"One Day Pass" patients at TEDMED painting 12

This is the final painting of TEDMED 2012.  It is entitled “One Day Pass.”  It represents all the patients who proudly and happily attended the Friday session.  They had special badges they wore around their necks and they were so honored to be there.

I based this little happy patient on my son Isaac who lost his father when he was only 3.  And for the past few days has barely seen his mother as I painted 14 hours each day in an attempt to create 12 paintings in a little less than four days. 

Yet he smiles. 

He holds his balloon of hope with a gracious joy. He is so happy to play with you. He is so glad for his one-day pass.

In one chubby hand he holds the golden ticket: Admit One. 

Around his neck his badge says TEDMED Patients included.  That is a rather important label.  That means TEDMED invited patients to help design this conference, put patients on the stage and invited patients to attend.

And do you know what?  They did.

Shirley Bergin and I shared over 100 emails planning how to incorporate the patient voice through paint and twitter at TEDMED.  Did you see Shirley on the stage the final day of TEDMED?  She ran virtually everything, but still made time for patients.

We saw several patients on the stage at TEDMED 2012, and hopefully in coming years we will see many more.  We will see more because some patients famous for their advocacy will cross this stage.

But we will see them in another way. It is a way The Walking Gallery members are all too familiar with.  People are often surprised to hear ¾ of The Walking Gallery is made of providers, techies and governmental employees who self define from the patient view.

There will be more patients on this stage as we each embrace our patient self.  We need to take time to hug that little guy inside of each and every one of us.

At the close of TEDMED CEO Jose Suarez thanked us all.  He asked me to come upon stage and bestow these paintings to the 12 major sponsors for TEDMED. In the next 15 minutes a half-circle of patient art formed upon that stage and was shown on 2,000 screens across this nation.

I say thank you to all the amazing hardworking folks at TEDMED from Jay to Jose to Shirley to Courtney and oh, so many more many more...

“One Day Pass” was given to Johnson &Johnson for their support of TEDMED.





11. "The First is Last" for Steelcase/Nurture




10. "Flight" for The California Endowment




9.  "Sacred Cow"  for SIEMENS




8.  "The Unmentionables" for Robert Wood Johnson Foundation




7.  "Drones" for Booz Allen Hamilton






6.  "Fire" for PHILIPS






5.  "Spit" for the Cleveland Clinic




4.  "Death" for XEROX




3.  "The Missing Ingredients" for GE




2.  "Space" for MAR





1.  "The Dance of Care" for AAMC 

"Flight" painting session 10: TEDMED Day 4

It was Friday the 13th and I was painting a heart upon the 10th canvas.

This day we saw the co-creator of TEDMED, Marc Hodosh take the stage and proceed to guide the following talk. Bud Frazier, MD Director of Cardiovascular Surgery Research and Billy Cohn, MD Director of Minimally Invasive Surgical Technology at the Texas Heart Institute gave an amazing lecture.  They started with showing us flying birds, a method that inspired man that flight was possible.  They went on to say that nature has limited resources and used what she had for flight.  Humans quickly discarded this method for propeller driven flight. Just as this method worked better for artificial flight Drs. Frazier and Cohn proposed we must look at the pumping human heart in the same way.  Must it pump?  Or was that nature’s trade off for what she created.  As they engineer artificial hearts with minimally moving parts recipients will have no pulse, but will live with hearts that can function for 20 years inside of their bodies.

So this painting was inspired by “Flight.”  In the center the heart almost seems to spin as the propeller rests in silence before it.  The colors chosen represent the colors in a traditional traffic light as designers and medical professionals must decide when to stop when to go and when to go very, very fast .

Franziska Michor, Associate Professor of Computational Biology at Dana-Farber Cancer institute spoke about the mathematics of cancer.  So books of thought began to soar across the painting and one asks the question “Can math cure cancer?”
Jay Walker then presented an amazing image of an ancient medical text describing the color of urine; he followed that with an exquisitely detailed image of an entire town witnessing a dissection from surgeons to priests.

