Case Study #74 - David Feeding the Fish

"David Feeding the Fish" 30" x 24" Oil on Canvas. 2020

David Ware was born in 1954 in Columbus Ohio and was born basically blind in his right eye and had numerous surgeries throughout the years to remove tumors that grew back. David is the only person in his family to have NF. His parents and two brothers were born in Texas which meant trips back every year to see his maternal grandmother. Every summer trip came with a surgery to work on his right eye. David says, "I would always be sitting in the eye doctors chair crying my eyes out because I felt I was ugly and unlovable and wanted him to give me an artificial eye but he never would because I had limited vision in the eye."

Prep Sketch for painting

David's dad was in the Air Force and the family was transferred several times. David remembers Topeka, Kansas where he attended kindergarten and Wichita, Kansas where he entered 1st grade. In 1963 the family moved to Lincoln, Nebraska where he started 3rd grade and graduated in 1973 from Lincoln Northeast High School. In 1974 David attended Oklahoma Baptist University until 1976 when he came back to Lincoln and received an associate degree in Business in 1978. In the 80's during an MRI the doctors found a tumor on his left thalamus but decided to just watch it as they did not know exactly what it was. Having problems with severe headaches, in 1998 David went to the Mayo Clinic for a biopsy and learned it was a low grade pilocitic astrocytoma and again the team just wanted to do yearly MRIs because to attempt to remove it might be fatal or leave him severely disabled. At that time, they guessed he would have about ten more years. Evidently, David fooled them as he is still kicking. He now suffers from chronic dizziness headaches.

David sold his house and quit his job of 14 years and moved to Idaho and got married in 2004. He went on social security disability in 2004 as well because of NF. The marriage did not last and in 2010 David got divorced and moved back to Lincoln to be with family and friends. In 2018 he found a neuro-ophthalmologist who was willing to remove his right eye and prepared him for a prosthetic eye. He finally had his prosthetic eye, something he had been asking for since he was a child.