When I first encountered Alexandra Miner’s “What Remains” (Spring 2021 Intima) in the early days of my own glioma diagnosis, I finally exhaled a breath that I’d held deep down. My physicians did care! Despite losing so much function, and my grief over the life I’d built, the questions I spiraled on were valid! There is a priceless comfort in feeling seen in the uncertainty and cruelty of receiving a life-limiting diagnosis as a young(er) adult (YA).

“What Remains” was published when Miner was a second-year medical student at Virginia Tech Carilion School of Medicine in Roanoke, Virginia, and held particular meaning: Reading Miner’s words, I was reminded that med students are not yet hardened by the horrific carousel of routinely treating gliomas. I was hopeful that somewhere inside each of my specialists, their younger self recognized me as an individual, a protagonist whose story matters. “What Remains” confirmed what I had pieced together in my reading and learning about my prognosis; it gave words to the dark cloud stalking me. It helped me accept what medical language meant in practical terms for me, my loved ones and our foreseeable future.

As complications mounted in the early years of my diagnosis, it became increasingly clear that a quick return to my ‘before’ wasn’t in the cards. I sought solace in practices I loved but often neglected in my fast-paced, former life. I eventually restarted journaling and picked up a camera again. These initial returns to creative endeavors were an attempt to help me manage the flashbacks I was experiencing since being hospitalized in overcrowded brain injury wards at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

© *Beautiful In Blue*: *Finding a Sense of Agency and Awe in Printing My Glioma* by Katerina Obscura. Cyanotype print on watercolor paper

I eventually looked to fellow YA’s who’ve defied the constraints of their own chronic illnesses or histories of cancer for a roadmap of how to cope, their glimmers of hope alighting the dark path before me. I found comfort in the art, writings and virtual communities of Suleika Jaouad, Caroline Catlin, Chelsey Gomez and Sophie Strand; contributors to Intima, and the prolific legacy of crip creatives (Brough,1) whose shoulders we stand on also proved invaluable. I found a dialect and comfort that not only mitigated my trauma but also better equipped me to embrace the vulnerability of exploring my fears and uncertain future through more intentional written reflection, photography and printmaking. The longer and slower I work to understand my new reality, the more inspiration I find for creatively exploring my diagnoses and disabilities in a paced, accessible way.

Miner’s “What Remains” may have been created early in Miner’s medical schooling, but fortunately for me, those words found me early in my glioma journey, nudging me to return to neglected pursuits, ultimately helping me to understand my new reality and find meaning as I lived my own middle ‘while knowing [my] ending’ (Miner).

Katerina Obscura is a young adult, who is based in rural Canada and living with a life limiting cancer and resultant disabilities. A geographer by education, Obscura's art uses analogue and historical processes to consider the ephemerality of human life and our connections to nature. Photography and printmaking enable her a sense of control that she has lost in most other areas of her life since her diagnosis. Her artwork “Beautiful in Blue: Finding a Sense of Agency and Awe in Printing My Glioma” appears in the Spring-Summer 2026 Intima: