Day 274/365 Held Together

A self-portrait taken at the clinic, mid-treatment, months into pain that started with a single chiropractor visit. Not a technical exercise. A record of trying to hold on.

Camera Model: Apple iPhone 17

Shutter Speed: 1/60 sec

Aperture: f/1.9

ISO: 125

This is a self-portrait, taken close, unguarded, at the clinic during treatment. No styling, no composed light, nothing hidden. It was taken because this is what the last few months have actually looked like — not the market stalls or the mural or the umbrella caught mid-gust, but this: glasses, a tired face, equipment doing a job my own body can’t do right now, in a room I have to show up to most days.

The facts are simple and they haven’t changed no matter how many times I’ve had to repeat them: a chiropractic visit at the end of April left me with two herniated discs and a trapped C7 nerve affecting my left arm. My right arm has torn tendons that may be from overcompensating for the injury rather than a direct result of it — but the arm still doesn’t work right, whatever the exact chain of cause was. My neck feels like something is permanently caught in it. Two lawsuits are moving through the system, slowly, because that’s apparently how these things move. In the meantime, the bills don’t slow down to match.

I’m not asking this photograph to be beautiful. I’m asking it to be honest. This is what nine years of building a life somewhere looks like when the ground gives way underneath you and the systems that are supposed to catch you don’t. The traction isn’t a prop — it’s the appointment I keep showing up to, most days now, hoping it helps more than it costs.

That’s the whole caption this photograph needs. Not technique. Just: this happened, this is what it costs, and I’m still here taking the picture.