Theresa Gougeon was angry, furious even.

In the past 18 months, she’d dealt with an antibiotic-resistant superbug (twice) and treatment for ovarian cancer — plus the suffocating fear that involves leaving your house when you’re immunocompromised during a pandemic.

She was exhausted from being in “fight-flight-freeze mode,” she told Sandra Drabant, an art therapist at the University of Michigan Rogel Cancer Center.

“Think about a color that would fit with that feeling,” said Drabant from Gourgeon’s computer screen. “Think about some marks. Think about some lines. Take a few minutes and just express that.”

So that’s what Gougeon did, scribbling in the sketchbook on her dining room table, releasing her frustration through jagged lines that shot from her pen. Drabant watched, remotely. Technically, she and Gougeon were separated by many miles and the heightened risk from COVID-19 for people with cancer. But a click of a button brought Drabant into Gougeon’s home, where she was needed most.

“To be sitting in my own castle, with the moat outside,” Gougeon says, “nobody could get in or out. But I could see her.”       Read more @ UofM Health Blog