vertical tree panorama - 2012.11.08 12.38.08 - berlin, tiergarten

Photos for health - background
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Buy a photo, help an illness afflicted park-exiled designer with his medical and rent costs.

As a twist of fate, these photographs are partly a result of my lung affliction. The lung damage the affliction brings has forced me to spend at least half my waking hours in park and forest air. It's from these stays the photographs have resulted.
(More on this below).

PHOTO INFO
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Vertical tree canopy panorama - 2012.11.08 12.38.08 -
( see full resolution preview here )

- High resolution : Up to 12,000 pixels wide

- Individually signed with a digitizer pen, with custom dedications available on request.
( More info in the order-response email, once you order).

 More details
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Running away from health issues and into tree photography
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Since 12 years I've got a growing autoimmune illness, mecfs, likely due to heavy metal intoxication, that, amongst other 'niceties' has led to developing lung damage.

The illness has grown so severe that I can hardly be inside even just for sleeping, anymore, due to severe lung blood vessel damage. So I spend as much time as I can in forests and parks.

It is here, in the parks and forests, that I again picked up the experimental photography I had done as a hobby until 12 years ago, when I first got heavy illness symptoms, taking away my free time to experiment with photography.

Before my health issues became severe during the Corona period - explained further below - and it became difficult to do my normal work. Until the beginning of the Corona period, I used to work designing and programming pro-society/nature projects for NGOs, Charities and research institutions.

Heavy metal intoxication leading to mefs, since 12 years
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In 2010 I got severe symptoms of heavy metal intoxication, which has developed mecfs symptoms.
(This personal story of someone getting mecfs following heavy metal intoxciation, and then recovering with medical help, is rather similar, except I've yet to reach the cure part).

Despite contacting around a dozen public health and occupational health doctors for five years, no one could tell me what was wrong.

In 2013 a Finnish private specialist giving me some pro-bono treatment did some other blood tests and found lots of problems. These findings were dismissed by public health.

It was first in 2021 that I again had the money to see specialist doctors about my problems. A Berlin clinic uncovered the heavy metal intoxication, characteristic heavy metal damage, and as the Finnish specialist had, found traces of mecfs, only now more severe. ( You can see the blood test, together with an explanation of them, here ).

The Corona period presented another problem. Before I could avoid the heavier chemicals of an average apartment, causing a lot of damage in little ol' immune deficient me, by spending the day working from cafes with lighter chemical loads. This was all turned on its head during Corona. Cafes had lockdowns and tried sanitising their premises with heavier cleaning agents, which are simply too heavy for me. So I could only try working from home.

However, trying to endure the more problematic air at home greatly aggravated my health problems. Soon my lungs got so much pain and asthmatic tendencies when I was at home, I could hardly be at home for more than sleeping.

Unable to work, get public medical support, get social support, as my condition isn't recognised by public health or social services, I'm far from being able to afford specialist medical help, and very soon unable to pay for rent and food.

What would be helpful for me is to be able to afford specialist healthcare (10-20k euros a year) and get help getting into a living environment that doesn't beat me up so much I can't work.

If I could earn some money selling photographs until I can get back on my feet and to my 'normal' pro-society work, that would be magic.

What does heavy metal intoxications and/or mecfs do to people
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MECFS damages at least three vital elements of body functionality, its ability to repair itself, its ability to maintain bodily barriers to the outside world, and it creates persistent autoimmunity.

A central effect of heavy metal intoxication and mecfs is that it damages key repair and energy metabolism functions in one's body, the mitochondria. As with other immune deficiency illnesses, small everyday damage becomes big damage quickly. Unable to repair itself properly or quickly, even small damage can linger, overwhelm the body and grow.

In a nutshell, when your body needs to spend a huge amount of effort repairing itself, it's like giving it a heavy gym workout. Frequently the repair efforts exhaust the body's supply of nutrients and energy. Even if your body can repair the damage, your muscles and head become deprived of the energy to do everyday things. You have very little energy, even if you're not doing anything overtly exhausting.

This under-resourced self repair becomes an even bigger problem when the body also runs out of needed nutrients and energy for repair. Various organ damage and everyday chronic pain results.

The fun doesn't stop there. You also develop severe autoimmune reactions.
As your body becomes unable to repair the damage to its barriers to the outside world - the skin, the respiratory passages, the gut, the blood vessels - your body becomes unable keep out the damaging chemistry and biology (eg mould) from the outside world, that it usually protects against.

The immune system, over-enthusiastically trying to protect vital organs from the toxic matter entering the body, due to broken body barriers, ends up producing autoimmunity. The bodys' cells try protect vital organs by engulfing toxic foreign matter. However, unable to tell the difference between a cell with toxic content and a healthy cell, the immune system mistakingly develops immune response against even healthy cells. The resulting autoimmunity cause yet more pain, frequent inflammations and deterioration of the body..

Broken repair mechanisms, broken bodily barriers and persistent autoimmunity creates self reinforcing effects, where the afflicted's bodily functions are continually reduced, while they endure frequent inflammation caused pain. All the energy and nutrients used for (autoimmune) self-attack and subsequent repair leave the affected nutrient and energy deficient [ read : exhausted ].

How to fix…? + What can be done to help things, medically? 
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( You can see scans of medical expenditure receipts, here, if you're wondering where I get the numbers from )

Medical costs can easily run up to 10-30k euros a year, as it's very much outside the public health system's expertise. Some private specialist practitioners can help. But one needs pay for it oneself, as, in short, relevant medical research hasn't been accepted by public health institutions, yet.

Typical treatment involves blood testing, followed by custom supplement recommendations, to help fix body damage, restore body repair mechanisms, repair broken barriers (the various variations on leaky gut, including leaky skin and blood vessels) and fight of viruses and other inflammatory initiators.

Blood testing alone can run up to 8-12k euros annually, one will need to see a specialist at least once a month, at 300 euros a meeting, and be recommended a diet of supplements and medication amounting to 400+600 euros a month.

In total, medical costs easily run up to 10-30k euros a year, especially in the first year when more frequent testing is needed.
I'd need to be more than healthy to afford that.

So, any help to cover costs would be most gratefully appreciated.
If you like my photos and want to buy for their appeal alone, that's really cool too. I've always loved photography. And nature.

I've visited relevant medical specialists in Berlin and Helsinki, and you can see my receipt scans, of blood test and consultation costs, here.

I used to be a sta...errr... exhibited photographer
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While it's mostly been on pause (ironically, due to illness) for the last 12 years, I used to be an enthusiastic hobby experimental photographer that's been exhibited internationally.
See :
- some of my experimental work here.
- and my experimental video work here.
( One can say my tree panoramas build on my travel image work ).

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