In October 2019, it was determined that Adelaide had a rare benign tumour called a hypothalamic hamartoma. It was decided that Adelaide would have brain surgery in Calgary. In 2023, Adelaide had her third brain surgery. Life felt surreal as we handed her over to the surgical team and left our baby for over 6 hours. We were told that memory loss, damage to short-term memory, hypothalamic obesity, and diabetes insipidus were the risks.

Adelaide’s surgeries all went very well. Since her last surgery, the journey has continued. She is asking for another surgery because she wants to find relief once and for all. She experiences extreme exhaustion, hundreds of seizures daily, and chronic pain all the time.

Parenting a critically ill child means constantly facing what you think you cannot bear. It is hearing one more piece of devastating news, witnessing one more painful procedure, giving one more medication, or enduring one more sleepless night of worry. And then, somehow, you still have to take another step on a journey that is harder than all of that combined. Somehow, you are able to dig deeper than you ever thought possible.

-Erin Field, Adelaide’s Mother

“Painting a portrait is akin to a process of stripping away stroke by stroke, attempting to reveal or discover what is hidden. I think that when all the stripping is done and a work is successful, we are left with something closer to truth, beauty or mystery. These, after all, are the invisible things, enclosed by the flesh.”               

- Dean Bauche

Bauche is a cultural consultant, professional artist, writer, curator, educator, and adjudicator. He has 40 years of cultural and gallery experience as a consultant, Director of Galleries for the City of North Battleford, and the Director and Curator of the Allen Sapp Gallery.