How Battling for My Life Led to a Happy, Six-Figure Income (all while not “working”)

*Featured Image photo taken by Heather Talbert

I haven’t written a post like this in a while, and I’ve been thinking about why that might be lately. If you know me personally, my first foray into the blogging world was a blog called, “Dear Evangeline.” It was a love letter to my infant (and then toddler) daughter about the hardships and realities of being a chronically ill young mother. I was also a vocal fundraiser and ambassador for the Crohn’s & Colitis Foundation of America. With the enormous help of my family, we raised over $100,000 for the CCFA. I also spoke at galas and events, telling my story, to help raise even more money for a cure.

So, how could such an essential and defining piece of me and part of my story become all but absent to my online presence these last few years? I think the first reason is that I’ve been really quite healthy. Is my health perfect? No, but I can imagine at nearly 40 years old, it really isn’t much worse than the average person’s. That feels like a (very welcome) sharp contrast to my life from around age 17-33, where my disease defined nearly every move I made. But, lately, I’ve been getting more and more messages from people with UC or Crohn’s disease, asking me for help or advice, and it’s made me realize I’ve been avoiding talking about it because the more years that have come between me and severe disease, the less I want to talk about it because, well, it was traumatic.

At this point, even if you didn’t know this part of my tale, you must know now that I have Inflammatory Bowel Disease (not IBS, IBD). I became sick at 16, missed most of my spring semester of my Junior Year of High School while they searched for a diagnosis as I became more and more ill. But this story is quite long, and so I want to fast-forward to the age of 26, which is the age when my quality of life plummeted quite drastically.

Just after my 26th birthday, I went into anaphylactic shock during an infusion of the drug I was taking to treat my disease. I am grateful I was already in a hospital, and doctors and nurses rushed to my side immediately. But that drug had become the last resort, and I was really quite ill even on it. Clearly, after such a severe allergic reaction, I could no longer take it, and so I found myself in an operating room about a week later. They removed my large intestine and rectum, and created a stoma for an ileostomy. I was in the hospital for two-weeks because I had major complications from the surgery, including an ileus and massive blood clots throughout my portal vein. I’m glad I didn’t know then what the next six years would be like because, well, I don’t think I could have handled that information at that time.

As far as my health goes, I would go on to have six more major abdominal surgeries and two pelvic surgeries, all in a six-year period. I would spend well over 100 more days hospitalized in that time, from both surgeries due to complications and what felt like constant bowel obstructions (which each time would necessitate hospitalization, a nasogastric tube fed through my nose to my stomach, and not eating, for up to two weeks at a clip. A few times, I had to have major surgery because of them, too). Then, around my 33rd birthday, it all stopped. I went from six years of doing little more than battling to stay alive, to dealing with what I would call a mild form of the disease (plus a diagnosis of endometriosis, which has been the harder battle for me since the age of 33 than my IBD, but I must say pales into comparison of what I dealt with during those earlier years of my disease).

So, what does any of this have to do with where I am today? Well, it has everything to do with it. In undergrad, I studied Art & Visual Culture (ok, sure, related to where I am today). Then, I went almost directly into graduate school to get a degree in Art History with a specialization in Modern European Art (ok, also related). Graduate School was when my health started to deteriorate. I would spend about a week at a time here and there hospitalized due to my disease, but I stayed determined to graduate and would spend every moment I was able to in that hospital room working on my thesis. I want to be clear that such behavior shouldn’t be glorified. I am a very A-type person and I am 100% sure that my constantly-lingering anxiety (and even at times, perfectionist) issues have contributed greatly to my disease process.

It was after graduate school, though, that my career track became quite bizarre. Despite having graduated with honors and having work experience at places such as the Guggenheim, the Whitney, the Smithsonian, and more, I struggled to find a job that would pay me enough money to actually live in New York, so I went to work on the trading floor at Morgan Stanley, and another bank in NYC.

After two years of that, I knew that wasn’t where I wanted to be, and had felt so inspired by the doctors that had continued to, time and time again, meet me in the ER or OR to save my life (I am not sensationalizing that. Complete small bowel obstructions and blood clots are both absolutely terrifying and life-threatening). So, I did what any rational human being with severe chronic illness would do, and went back to school.

