This is actually an oil on cardboard painting, so it's kind of kind of cool. But I wanted to convey the sorrow you see in people's eyes that you don't鈥攚hen you don't understand what's going on behind the scenes in their head.
My name is Taylor Lambert. I'm 23 years old. Live in Orem, Utah, grew up in Utah. I'm an artist and muralist and special effects makeup artist.
The art has been such an incredible outlet for me, regardless of what I've been going through in my life鈥攆rom being bullied to all of my medical issues鈥攊t's been both a comforter and a form of expression for me.
I found out initially that I had a brain tumor the size of a golf ball back in March of 2018 and had a brain surgery and got about 90% of it and then they did a laser ablation three months later and got it up to 99% removed.
But March of 2021, I found out it grew back, so now I get to do proton therapy. Chances are I could have had some pretty serious medical problems just a couple years down the road had I not taken up this opportunity to do proton therapy and to stop the tumor from growing. And if I couldn't do art I wouldn't be able to express myself like I have taught myself to do from a very young age.
And so the proton therapy treatment has given me that chance to continue and to not have to worry about potential future problems because of my brain tumor. It's so convenient to just drive 45 minutes, get treated in a half hour, and then drive back to doing a mural 45 minutes, even less sometimes. Because it allows me to focus on what I do, rather than taking weeks and months out of my life to travel somewhere.
I would tell people who are considering taking up the proton therapy here at Huntsman Cancer Institute to go for it. The team of professionals that have brought the proton therapy here to Salt Lake are incredible. They have an engineer that's here pretty much day in and day out making sure that the machine is working properly. They have a team of techs that are so personable and make it such a pleasant experience. It's going to make me emotional, but it's just been truly a treat to be a part of this experience and I appreciate everything that the team has done.