As a photographer, entrepreneur and digital influencer, Ashlee finds inspiration in helping people bring their ideas to life in a new and visual way. In her busy day-to-day life, there doesn’t seem to be room for making her health a priority. But since she was diagnosed with a type of myeloproliferative neoplasm (MPN), she hasn’t had a choice.

Ashlee first started experiencing severe headaches during college. While juggling multiple jobs and studying for classes, she noticed they were becoming more frequent. She would take over-the-counter medicine to alleviate the headaches and drink coffee to power through her work, but those remedies only seemed to mask the problem.

Ashlee spoke with several doctors over the years about her headaches, but felt her concerns weren’t being taken seriously. Finally, she saw a doctor who noticed her red blood cell count was high and suggested she see a hematologist, who diagnosed her with PV during her first visit. After years of struggling to find an explanation for her symptoms, Ashlee finally had an answer.

Her PV has not only affected her physically, but it’s also required Ashlee to rethink how she approaches her career and her entire creative process. When talking with The Unseen Journey team, she described how debilitating fatigue would keep her from working as much as she wanted. Before her PV diagnosis, new creative ideas would flow freely. But now, her creative vision becomes clouded by overwhelming brain fog, which she said feels like her ideas are being shrouded behind frosted glass. As a result, she often takes notes and records herself to piece together an idea, which forces her to take more time on creative tasks she used to be able to do quickly.

As Ashlee shared her story, a team of generative artificial intelligence (AI) experts used her creative descriptions to bring to life her symptoms and experiences through captivating imagery. When she saw each picture, she immediately connected with the images, which depicted what is often so hard for her to put into words.

Today, Ashlee works closely with her health care team to manage her symptoms and believes it is important to openly talk about conditions like hers. She is thrilled to have images created from her words that can help her explain to friends, family and her health care team how each PV symptom affects her both physically and emotionally.

Ashlee partnered with Incyte on The Unseen Journey because she hopes sharing her experiences will encourage other people with MPNs to track their symptoms and have open and honest conversations with their health care teams about these symptoms. Ashlee is inspired by helping others express their own unique ideas through images and photographs, and she’s excited to finally be able to tell her PV story visually, just like she loves doing for others.