Next Dan Perry, CEO of the Alliance for Aging Research, discussed the future of aging.  I added another book to our image with the words “aging and disease.” I found elements of his speech disquieting as we already live in a society that is very death averse and aging is viewed in a similar light.  As he spoke of aging as a disease that could be treated, I wondered how people would fare emotionally if the gentle steps we take toward death as our age advances were removed. 

Lynda Chin, MD of the MD Anderson Cancer Center spoke about the breaking of cancer covenant.  So a new book entered the painting and we learned about the self-serving molecular nature of cancer cells.

Atul Butte, MD Stanford spoke next and mentioned that advanced mathematics might replace the scientific method. He envisioned a future where resources used and clinical trials begun after intensive mathematical modeling supports that this type of research path is most likely successful. 


This painting was given to The California Endowment for their support and sponsorship of TEDMED.

"Sacred Cow" painting session 9: TEDMED Day

This was the ninth time I began to paint in the simulcast Hub Room.  Suddenly, the signal was cut and we heard an ominous announcement that everyone must head to the Opera House to see the final session.  I looked at my assistant Kait B. Roe in shock as we threw wet brushes and paints into a bag and I began to limp as fast as possible to the backstage area.   I don’t know if I mentioned this before, but I had been painting while standing on a probable stress fracture in my foot as I created the previous eight works.

Out of breath once I arrived, I set up my canvas on the floor five feet away from Billie Jean King and Katie Couric and began to paint.

Once again Steve Connell and Sekou Andrews treated us to a spoken word composition that told us to go find “the cows” and that command influenced this piece I entitled “Sacred Cow.” They were commanding us to apply our new knowledge as we leave TEDMED and think in new ways.

Next I painted a book within the painting. The book is entitled “The Never Trials” in honor of Ben Goldacre, MD the author of Bad Science.  He spoke of the danger in our publication system that publishes positive findings while ignoring negative ones.  His statistics were terrifying. Over 90 of articles published in the biomedical publishing industry were reporting positive results.  Or to put that another way, for every 7 failed studies that proved a drug did not work as hoped, they would print the one that showed positive results.

John Wesley Harding, singer, songwriter and author famous for such postmodern hits as “There is a Starbucks where the Starbucks Used to Be” treated us to his dystopian scientific ballad: “Calling Off the Experiment.”

Jay Walker then amazed the crowd with another piece of medical ephemera: The Bills of Mortality recorded by the Church.  Considered by some to be the first public health data collected, it included death records that showed a seasonal spike in plague deaths. So, I painted the Bill of Mortality in what was rapidly becoming a sacred blue stained glass window image.

Next wearing a traditional suit, rather than a farmer’s outfit, organic farmer Joel Salatin crossed the stage.  He said he was wearing a power suit to be taken seriously, as the founder of the Walking Gallery that is a sentiment I really understand.  Then he launched a diatribe against the horribly bad food we eat in America.  He spoke out that instead of feeding cows to cows, we should embrace the very nature of the cow.  Then a cow’s head entered the painting tagged on one ear 73 and a shaft of wheat appeared at the top of the image.

Next Billie Jean King and Katie Couric began to interview each other. Katie spoke of her husband death from cancer and it was revealed that her wiliness to undergo a colonoscopy on television led to a spike in that procedure.  This was called the Katie effect. 

Katie also spoke of discrimination against women in the workplace saying that when she went into this business, “Harass was two words.”

Billie Jean King spoke of her long-term support of women’s rights to equal education funding.  She spoke of the importance of playground tennis and easy access to sports in neighborhoods and schools.  She spoke of her worries that we are fighting the same battles we fought 30 years before.  So within the painting I placed a young Billie Jean standing in for all of the patients with a tennis racket at her side.

