Tag Archives: documentary drawing

Warteraum redux, second surgery setup sessions!

D at the cardiologist waiting room by Suzanne Forbes March 22 2022My husband and I are medical system refugees.

Which is a type of economic refugee, although medical care obviously shouldn’t be tied to your financial resources. We moved to Europe because we needed to live in a place with socialized medicine. And two years in to our lives here, my hub had his first big surgery.

D at the cardiologist by Suzanne Forbes March 22 2022Now we are preparing for what we desperately hope will be his second surgery.

In the US, this simply couldn’t happen. The specialists who invented it are here, the recovery of many days in hospital just doesn’t fit the US model, the physical therapy he will need wouldn’t be provided – we couldn’t even dream of this in the US, even if money weren’t an object.

If you are a praying kinda person, please pray that we are able to get through the last couple German medical system hoops and get my beloved hub this surgery. His quality of life has deteriorated profoundly and he is in constant pain. I’m happy to sit in as many warteraums as it takes.

And I realize warteraums have become a whole area of my drawings here, not as big as the Unterwegs category, but still significant!

More about our first visit to the Trichterbrust surgeon here.

Drawing folks while I waited for the knee surgeon here.

Cyborg husband physical therapy fun here.

Waiting room at the immigration office here and here.

More medical waiting rooms here, here and here.

I am so grateful to my Patreon Patrons, whose monthly financial support makes it possible for me to continue making art and telling the stories of Berlin as a vaccinated but Covid-vulnerable disabled person.

Archives drawings: San Francisco in the Oughts.

Leah dancing the tango at El Valenciana 2005ish by Suzanne Forbes This is Leah dancing the tango at El Valenciana in 2005.

I met Leah through my oldest friend, Victoria. Going to draw her dancing was one of my early conscious moments of “documentary drawing” of Bay Area culture.

Eugene Wong law office 2002 by Suzanne Forbes aka Rachel ForbesThe law office of Eugene Wong, 2002.

My second ex-husband was a foreign national, and Eugene managed the green card process. I believe our friend Shinsaku referred us to Eugene, who did a good job at a good price. I made this drawing on the back of some form while we were waiting one day.

Noise Party 2004 by Suzanne Forbes aka Rachel ForbesNoise Party, Berkeley, 2004.

Logan and JD, close friends of my second ex-husband and I in the Oughts, gave marvelous parties, including ones called “Noise Parties”. Like a kind of John Cage experimental sound thing! For one of the early ones my ex and I wrapped ourselves in bubble wrap and rolled up the garden path, popping and crackling!

These drawings had been scanned but not posted, and were languishing in a backup file inside many folders.

I am so grateful to my Patrons on Patreon, whose monthly financial support makes it possible for me to take time to document my art archives.