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to donate to Breathing Room
Breathing Room has lots in store
for the year. If you would like to share your personal
stories, news items or poetry with us, please contact:
us at: info at thebreathingroom.org.
Stories, Poems
and opinions of participants are their own, and not necessarily
those of the Breathing Room organization.
Please visit
cfmessageboard.com to connect with members of the CF
community online.
Breathing Room
facilitates candid and open
communication between adults with Cystic Fibrosis,
supports the development of a community of adults with CF
and provides education and insight for families, caregivers,
and medical professionals who impact our lives.
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How The Breathing Room began
Michelle Compton, creator of "Through the Looking Glass: Images of Adults
with Cystic Fibrosis," was in endstage cystic fibrosis in January 1997, on
full time oxygen when she began the project. With predicted life expectancy
of less than two years, disabled, and facing the end of her life, she
initiated a photographic/writing project with the help of friends, family,
and professional photographers who donated their services. Beginning with
herself and expanding to other adults with cystic fibrosis (CF), she created
photos to express the journey of life with CF--a genetic, progressive,
terminal disease affecting the lungs.
Michelle encouraged each participant to think about his or her individual CF
experience. Each photograph was conceived by the participant as a piece of
graphic self-expression, with the help of Michelle as Art Director to
execute
the image. Each participant then wrote a prose/poem to express the meaning
of his or her picture.
These early Looking Glass images were first shown at gatherings of the CF
community in Northern California in August 1997 and received strong,
positive
reaction. The project expanded to more participants from that point, and has been exhibited more broadly since then.
Michelle continued to art-direct the making of images from home, where she
was confined as her condition worsened and where she waited as a candidate
for lung transplant. In December 1998, Michelle received a successful,
lifesaving double lung transplant at Stanford University Hospital. Although
this does not cure her disease, her new lungs are disease-free, and now that
Michelle has better health and longer life-expectancy, The Breathing Room
has
been founded to extend the scope of "Looking Glass."
Next: The Challenge of Life with Cystic Fibrosis
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