invisibleillness #chronicillness #invisibledisabilities #disabled #ehlersdanlos #tbt
https://www.instagram.com/p/BpSJrIZHlLU/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1tndg1tmfscj0
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This week I kept calm and every light is still on so I’ve marked it good. It’s a flexible metric. #HospitalGlam
[#imagedescription: I’m in a doctor’s office, collapsed onto a medical bed set in an upright position. Behind me is a Wayne Thiebaud poster, above a bin marked “soiled linen”]
#chronicillness #disability #sotired
https://www.instagram.com/p/BpJHPBFnKTz/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1kahtty1m4lck
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This was taken years ago, when I went into my doctor to get checked out after being assaulted. I took photos, as I always do, to enforce my control over the space where I would be examined; where I would go over what happened and determine whether or not I’d come out with more injuries than I already guessed. I never shared it because some things are for me, and I did not want to give it away.
I’m sharing it today because so many of us have survived, and will keep going. We are here for each other, and don’t need to cut ourselves open to receive support. Our strength is flexible, and looks however we need it to look. You are not doing it wrong as long as you stay alive.
I wish none of us had to go through this.
—
#HospitalGlam #violence #tw #sexualassault #ptsd #invisibleillness #invisibledisability #survivor #metoo
[#imagedescription: I’m disheveled, on the edge of a medical bed in a gyn exam room, gripping the light above me. I am looking into the lens.]
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bom7SJpHufx/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1nypcx87plyn3
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#HospitalGlam: Same day, different providers. In the top photo I’d been arguing with techs and staff for 45 minutes before an invasive procedure, and this photo was taken while a tech was staring at me, with the hospital’s legal & corporate departments on the phone. We are always fighting for care, even in vulnerable states. The bottom photo was immediately after that appointment, in another doctor’s office, who gave me test results that weren’t the best but we could meet where we both were emotionally, in this world, right now, and breathe. Every day is hard and weird but there are pockets of hope in the people around us. Let them hold us. //
[#imagedescription: horizontally split image showing me in two separate clinical spaces: in the top one it is me sitting on a gurney in a hospital gown prior to a bilateral breast ultrasound, paying more attention to the speakerphone discussion than the image. In the bottom, I’m sitting on a medical bed in a bright exam room, cross legged in a long black dress, animatedly talking to a doctor, off camera. The mood is very different between the images, as it was between appointments.] /
#chronicillness #disability #disabledandcute #ehlersdanlosgrrrls #selfadvocacy #invisibleillness #survivor
https://www.instagram.com/p/BokKAeqHSWL/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=q4uegdvsrq5o
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I listened to the Kavanaugh hearings until my doctor walked into the room for my #colposcopy today. It was more painful than the procedure by far. #HospitalGlam [#imagedescription: I’m on a sofa in an otherwise empty ob/gyn waiting room, wearing headphones with my fingers interlocked behind my head in stress. I am clearly not happy.]
https://www.instagram.com/p/BoQvq9oHtvX/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=20e43avl5507
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Believe Survivors.
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[#imagedescription: #hospitalglam shot of me declining on a gynecologist’s table, while answering questions from the nurse, out of frame. I am dressed in black; behind my head is a print of a man’s head in blue, looking down at me.]
https://www.instagram.com/p/BoHkZVxHcMp/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=1gnylnk02mk5y
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It’s my body and you will not fucking control any part of it #HospitalGlam
[#imagedescription: photo taken in a hospital waiting room, slightly blurry because I feel terrible and did not properly focus the shot before moving into the frame. I am stretched across the arms of a row of waiting room chairs, beneath a framed impressionist print. None of it is comfortable, but idgaf today.]
https://www.instagram.com/p/Bn32SicA8PW/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=19t181gtkhe3a
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The task in illness has become rendering ourselves visible though we have been asserting ourselves as such for quite some time #hospitalglam
[#imagedescription: Black+white photo of me in a doctors office, wearing a paper gown, holding exam gathered to my chest at the foot of the medical bed]
https://www.instagram.com/p/BnuzjwCHAbA/?utm_source=ig_tumblr_share&igshid=c1biu2uehwxq
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Today I asked the nurse if this had a name and she said “medical transformer”. “No, I meant the bed” #HospitalGlam
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#HospitalGlam: Queer & disabled define me though I’m sometimes praised for not letting them. This defies my own bio and is the same thing that elevates brands for exploiting the visibility of unknown disabled bodies and rinses well known, out disabled ones of their identities to preserve their bankability.
[#imagedescription: #hospitalglam photo of me in a pink paper gown. On the wall, a few ames blue face looks on, mournfully.]
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my other #photocollage from class, part of the same #hospitalglam series I’ve been working on for about a year. sometimes chronic illness feels like drowning, you know? nowhere to go but through it #adobephotoshop #disabledart #disabledartist #chronicillness
https://www.instagram.com/p/CNNiDaaj6rp/?igshid=177vac15sdy66
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