Then Jill Souble and her mother sang us into the night to come…

This painting was given to SIEMENS for their sponsorship and dedication to TEDMED.

"Drones" painting session 7: TEDMED Day 3

Hiep Nguyen, Director of Robotic Surgery, Research and Training Center and the Pediatric TeleUrology Service at Children's Hospital Boston presented his speech from his office in Germany via a robot.  His speech was entitled "What if R2D2 were your doctor?" As I watched the rolling bot "pace" upon the TEDMED stage I began to paint a small droid upon the canvas.

 


Next up was Mary "Missy" Cummings who was a one of the first female fighter pilots in the Navy and is now Director, MIT Humans and Automation Library.  As I listened her speak about the power of unmanned aerial vehicles, I decided to paint the word the she was not using.  I painted three drone bees flying into darkness.  I was also amazed by a slide within her presentation.  In a room field with the most up to date technology was a cowbell.  She explained, in an emergency it was the only way to capture everyone’s attention.  So I gave R2D2 a cowbell and hope he uses it when needed.

Ed Gavagan, Co-founder of Design Starts Here and speaker at The Moth was next upon the stage.  He was the patient on the panel. He began speaking about elaborate knots and then proceeded to tie up our feeling and emotions within in his tale.  He was stabbed as a result of a gang initiation ritual and came very close to dying.  One of his wounds was to the inferior vena cava and this is usually fatal.  He spoke of his gratitude at being saved, but also spoke of his discomfort. After surgery Ed’s doctor proudly showed off his work to a group of other medical professionals.  His work was Ed’s skin.  During his speech he told us the doctor said the hospital had not cut his long hair so he would have the strength of Samson.  But as he wrapped up his speech, he answered Jay Walker’s questions and revealed the true reason.  His doctor had not cut his hair as he wanted Ed to look nice for his funeral.  I painted Ed in the alley he almost died in.

Robert Gupta then soothed our souls once again with his violin.

Sandeep Kishore, MD, PhD Student, Co-chair, Young Professional Chronic Disease Network took us on impassioned journey that leveraged lateral thinking and trans-disciplinary approaches.  He wanted us to remove the silos between us.  So the painting now had a silo that balanced out R2D2.  And I depicted a young doctor standing upon a tractor and looking within.
  

Todd Park spoke once again and focused on the Health Data Palooza to be held in June with his usual relish. I added a blue button to our silo for Todd’s support of open data.

Then I stepped back and stared at this powerful painting called “Drones.”


 


In honor of their sponsorship of TEDMED, Booz Allen Hamilton was given this painting.

"Fire:" painting session 6, TEDMED Day 3

The speeches were scheduled to begin promptly at 8:45 in the morning but then the Kennedy Center caught on fire.

Literally.

I guess we are a passionate bunch. The firetrucks descended upon the building as the attendees streamed outside to wait where they were told to wait.  Many delegates told me afterwards that it was very frustrating, as they were not even allowed to walk over to the social hub tent. I smiled a half smile and said perhaps the experience was designed to better remind folks how patients feel.

So this painting began with flames and I called it "Fire."

At about 9:15 am the day began with singer, songwriter Jonathan Mann singing a song about the 51 Great Challenges.  It was super cool and I began paint musical notes in the flames.

Next Frances Arnold, PhD professor of Chemical Engineering, Bioengineering and Biochemistry, California Institute of Technology, spoke about evolution of biological molecules and making molecules have sex.  The speech wandered back and forth from the technical to the humorous.  So within the fire a sinuous mother Eve was born. 
 


Next the amazing Jonathan Eisen bounded across the stage.  I had the pleasure of his acquaintance two days before.  We were both fans of the Giant Microbe toy company and the artist Michele Banks or @Artologica on twitter. He began to speak about microbes all over our body and said that they should be viewed as another vital organ. So upon our Mother Nature microbes began to sprout and blossom. There are 51 microbes for the 51 Great Challenges.  He then told us about the restorative power of poo tea so the figure now holds a cup of this substance within her hand.

