My reminder that a picture is worth a thousand words

“It doesn’t seem that big to me,” I said before I had another bite of my food.

Recently, after we wrapped production at my job, our team decided to celebrate a long week of filming with a quick meal. During one of our conversations, we started discussing the Ark Encounter, a museum in Williamstown, Kentucky, that describes itself as a life-size replica of Noah’s Ark from the Bible.

Two of my friends gushed about how amazing the museum is and how the size takes your breath away before you reach its entrance. That’s when I chimed in about my disbelief that the structure was as massive as the two had said it was.

Simultaneously, my friends picked up their phones, searching feverishly through their cloud drives to find pictures of their visits. In a matter of minutes, both showed me their screens documenting their trips, which were separated by years and before we knew one another.

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That ark is massive. It’s bigger than anything I could’ve imagined, a thought that echoes one of its website’s taglines. I slowly swiped through all the pictures, marveling that each one made the wooden structure look larger.

When I reached one picture that showed the outside of the museum in its entirety, my friend pointed enthusiastically at her phone. “That’s about a mile before you get there,” she said.

I was stunned. My assumption was incorrect; it only took a picture to prove it.

The evidence of change

Before our daughter, whom we lovingly call Ladybug, learned she had hereditary angioedema (HAE), one of the best pieces of advice we got from her doctor was to document her swells. Yes, we kept dates to record how often she experienced them, but I also got into the habit of taking pictures.

While I had plenty of pictures of her face when she wasn’t in a flare, I made it my business to capture a photo of her face or hands when they were larger than usual. Based on my pictures, date documentation, and clinical assessments, my daughter’s medical specialist officially made the HAE diagnosis in 2021.

However, there’s more than one benefit to documenting my daughter’s HAE journey.

Recently, while searching for some old photos in a cloud drive, I came across the pictures I took of Ladybug before she started receiving her preventive or emergency meds. I stared at them in shock. I’d forgotten how bad the swells used to be, how long we had to spend in the hospital, or even how after she was discharged, her face was still puffy and her tongue was still large enough to rest just outside her bottom teeth.

Were it not for the reminder, I wouldn’t have realized how much she’s improved. Those pictures changed my entire mindset.

They showed me how bad it’d been; I could recall how hopeless I’d become in those moments. I was reminded of the days when I thought it’d never get better, that we’d never find a solution, that Ladybug would never get relief. Those pictures are drastically different from our current reality.

We’re still on our journey. There are still rough patches and setbacks. But I’m glad to have a reminder that no matter how hard it seems to move forward, we’re further ahead than we were before.

Note: Angioedema News is strictly a news and information website about the disease. It does not provide medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. This content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or other qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition. Never disregad professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have read on this website. The opinions expressed in this column are not those of Angioedema News or its parent company, Bionews, and are intended to spark discussion about issues pertaining to angioedema.