I am of Native American descent and came up with my own designs to take the dream catcher one step further and use costume jewelry along with the traditional beads, web and feathers. It keeps my mind busy. I am currently in remission of my stage 4 non-small cell adenocarcinoma diagnosed in April of 2013. We lost my dad to the same cancer in October 2008.

In the middle of 2015, at 45 years old, I was diagnosed with stage 3 colon cancer. After 24 weeks of chemo, my scans were clean and I scheduled a reversal for my colostomy earlier this year. However, the surgery was aborted mid-operation when it was discovered that the cancer had spread. I am now at stage 4 and I have restarted chemo. My mother, a lifetime artist, lovingly encouraged me to take up watercolors as an expressive and creative outlet. She has been a wonderful guide and teacher for me during this time. One of the works she encouraged me to do was an abstract watercolor on yupo paper. I call it the Haunted Forest. It is a rendition of the haunted forest from &quot;The Wizard of Oz&quot; with the golden path of the yellow brick road a bit tarnished, but still leading to a way out of the horrors of the haunted forest. With many of us in similar situations, there is a lot of meaning embedded in that.

The Haunted Forest

The branch came from a beautiful bouquet of roses I received after surgery. I had this idea that I would start collecting my medical arm bracelets to throw on the branch. My family thought it looked morbid, lifeless. I pointed out there was a butterfly and a bee on it, but they didn&#39;t buy it. Mulling it over, I decided to put a flower on it for each chemo and Herceptin infusion I got. I glued a leaf on it to mark each radiation treatment. The bottom has every medical appointment card. There were nearly 50. I hung my port on it. My dog had cancer too so there&#39;s a photo of us together. I have another disc hanging behind it that has every prescription I filled. It was amazing to see the progression of this tree and how busy of a disease breast cancer can be.

Dream On

By Tracy Shoate

February 11th, 2016

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