 


E.O. Wilson, Honorary Curator in Entomology and University Research Professor Emeritus, Harvard University gave us a heartfelt speech based on his writing  "Letter to A Young Scientist."  The part I took to heart was his reminding us that many of us may be bad at math, but that is no reason to give up on science.  As an adult who was awarded best science student in 6th grade but left science behind due to fear of the higher math’s, this comment touched me deeply.  So I tattooed a lovely equation on the leg of our mother nature.  E.O. Wilson received to standing ovations during his speech.




Next Andrew Read, director of the Center for Infectious Disease Dynamics, Penn State University took to the stage.  He broached some very controversial topics as he asked us if in our pursuit of attacking viruses and bacteria were we not waging war against Mother Nature herself. Then he pointed out in this type of battle evolution usually wins. I began to paint series of the letter A and a series of bees flying up the painting. We should not shun the controversial scientist as they give warning, we should not turn our heads away as the bees are dying.

 


PHILIPS was given this painting as a thank you for their help and dedication to TEDMED.

"Spit" TEDMED DAY 2: session 5

(“SPIT” painting is described in spoken word in honor of Sekou Andrews and Steve Connell)

"Spit"

Please shut your mouth in the social hub. 
That is Regina B. upon the stage,
she is our Surgeon General.
I can't hear her!

Now, she's gone, not in the painting.

See those dudes upon the stage, the actors, the poets,
Steve and Sekou waking you up,
Keeping it real,
Hell no, making it real.

Do you see outrage?

I paint it with my brush, by the simulcast screen in the spinning Hub
while oh; so many texts and tweets expand

upon the OUTRAGE.
Those that sit in the sweet seats, center stage,
do you feel the rain?
As @TiffanyandLupus gasps in pain 
upon her bed and tweets till she can tweet no more.

That is spit.

Did you think
Steve and Sekou would let you go so gently in that dark night?
Just two fellows on the stage
Here for your entertainment
to wrap this final session?

No, they YELL at you.

 


They throw their words upon the stage
like fists through walls,
they show us all
the split,
THE SPIT,
between us.
The great chasm of pain
between those here who talk of tech and the patient ones
following the tweet stream while dying.

And you know,
as sure as paint falls upon the canvas,
as their words pound at you,
as our tweets # you,
Twitter can set us free.

I scream, the stream #TEDMED

Mop up the stage of sweat and spit,
Gregory and Reisa has come to avail us,
as Alzheimer's begins to assail us,
300 million time bombs passing by TSA,
every day,
terrorist cells exist inside our minds,
and what can be done to save us?
tweet out
@TEDMED,
iceberg ahead!

 


Then the mother walks upon the stage,
her blue dress cannot contain,
the pain,
her slumping shoulders say more than her lips,
as Virginia Breen,
talks of a girl who is seen,
and not heard.
WHY CAN'T THEY HEAR HER?

See the little girl.
See her little curls.
See her giggles stop.

See the iPad FREE her.

Then Miss Bonker takes stage.
Think the age that passed,
under lights too bright and noise too vast,
to finally see the port within the storm:
The iPad lay in Jay Walker's hand,
her voice on glass, taken away
As the show must go on,
and no way for her to say
I AM IN HERE.

 


#Autism
#Ageism
Tag you're it!
Can you tweet while crying?
My tears fall upon he canvas.

My eyes spit.

Then Robert Gupta plays his violin
upon this Titanic struggle,
bringing the sweet street,
to the c suite,
as we talk about
WHO is really mental?
My friends who sit within the grit
outside this very venue?
Or anyone in here who is not crying?

Miguel leads us to the end,
as he asks us to look within.
The universe
between our ears
and see and hear the storm of reason,
for we must understand this astronomy of thought,
the white noise
of our great gray processor,
before we talk about the treason of our cells.

