I had to give up my dream job as a nurse after being left paralysed, but now I've found a new lease of life
Despite battling a rare paralysing condition, artist Francesca Vaughan is holding an exhibition of her work.
A woman who was forced to give up her nursing career due to a rare medical condition as forged a new life as an artist.
Francesca Vaughan worked as a theatre nurse at Blackpool Victoria Hospital and as a community matron before she was forced to give up the job she loved due to a condition which causes paralysis and, at times, has left her confined to a wheelchair.
Hypokalemic periodic paralysis appears in only 0.00013 per cent of the population and 55-year-old Francesca said events were brought on while suffering stress.
At one point she was working as a part-time nurse while running the popular Courtyard Cafe in Clifton, but was forced to put it on the market as stress became too much for her.
Three years ago, she decided to take up art full-time. Inspired by her dad, who once had a painting exhibited at the Tate Gallery, she soon found willing buyers for her work through Facebook and has been busy producing commissioned work for customers.
Now, throughout this month, she is exhibiting a collection of 30 of her patients at the Solaris Centre in Blackpool’s South shore.
Francesca said: “I worked as a nurse for more than 20 years but I had to give up due to my health. At one point, I was having to learn to walk all over again.
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“As therapy, I started painting and I started to get interest in my paintings and this has begun a whole new journey in my life.”
Francesca described how she had to make the heartbreaking decision first to leave the job she loved in the NHS and, secondly, to close her popular cafe.
She said: “My condition is at its worst when I am under stress and it got to the stage where I had to give up both of them.
“Painting is something I can do without getting too stressed.
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“In an ideal world, I would like to do more oil painting, but it takes a long time to dry and so I have mostly been painting using acrylics.
“A lot of my work is very abstract but I have done landscapes and other subjects.
“I am currently experimenting on work that is influenced by stained glass windows,”
Francesca’s work is at the Solaris Centre for the rest of the month.