WHEEL WORLD NEWS
March 2018
10
The first 2 years of my life with SCI were filled with repeated hospital stays for bowel and bladder infections. Due to the harsh antibiotics from the meningitis, I developed the bowel infection C-diff and in a 12 month period, I had eleven reoccurrences. I also had several hospital stays for UTI.
Even though the medical challenges were tough, the biggest deal for me was having to write with my mouth. I was already extremely self-conscious and now fully aware that everybody would look at me and I would stick out. I agonized over this. One morning, my mom put my mouth pen in my mouth and a sketch book in front of me and left the house. I cried, picked up the mouth stick and when my mom returned I had drawn morning glories and butterflies! I started making art work with my mouth stick that people actually wanted to buy and this turned into a home based business called “Designs by Donna’’.
I arrived in Arizona on October 31, 1992. Trick or Treat! I came for school and graduated from ASU with a BA in Communication in December 1996.
Some of Donna's pieces of art
(Click to enlarge)