Then Traces play upon the stage,
they contort their bodies,
as we contort our thoughts
the lights go down,
the feed goes up
and now we tweet a new tomorrow. 

We scream, the stream #TEDMED

(This painting was given to The Cleveland Clinic for their support of TEDMED.)

TEDMED Day 2: "Death" Painting Sesssion 4

TEDMED Session four was after lunch, so perhaps in a desire to wake people up it was quite provocative.

The company of dancer-illusionists entitled MOMIX began the session. The stage was dark and suddenly glow-in-the dark patterned limbs began gyrating in amazing disembodied symmetry.  Limbs appeared and disappeared while the audience watched in awe.  When the lights came up we saw the dancers dressed in black stretch velvet.  I was very inspired by the dancer's passionate movement so I began to paint a red dancer across the canvas and then created a background of riotous color.

Next Albert-Laszlo-Barabasi, Distinguished Professor of Northeastern University and Director of the Center for Complex Network Research came to the stage.  He began describing human genome research using the analogy of a map of Manhattan.  He talked about the different districts of the city, like the financial or theatre district, but now they were the cancer district or heart disease district.  He showed us that our mapping is incomplete and whole sections were missing.  He talked about a future where doctors operated as network experts. And so within the painting our dancing figure is gracefully draped with a blank map pressed upon her lithe body by the winds of change. Her one arm is encased within a swirling double helix.

 


Seth Cooper, Creative Director for Game Science from the University of Washington was up next and he sang the praises of gamification as they apply to scientific research.  I have been to many speeches where speakers talk about gamification in the personal application of weight loss and healthy living, but this was super cool.  Seth created FoldIt, a protein folding game that made headlines a while back. A large group of amateur folders from every walk of life managed to complete a folding exercise within weeks that flummoxed scientists for 15 years.  The best folder to the surprise of the TEDMED audience joined him; this unassuming female lab assistant is a preeminent protein folder and proves the power to harness the untapped resource of the citizen or patient.

 


Marc Triola, Associate Dean for Educational Informatics, NYU School of Medicine spoke next and gave this painting its title.  He spoke of the time when doctors are in medical school and they have access to the sacred cadaver.  Then I realized our dancer was dead.  Kait B. Roe my art assistant at TEDMED said she knew this all along, she thought of the figure within the metaphor of a lobster:  red is dead.  So the painting was entitled “Death.”

Marc followed this comment about access to the sacred cadaver with his frustration that as students leave school and this access is no longer available, they cease to actively learn about anatomy and things can be forgotten, so he and John Qualter, Co-Founder, Director of Media, BioDigital Systems and Research, Asst. Professor of Educational Informatics, NYU School of Medicine embarked on the creation of a 3D human body interactive program that will allow students, doctors and even patients to study human anatomy from a basic understanding to a detailed presentation of pathology. 
 

The next speaker was the amazing visual artist Lisa Nilsson.  She explained the art of paper quilling to the crowd of medical professionals.  Quilling is a very time intensive art form.  The artist must coil thin strips of paper around a quilling tool and place in compositional frame. Hundreds or thousands of these small coils make up an image.  Most quilling artists create elaborate flower arrangements using this technique.  Lisa creates cross sections of the human body. So within the painting our dancer’s skull is open and we can see her spiraling brain.

Next TEDMED’s Jay Walker treated us once again to a voyage through history.  He showed us some very old bibles handwritten in ink as well as a page from the Gutenberg Bible.  As I often use the historic example of the Reformation when explaining Meaningful Use and patient engagement, I was quite excited at this point.  Jay went on to show an e-reader and stated that our generation may be the last to depend upon using ink on paper.  At this point I painted a book upon the foot of the dancer.  Its title is INK.

