Excuse the mess..

About

Hi! I'm Tori, and I'm a disabled artist...

When I was diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome in 2022, so many changes we needed to make to our home to meet my support needs were cold, clinical, and not welcoming for my 3 children. If I'm being honest, they were not welcoming for me either. My implanted medical devices looked scary, my 5 year old identical twin girls were afraid to snuggle anywhere close to my port dressing, the medication and fluids hung on a steel pole were giving hospital, not home. My teenager, who has some medical trauma of their own, had a hard time adjusting to being exposed to the devices that were an anxiety trigger at the time. Even my 14 year old Dachshund was wary for a bit. In short, the adjustment was not going well for any of us.

On one of my slower days, I decided to make and print some temporary tattoos designed by my kids. I used inkject tattoo paper, we put that in my silhouette machine to cut around the tattoos, and in less than 20 minutes We had a sheet of tattoos that we put on them from head to toe. While I was helping them draw and layout their pictures in procreate, I got an idea. I drew a dinosaur skull, a T-Rex with his jaw wide open, and placed it around my port-a-cath. 

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That one little tweak changed everything. Now my kids wanted to see my new "sticker" every time we did a dressing change. My teenager designed a few options for me to wear that incorporated my favorite video games, books, music, and more. Not only did that one little lazy day craft project help dispel some of the fear around my medical devices, it created a fun weekly ritual that my kids still love to this day.

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Complex illness patients deserve to have accessories that fit them and their unique style. Complex illness patients deserve opportunities to leave that cold, clinical, medical feeling in the hospital where it belongs. Here at Chronically Thriving I hope to meet those access needs, and provide products that can compliment any wardrobe just like a cute necklace or a nice pair of earrings. 

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That's why I always say...

I am putting the ACCESS in ACCESSories​