Something he can never lose: Ethan Van Ha

He lost soccer first.

Lost baseball, piano and a majority of middle school due to absences. 

Life passed him by while the throbbing pain to the left of his navel got worse. 

It took a bathroom floor, a sleepless night and 10 days in the hospital to realize the pain would persist.

Ethan Van Ha was diagnosed with chronic abdominal pain in sixth grade. 

Life continued in full color as he pursued art. It was an easy way for him to “express his emotions,” he says.

He took his necessary medication and held onto his wallet, chapstick, phone and art supplies.

He soon lost the optimism that once existed within him. The blue, yellow and pink hues his life once comprised transformed into gray and black tubes of paint. 

Lost his wallet, chapstick and moments from high school. 

Through doodles during class to larger projects over the summer, he continued to show aspects of his life when words wouldn’t let him. 

He took more medication.

Lost his memory and experienced numbness. 

As the pain he once felt began to depart, so did the pleasures and joys of life. 

What remained through it all was art. It was a means of distraction that was consistently there for him when nothing and no one else was. 

During his senior year of high school, he walks into the English classroom and takes a seat. Accompanying him is the sharp pain to the left of his navel and his notebook. 

With a black pen in hand, he adds elaborate details to the simple outlines on the corner of his page. 

And then he leaves the room. Deep in his mind, he knows he will never pursue soccer, baseball or piano. Or regain days of school he missed from the pain. 

Yet he will always have art, something he can never lose.