David Icke, CEO of MC10, then wowed the audience with his flexible circuits that apply like a band-aid and look like a geeky tattoo.  He gave an inspiring explanation of these devices.  People are bendy and curvy just like this lovely dancer, and the devices we place upon them or within them should be bendy and curvy as well.  I can hardly wait for David’s work to go beyond its current use in the sports community and join us in the world of medicine.

Next up was the speaker who blew up the twitter stream.  I have not seen so many penis references since Xeni’s tweets about the #ghostpenis in December.  Diane Kelly is a wonderfully hilarious and genuine Senior Research Fellow at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.  She spoke about her foray into researching the human penis and her special interest in erection.  Now at this point, I am staring at the simulcast screen trying to think of a way to incorporate this talk.  Diane saves the day by using a slide image comparison of an earthworm.  I twine the earthworm strategically around her leg as I chortle at Diane’s delightfully funny scientific speech.

 Traces, the Urban Acrobats, finished off the session with another amazing dancing experience, and so the session began as it started in a wild rush of athleticism and grace as I added the final brushstrokes to our dancer.

In honor of their support of TEDMED and scholarship funding this painting was bestowed to Xerox at the close of TEDMED 2012.

TEDMED Day 1: The Dance of Care

I set up my easel in the simulcast room at TEDMED.  As I worked I watched the dancers rehearse on screen for their performance in a few short hours.  I noticed how choreographed the session was and watched as they worked around a problem in a new space. 

So dance informed this painting of TEDMED day 1. "The Dance of Care"

Session 1 began with Traces a group of urban acrobatic dancers.

Next up Jay Walker, the guiding force at TEDMED welcomed us to the new venue location.  So with in the painting the Capitol Dome is placed center above a statuesque stone figure.  To the right are Cherry blossoms to the left the incarcerated.  Welcome to the dyad of our fair city.

Then Bryan Stevenson told us about his youth and goal of seeking justice for so many wrongly incarcerated.  He compared the use of the death penalty in the US to the refusal of Germany to use this ultimate penalty.  He asked us to image a Germany where the death penalty was used on a disproportionately large number of incarcerated Jewish people.  So the stone arm that arches as though to dance has a handcuff that ends in a shackle.  For we stand upon a history in this country that we must never forget.

Next graphic designer Teresa Monacino delivered a speech focused on the A to ZED of health care.  So “A” can be for anti or ante, and so on, the letters cascade across the page.  It was a funny speech, but I think it could have been more powerful if it had embraced the poignant.  “A” also is the scarlet letter and can represent the patient in the room.

Then Jill Soule rewrote a history of literature and art by inserting Prozac into a song.  Would we have Poe or Van Gogh if they could have been medicated?

Rebecca Onie inspired us by informing us of the great need for basic care such as food in struggling parts of our country and reminded us students can help advocate for others.  So I began piling cans of “starving soup” into the painting.

Throughout the entire evening, I was following the Twitter feed with the help of my assistant Kait B. Roe.  There was quite a bit of anguish in the patient community that the event was not live-streamed publically.  Many advocates are not affiliated with a medical school, non-profit or university so were unable to attend live-stream locations.  Many are sick and must watch from their bed or home.  One such voice was @TiffanyandLupus.  I told her just follow the twitter stream and tweet and then you are part of this.  She did and is center in the painting, her lovely face upon an Ipad.

I checked the #TedMed twitter stream throughout the evening and into the night.  Long after the attendees feeds were quiet Tiffanny was still tweeting #TedMed. 

7 Different Dresses: Thoughts on TEDMED and Girl's State

Recently, I was invited to attend TEDMED. TEDMED is an annual conference focused on overcoming problems within healthcare. This year it will be hosted in April at the Kennedy Center in Washington, DC. Often described as a “gathering of geniuses,” it is an invitation only vetted event with a $5,000 per attendee registration charge.  Due to this, it is an economic challenge to attend if you are a patient advocate.

