Thanks so much to Carmen Gentile of Postindustrial for having me (and my clucking infant) for a conversation on long term storytelling in photojournalism, transitioning from stills to video, Pittsburgh, and other things I like to nerd out on. Photo of one of my favorite Steel City corners above, and podcast link below: https://postindustrial.com/stories/documenting-people-and-culture-in-postindustrial-communities/

Thanks to the PA NewsMedia Association for recognizing Keeley and the Vial and our ongoing series about raising children in the modern overdose crisis in their photo story and series categories. I know I’m lucky to work for a paper that believes in investing the time it takes to do these deep dives (and that allows me to work with investigative reporter Rich Lord), and I hold dear the trust given to us by the Ashbaughs and others who let me in to try to show a bit of their lives.

Since this published, TJ and Kate’s four little girls welcomed a baby brother named in honor of their late Uncle Ricky, whose fatal overdose shook the branches of their family tree. TJ lives knowing that could have been his fate, as well. As he raises his children in recovery, he makes no secret of the disease that killed his brother and turned his ex into a missing person, and has taught his youngest daughter to give a goodnight kiss to the vial of his brother’s ashes he keeps around his neck. Head to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette interactive here to see more photos and videos, read the story, and learn more about how T.J. and Kate are working together to acknowledge the generational cycles of addiction in their family and how to best raise their children to be aware of it.

Hearing Kim Bowles tell her story in between catching frogs, drawing with chalk, and healing the stubbed toes of her two small children really allowed me to feel why the stakes are so high for her, why when she heard “Stage-3 Cancer” months after giving birth to her second child, she did everything she could to make sure she’d be there to raise her children. What I didn’t know, is that the twisted, nightmarish experience she had on the operating table is one that is going on with women across the country. 

“Bowles, a stage 3 breast cancer survivor, had just undergone double mastectomy surgery and had told her surgeon to make her “flat”—that is, do not reconstruct her breasts. No implants. No molding of a boob from excess skin. Nothing. But as the fuzzy haze of anesthesia began to wear off, she realized he had completely disregarded what they had agreed upon—her body reshaped by a doctor while she was unconscious.”

An angered community is coming together in Facebook groups devoted to sharing the photos of the pockets of skin left against women’s will after mastectomies. Reporter Catherine Guthrie found surgeons making decisions against patients’ consent, stating they’re leaving the undesired flaps of skin “in case the patient changes their mind” about going flat. The trend points towards a medical culture in which women’s desire to go flat is challenged or outright ignored.  Bowles is now routinely protesting topless outside of the hospital where her surgery went wrong. Read about her amazing story in Cosmopolitan here.