Triumph through the lens: Haywood County woman turns health struggle into healing art

By Rex Hodge

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    HAYWOOD COUNTY, North Carolina (WLOS) — Call it the power of pictures. A Haywood County woman has endured serious health issues, but the challenge led to a focus on picture-taking to help others heal.

It may be a slower pace now for Kim Mulholland, but there’s also a new perspective on what winning really means.

Always a top athlete, she had been training recently for her first triathlon.

“I was running, and I was tripping over my feet,” Mulholland said.

She was having spasms in her left foot.

An MRI revealed a large, right frontal lobe tumor in her brain. It was benign but had to be removed. That was almost two years. The surgery worked but left challenges.

“The surgery did leave me paralyzed in my left foot. I cannot regulate temperatures in my foot. My toes don’t move, and I have intense chronic pain in my foot,” Mulholland said.

She worked three years at Haywood Regional Medical Center in the Behavioral Health Unit as a trauma-informed yoga therapist, starting that program.

But suddenly, Mulholland was in their shoes.

“I was in my own despair and helplessness. I couldn’t do the running. I couldn’t ride bikes,” she said.

The picture changed when Mulholland’s husband David bought her a new camera.

Mulholland turned her focus to photography, taking nature and landscape pictures.

“It gives me moments of respite and relief and refreshment,” she said.

If beautiful, textured landscapes can work for her, Mulholland thought her photographs might help the healing process of others, so she donated a picture to the room at Haywood Regional where her tumor was diagnosed.

“I thought, what happens if I can give somebody a gift, gift of peace to help them maybe prepare for the procedure, a gift of peace when they come back,” she said.

Mulholland sold a picture to Movement for Life where she did her physical therapy.

“To me, it’s probably kind of almost like a subconscious thing, just like we’re all out in nature. You just sort of have that calmness and serenity about you,” Movement for Life clinic director Eric Yarrington said.

The proceeds allowed Mulholland to donate a photo to her neurologist’s office at Mountain Medical Center.

Mulholland is gleaning even more inspiration, snapping photos of lavender fields during a recent trip to France.

“It elicits that positive vibe of the value of life, the gratefulness of life,” she said.

Back home, a walk around a mountain pond with her dog Hope is more measured these days.

“And just her name, herself is a true representation of something to value in life and to search for in life,” Mulholland said.

She’s found it in photography too, and faith.

“Faith is about my relationship with Christ, but it’s also about light. How can I share light with others,” Mulholland said.

It may be as simple as a picture on a wall.

“What happens if I can share an image with you or make any bit of a difference? That matters to me and that’s my mission,” Mulholland said.

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