Photographs from this shoot available for purchase as a 13 x 20 in. print, edition 1 of 10, here.

Info about the work:

Most IV bags are non-biohazardous waste, so usually are thrown into landfills. As just one patient, my Lyme treatment consumed about 150 plastic IV bags total... that’s enough to fill six trashbags. I’ve saved them all and have spent the past year hauling them around with me as I travel, photographing my IV bags out in nature (& recollecting them after each photoshoot).

I have been working on a new body of work titled “The Hidden Costs of Wellness”. I hope this series sparks conversation around the magnitude of costs for treatments like mine which hurt the Earth, yet stem from our growing health epidemics which are very much due to lack of connection with the Earth. Furthermore, as this planet gets warmer, epidemics will continue to rise. And as our treatments require more severe procedures, our collective medical waste will also increase.

For this photograph in particular, I only used my IV bags that were once filled with glutathione. Glutathione has been important to rebuild during my treatment & it’s an IV that needs to drip slow or else it can make you really nauseous. Glutathione is the master antioxidant in the body and is heavily concentrated in tissues such as the liver, spleen and heart. Therefore, it plays a crucial role in immune function, detoxification capacity and protection against oxidative stress. Another way to amp up glutathione during cancer & other treatments that require detoxification is via coffee enemas... another procedure that (in many but not all scenarios) relies heavily on single-use plastic.

The lotus shapes the glutathione bags form here nod to the common saying “no mud, no lotus” which reflects on the difficult times (or muddy waters) one must navigate to bloom.

This work is part of my Hidden Costs of Wellness series