I should add that my jobs at the banks were frequently interrupted by my disease and I had to ultimately leave both of them because working a 9-5 was not sustainable. I will never know what made me think that a pre-med program would be more doable, especially when I couldn’t afford it and took out more student loans, and started a vintage shop to make tuition payments. I would barely get through a semester, then have to take a semester off for major surgery, and I played that game for several years before quitting when I realized, at that rate, I would be 92 before I would have a medical degree. I also had a toddler at home at this point (I got pregnant at 27 when I weighed about 100 pounds and was quite sick. I have never been able to get pregnant (naturally) since, and though I am not a religious or spiritual person, Eva did feel like a miracle in the midst of it all, especially because it was a very tough pregnancy and traumatic birth experience).

Even after many rounds of IVF, I was only able to get pregnant one other time. That pregnancy ended in a Dilation & Evacuation procedure at 17 weeks because I made the incredibly difficult decision to end the pregnancy. I made that decision because the baby had anomalies that were not compatible with life and because of my very complicated health issues, my doctors were strongly encouraging me to not risk my life over a non-viable pregnancy. Even though I knew my baby couldn’t survive outside of me, it was the most gut-wrenching decision I have ever made, but I am beyond grateful that I was able to choose life. My life, to be clear. Because that was the only life we were able to save, anyway (though, to be clear, I vehemently believe in EVERY women’s right to choose. I just take major issues with the phrase, “pro-life,” as it is an egregious misnomer). Post-D&E I had major complications, including retained products of conception, PID, and an arteriovenous malformation in my uterus that resulted in me losing the ability to carry children. Josie was born via surrogacy 18-months later.

So, while I quit my pre-med program, I kept at the vintage selling. I couldn’t hold down a 9-5 and I was too sick at this point in my life to complete any kind of schooling. But vintage selling I could do. I could source in moments I felt well, and list and ship from the comfort of my home. I would put my shop on vacation mode during particularly serious bouts of illness or hospitalization. My best friend from college told me I should really be on Instagram promoting the vintage shop and so, in 2016, I started my Instagram account, @katepearcevintage to show the vintage pieces I was selling, styled in my home.

Not long after, Apartment Therapy asked to do a spread on my home. It was titled, “Tour a Vintage Furniture Dealer’s Art-Inspired Mid-Mod Long Island Home.” I gained more than 10,000 followers the day it went live. Shortly after, brands started reaching out to me. They wanted to send me items to style in my home that I could share on my Instagram. Those collaborations were unpaid at that time, but I thought it was fun and so I would sometimes say yes (I had no idea that was even a thing until brands started reaching out to me).

For about three years, I continued to sell vintage and take on the occasional brand collaborations, but as my account grew, the brand collaborations started to pay me and eventually, the payments from brand collaborations became a lot more than what I was making selling vintage. Ultimately, I couldn’t keep up with doing both and so, in 2020, I shut down my vintage shop to become a full-time content creator and blogger. Today, I take on interior design clients, but my business is still mostly centered around social media content creation and blogging. I am able to make my salary mostly through brand collaborations. This, unlike interior design clients, allows me to have nearly full creative control of the interiors I create and that is really what brings me the most joy.

All of this came together quite naturally and I never set out to do any of it. I clearly have had a lifelong obsession with art, history, and vintage items and so, in that way, it makes a lot of sense that I am where I am today. But what I really want to say is that it all sort of feels like it was meant to be. I am a “yes” person at my core. I have said “yes” to every opportunity that has come my way and each opportunity has led to another. I have worked relentlessly hard my entire life (which is both good and bad. I do think this innate personality trait has been a major driver of my disease as I always, always, always became more ill in moments of extreme stress).

But by following my passions, and always saying yes to the right opportunities, I’ve come to a place in my life where, despite working 40-60 hour weeks, I am no longer ill (or at least not seriously so). I am very, very convinced that I am no longer ill because I am happy and content. Work doesn’t feel like work (usually) because I absolutely love what I do. How does that saying go? Do what you love and you will never work a day in your life?

And, so, that is where I am today. Doing what I love, and not working a single day of my life.