A code blue in hospital is a signal for a life-threatening medical emergency. In January 2024, I experienced one that would become the inception of this project.

I was critically ill with acute pancreatitis and multiple organ failure when my gastroduodenal artery ruptured suddenly one evening. I was shaking uncontrollably, heart racing. The medical team worked feverishly to get blood into me faster than I was losing it. I remember the alarms, the quick measured communication between doctors and nurses, the pain of needles going in everywhere, the shivering cold. I could feel life slipping away. In that moment, the noise fell away and I found myself in a quiet conversation with myself — acknowledging what was happening, thinking of my family, deciding I wasn't ready. I was jolted back by searing pain in my knee and the sound of a power drill. I told the nurse beside me I didn't think I could stay awake much longer. She met my eyes — no words — then went back to work. I passed out. I woke two days later to brightness and quiet, not sure where I was. Then I saw my sister, and I knew I had made it.

The team had worked through the early hours to stabilise me before getting me to theatre, where a team was waiting to embolise the ruptured artery. I was fortunate to already be in ICU when it happened — the response was instantaneous. That I am still here is a testament to their skill.

It would be another month in ICU, then more months in hospital, more procedures and setbacks, before I finally made it home. Recovering alone, I was haunted by how close I had come. I sat thinking about it, trying to make sense of it. One afternoon by the window, my attention was caught by flowers a friend had sent me. I reached for my camera, which had sat unused for nearly a year, and started photographing them. Then more flowers. I was captivated — the beauty of the full cycle from early bloom to final decay. Not perfection, but perfect imperfection striving toward light. And even as they faded, there was dignity in the slow decay.

That is how this project began. It's still ongoing and I'm not sure where it will lead. But as long as I feel the need to keep photographing flowers, it will continue — and maybe eventually I'll make more sense of it. In the meantime, these are a few of my flower portraits. No sequence, no final edit. It keeps evolving.