An Aberdeen woman says painting and drawing has helped her recover after undergoing brain tumour surgery.
Heather Edgar, 58, was diagnosed with a brain tumour almost 18 months ago and received treatment at Aberdeen Royal Infirmary.
But medicine hasn’t been her only treatment and art has also helped her heal.
“I had partial paralysis; I couldn’t hold a pencil and couldn’t even hold myself up,” Heather told STV News.
“Then I was taken into an art room, and it was an awakening,” explained Heather.
“It was wonderful – it made me realise for the first time that my recovery and rehab wasn’t just physical.”
Grampian Hospitals Arts Trust was the first of its kind when it was set up in Scotland 40 years ago, with the aim of using art to promote health and wellbeing in hospitals.
For the last four decades, the charity’s art room sessions have been helping tens of thousands of patients in the north-east.
STV NewsHeather added: “The first thing I drew was a fish—the fact I could create an image of a fish and make marks on a piece of paper that looked like a fish made me realise that recovery was a real possibility.”
The Trust has over four thousand artworks on display, both in Aberdeen Royal Infirmary and community hospitals across the north east.
STV NewsSally Thomson, director at Grampian Hospitals Arts Trust, said: “The art room gave her hope that there was a new Heather, and I think that hope is really important in a hospital because you can’t see what’s coming next, but you can deal with the now.
“It (the gallery) makes the building feel loved because someone has valued the person coming into the building enough to make it look fantastic.
“That supports staff, medics, and visitors as much as it does the patients, so we have these wonderful works of art all around the walls and in offices.”
As the award-winning charity prepares to celebrate its 40th birthday, Heather keeps expanding her folder of work.
STV NewsOne day, she says she would love to study at Gray’s School of Art.
“It’s been absolutely lifechanging,” she said.
“I do have a partial weakness in my right-hand side, but I’m determined to be the best version of myself.”
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