Painting through the pain

Written by barbara@dreamfoundation.org on April 27, 2012. Posted in In The Media

UPPER LAKE — The Lake County Wine Studio in downtown Upper Lake is showing colorful, acrylic-on-canvas paintings by Margaret “Peggy” McCamant Alexander, an artist battling a life-altering disease.

Doctors diagnosed Alexander, 64, of Hidden Valley Lake with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) in October 2010.

The condition, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, “is a rapidly progressive, invariably fatal neurological disease that attacks the nerve cells responsible for controlling voluntary muscles,” according to the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke website.

Alexander simply describes ALS as “hell. It’s awful It is a continuous, ongoing loss of yourself.”