'I want people to know who I am,' Sudbury artist rebounds after health scare

Artist Monique Legault has made marks, literally, all over Sudbury but recently she feared they might be her lasting legacy.

Huge works like the mural for Bay's Used Books on Elm Street, another on the side of a grocery store in New Sudbury, the Lion's Club in Minnow Lake and countless other walls in businesses, restaurants and homes have been transformed under her brush.

Legault counts herself lucky to be a professional artist, self-employed, but making a living doing what she loves most.

Her independence and ability to work were threatened late last year.

Last October, after visiting the emergency room because of high blood pressure, doctors made a discovery that caused her to stop painting.

Deep inside her brain, they found blood vessels stretched almost to the breaking point.

Legault recalled they gave her a 50 per cent chance of survival and a 50 per cent chance the aneurysm could burst causing a stroke or death.

She feared stroke more than death.

"Being left-handed and it being on the right side of my brain, had anything gone wrong, I wouldn't have the function of my left hand," she said. "I wouldn't have been able to keep painting. And so that, to me, was devastating. I was petrified, honestly."

In January, she learned from specialists at SunnybrookHospital in Toronto that the only treatment was brain surgery.

She said her goodbyes and signed paperwork that allowed her partner, in case she died or became incapacitated, to take over her finances.

Legault said she was convinced she would not wake up.

She was wrong.

She said the first thing she did upon coming to in the hospital was to flex her painting hand to find out if it still worked.

It did, which she said was an exhilarating feeling.

She returned home five days later.

"I'm very aware of the fact that things could disappear in a minute, and I'm very aware that life can change really quickly," she said. "I do consider myself extremely lucky and I know not everybody is."

It hasn't all been smooth sailing, she said, experiencing a seizure soon after due to brain swelling that landed her back in hospital.

Depression set in after the surgery, as she tried to cope with double vision that alsothreatened to end her painting career.

She continues to be on medications that include managing her blood pressure.

But eventually she returned to her studio.

She got back to local art battles where artists get 20 minutes to create and the winners advance in a competition, ending up qualifying for the nationalsin Toronto, four months after her surgery.

A couple of weeks ago, she got her driver's licence back, allowing her even more freedom.

I want people to know who I am.- Artist Monique Legault

She set off to Thessalon, Ont., where she painted a huge mural.

The health scare is driving her to test her limits further and set higher goals.

Legault says she's well-known in Sudbury, but wants more.

"I want people to know who I am," she said. "It sounds silly, but that's been my dream since I was 15 years old. And so I'm not gonna stop now, now that I can keep going. Trust me. I'm going to do what I can to be out there."

Legault would also like to see regular brain scans for people at risk of stroke, similar to breast screening, to save more lives.