Color This Quote

Artists in Blogland sponsors a quote-related art challenge each month. They give you the quote and you come up with an image incorporating that quote. For the month of May, the quote is:

"Every act of creation is first an act of destruction." Pablo Picasso
We are to explain how our image relates to the quote and in the case of my image, that explanation will definitely be necessary.

The Image


The Explanation

My husband is a brittle diabetic. He was introduced into the world of diabetes by going into a coma when he was fourteen years old. That was quite a few years ago...he'll soon be fifty-one! Anyway, one of the "gifts" of diabetes is lack of feeling in the feet. He cannot feel anything in his feet, even when there is a broken bone.

Last November 1, he entered the hospital in sepsis and with a necrotic toe. Since the toe was dead, the doctor had to amputate it. Diabetics take a very long time to heal, but this amputation site healed remarkably fast. However, the ulcer on the bottom of his other foot did not heal. It has come close to healing since then, but a setback always comes along. He was on a wound vac for several months which was working just fine until his special wedge shoe broke and he went back to wearing a regular boot. This was devastating for the ulcer and it opened back up.

A month or so ago, his podiatrist decided to put a skin graft on the ulcer to help encourage healing. Then, the company called KCI (that had been supplying the wound vac equipment) offered to donate an experimental type of skin graft called a graft jacket to a guinea pig patient that was willing to try it out. David was willing, so his doctor injected this graft jacket into the ulcer on the bottom of his left foot.

The "material" for the graft jacket came from a donation from a dead deceased person that wanted to help others by the donation of their organs, skin included. This donor person is represented by the foot with the toe tag on it in the image above. While I am a bit fuzzy on all of the details of the actual processing of this donor person, they basically run the skin through some type of blender to get a substance that is clean and suitable for a graft. This blender is represented by the circle in the center of the image with the human shape in it and the swirl represents the movement of the skin to that blender. This substance is then put into a syringe-type device and then injected into the ulcer. It is done with the hope that David's own skin will grow toward this donated skin-bridge and eventually fill in the hole. It is also done with the hope that he will some day be able to walk again, freely and without opening up another hole in his foot.

The happy guy in the image is David getting a new chance at foot health. His wedge shoe, his constant companion until he is healed and maybe beyond, is on the right foot in my drawing, though in reality it is on David's left foot.

The destruction, however it happened, of the life of the donor person led to the creation of a new chance of having a hole-less foot for David as the recipient. Time will tell how this goes for him, but so far, so good.