About

Who is Batesy?

I am a 41 year old emerging artist, living in Christchurch, New Zealand, who was diagnosed about 8 years ago with an auto-immune disorder known in western medicine as Sjogren’s Syndrome. Prior to that, when I was about 22, I was diagnosed as having nocturnal epilepsy, meaning I would have tonic clonic seizures while sleeping at night. [Don’t worry, that was the “bad news first” trick.]

I’ve been honing my skills as an amateur artist and poet for years. Getting rheumatiod arthritis so young was devastating to me, as I thought I wouldn’t be able to pursue these passions anymore. Already being on medication for epilepsy at the time when I was diagnosed with Sjogrens, I didn’t want to take any meds for it also, and chose instead to go for alternative/holistic healing methods. I was lucky to learn the ancient Chinese healing art of chigong, and have found the dietary principles of Macrobiotics to be helpful also.