But You Don’t Look Sick, 2018
My twin sister Brianna has had Postural Orthostatic Tachycardia Syndrome since middle school. POTS is a disorder of the autonomic nervous system and causes an abnormal heart rate increase when standing up as well as nausea, fatigue, abnormal blood pressure, and more. These symptoms are often invisible to other people, so the phrase “but you don’t look sick” is something that people often say to her. The invisible nature of POTS and other invisible illnesses can make it even harder to deal with these illnesses since it makes them more difficult for other people to understand. Brianna had to spend part of middle school and high school doing homebound and online school because of her chronic illness, so this has really impacted her childhood. With this syndrome there is usually an underlying illness that causes the symptoms and Brianna has been going to doctors for almost ten years now trying to find out what is causing this. She has spent all these years going to different doctors and having different tests done, but no doctors have been able to give her a concrete diagnosis. POTS patients are advised to consume more salt in order to lessen their symptoms because increasing salt intake also increases blood volume. These portraits of Brianna have been manipulated with Himalayan pink salt, which is the kind of salt that is a large part of Brianna’s diet. The photographs gradually deteriorate throughout the series due to being exposed to the salt and water. This manipulation represents the plethora of tests that Brianna has had throughout the years and how going through this illness without finding a sufficient treatment has impacted her life.