Help Dolly get to Whitecliffe

Being accepted into Whitecliffe College of Arts and Design is a dream come true. It’s a truly fantastic institute where I feel I will be able to express myself and catch up on all the skills I missed out on when I had to leave school. It is also the place that is going to teach me to become a true artist. Art is something that has helped me through the worst of my struggles and it continues to be therapeutic to me. I could not live without it. I will have to face the adversities that come with my condition while I am attending Whitecliffe, this in itself will be a major hurdle but I am resilient and I think I can get through this. Unfortunately as a result of my condition I am unable to work to raise funds to pay for the tuition.

I was born with a condition called Thoracic Outlet Syndrome. This is where your collarbone is too close to your first rib and it restricts the flow of blood that travels around your body. In my case it also restricted my veins and arteries. The collapse in my health was triggered by both a horse accident and a car accident when I was nine years old. My condition went undiagnosed until I was nearing the age of seventeen. One night I noticed that I had no pulse anywhere, including in my neck (this was a scary experience!) and two weeks later I was booked in to have a rib resection. My surgeon told me that this was the worst case he had ever seen and that I had only just caught it in time, a few months later I would’ve lost the use of my arm forever. During 2012 I had to drop out of school, my condition had grown to be so bad that I could not stand or walk and I couldn’t do anything unassisted. In 2014 I returned to school through The Northern Health School and completed my NCEA levels 2 and 3 with a merit. My photography board gained an excellence and put me into the top two percent for that year.

While I have had my operation and no longer face some of the hardships that I used to, I am still plagued by repercussions of having a serious condition that went undiagnosed for so long. It took until May of 2015 to be able to walk properly without fainting again; it also took until this date to get the use of my fingers back. I had to learn how to use my hands from scratch. As an artist, this is a horrible thing to go through. I am still in the process of regaining my fine control. I have severe fatigue that makes it hard to spend a lot of time doing activities and I also have severe atrophy that will take years to heal. I suffer from nerve pain and joint dysfunctions that are often completely debilitating as well as frequent migraines. As a result of a high level of pain my anxiety and depression have sky rocketed.

I am in need of funds to help pay the $8500nzd for the first year of tuition and materials. Any money received would go straight to paying these expenses. Anything would be greatly appreciated.

Thank you ever so much for taking the time to read this.