I was so excited to have a chance to go. I would be allowed to paint onsite and present the patient view. This was a really big deal. After being invited, I was reminded of an opportunity I had in my youth to attend Oklahoma Girl’s State. You see, I had been in this position before as a girl.  I been invited to an invitation-only event where most attendees where economically far above my station in life.  I knew that the individual voice you bring to such an event can shine far above any preconceived standing within society.  You may be no one of importance when you walk through that door, but the event is created and informed by the voices that attend.

It was spring of 1990. I was a junior in high school and it had been a very hard year. Earlier in the fall, I took my sister and we fled an alcoholic and abusive father. We spent two weeks in a county-run youth home while still attending our high school classes. The other students would look upon us in the crowded hallways not sure of what to say. My mother agreed to divorce our father and a restraining order was placed upon him.

We were poor. Both my sister and I worked part time to pay for our clothes and school extras. Our mother would give as much as she could but she was a hospital housekeeper working at minimum wage, so every dollar was dear. Things were tight and we were scraping by. That spring, I was called to the school counselor’s office. 

“You and Heather Pray have been selected to represent Sapulpa High School at Oklahoma Girl’s State,” the counselor said. I looked at her with surprise as she continued, “Girl’s State is a week of student congress hosted at a university. Girls who have good citizenship skills are selected from every high school in the state of Oklahoma to represent their schools. It is an honor to be selected.”

I left the counselors office filled with joy, clutching the registration paperwork in my hands. Girl’s State! I was so happy, but then I began to read the papers and grew concerned. How could I afford to go? I would need to find transportation to a university many miles away, and according to the paper work I would need a wardrobe consisting of 7 different dresses. Girls wore dresses all week at Girl State.

I had been in Speech and Debate for a year so I owned two performance dresses. Our family attended Church, so I had a very nice Church dress. I could not afford to go shopping for more. What would I do? I was feeling very like Meg in Little Women with no gown for the ball. Fortunately, I was blessed and several of my friends offered to let me borrow their best outfits. Heather Pray and her parents offered to transport us to the college for the week. 

All the economic barriers were surmounted!  I was going to Girl State!

It was quite the culture shock when I got there. Most of the ladies running Girl State had been part of sororities and we were taught an equal mix of student government and etiquette such as the proper way to sit and place one’s feet while seated on a dais in a dress. We were also taught quite a few songs that felt straight out of the 1950’s such as “You got to be a Girl State Gal to Amount to Anything!” and “A Boy and A Girl In a Little Canoe.” The mornings were filled with pep assemblies with camp fire songs and the afternoons were lessons in government. In order to learn about the political process, we created a two party system: the Boomer party and the Sooner party. Soon campaigning began for Sooner and Boomer candidates for governor.

I decided to run. With the help of my campaign manager Jammie Kimmel from Lawton, Oklahoma, I won the Sooner party nomination for governor. We then began the fierce campaign of trying to win governor of Girl’s State. We made campaign posters until late into the night.  Things were going well and then the time came for a debate in front of hundreds of girls. I had never presented before so many people in my life. 

I remember staring into the endless crowd as I answered policy question after policy question. This would be the deciding debate. Then they asked the hardest question of them all: “What is your stance on abortion?”

I paused for a few seconds, while thoughts roared within my mind. Time spun through years of my life. I was a girl who could not afford to be here, wearing borrowed dresses. I was a child who had never had insurance coverage and dreaded every sickness. I was a daughter who fought off rape at the age of nine.  My heart swelled within my chest and I answered: “Regardless, of what I would choose to do within my own personal life, I firmly support the right of a woman to choose medically what happens to her own body.” It seemed the silence that followed lasted for years as blood rushed within my ears. 

I lost the race for the governor, but I had discovered something very important about myself. No matter what the venue, I will be true to my beliefs in supporting rights of those who are oppressed. I will be that poor, abused girl. I will be the patient who suffers while wondering how to pay the rent. I will be the caregiver who watches her loved one die.

I will be all of those things while listening and painting at TEDMED.