UPDATE: After 12 long days in the hospital, I’m now out and back home!!!! I’m so thankful to God that I’m finally home. Thanks to everyone for your thoughts, prayers, and concerns for my safety and health. I will be in touch in the next few days about any remaining photos or rescheduling I need to do for you guys. Thanks again!!!

Hi everyone! I have missed each one of you so much, and I’m finally at a point now where I have enough strength and clarity to update everyone about what has been going on. I just endured and survived what has probably been the scariest time of my life. If you haven’t heard, I’ve been in the hospital since November 6th due to a very dangerous pulmonary embolus in my lungs. This started with my leg injury that you may know about, but the clots traveled to my lungs. I am very fortunate and blessed by God to be writing this to you now. I wanted to let everyone know what is going on so that you know the status on your pictures, rescheduled, shoots, etc.

So what happened? Days before I was admitted, my breathing started getting very labored with really simple tasks: walking up the stairs, talking for a few minutes, etc. I thought it was just congestion. A few days later on Nov. 6, I did a photo shoot with Jenn and Nick, and my second shooter Ryan. We hiked about .25 miles and started the shoot. About 10 frames into the shoot, with only 2 cameras on me, it became very hard to breathe and I felt like I was going to pass out. Sitting down didn’t even help. I finally laid down and everyone said my body went limp and my lips turned blue. Before I knew what was going on, Nick had called the ambulance. I am fully convinced that this is where God started working in my life that day. I didn’t want an ambulance, and I certainly didn’t want to go to the hospital; if you know me, I wanted to finish the shoot. If it weren’t for my buddy Nick calling the ambulance, along with Jenn and Ryan helping, I probably wouldn’t be writing this to you now. I’m serious that these two very special people were probably a big part of what saved my life by calling and insisting I get checked out that day.

By now, Ryan had run to my car to get my inhaler and called my husband Lee. The ambulance had arrived and they put me on oxygen. Long story short, everyone broke down my equipment and I hiked back to the ambulance. My breathing was still very labored and my heart rate got up around 135 bpm. I finally got to see Lee, and decided to go to the hospital. The EMT said it was probably an anxiety attack, but something in my gut told me something just wasn’t right. I went to the hospital that night and found out that I have a very large saddle pulmonary embolus (that is very rare for my age) and other smaller clots throughout my lungs and leg. I am now on a combination of heparin and coumadin in the hospital, which thins my blood and prevents other clots from forming. The existing clots will dissolved on their own.

Right now, I’m waiting to get my coumadin levels in my blood what they call “therapeutic,” or thin enough to continue preventing clots so that I can get off the heparin. Until then, I will stay in the hospital to make sure my clots don’t travel to my heart. The number I’m looking for is 2.5; I hit 2.1 2 days ago, but fell to 1.7 the last two days. I need a lot of prayer that the clots don’t travel and that my coumadin levels become therapeutic so I can come home.

Everyone, I can’t thank you enough for the cards, prayers, well wishes, and support. It has meant so much to me to see so many people caring and showing love and support. It will take me a while to physically get better and stronger, but I have about a month to do so. I will work my very best to make provisions where I can’t be fully available physically, but will have many of my second shooters and Lee to fill in. I’m so blessed to have each of them to help, and I’m serioulsy jonesing to get back full-time. I can’t wait to work with each of you again, and thank you again, from the bottom of my heart, for all of your prayer. God has been so good to me, and I wish His blessings upon each of you that has supported me throughout this ordeal.

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I attended the Barack Obama rally on the campus of UNC Charlotte on 11/3/1008.  It started out with looking for parking for about 30 minutes, but ended up finding a fairly close one.  Then as I was walking to the field I saw about 1000 people in line waiting to enter the checkpoints.  So I asked a volunteer where the Press entrance was and was able to bypass the long line .  I checked in, let the bomb dog sniff my camera gear, and got waved down by the “magic metal wand”.  As you will see in the photos, it did rain on us quite a bit.  But the sky were fairly clear as Barack Obama took the podium.  There were 1000’s of people at this event…it was quite a site.  I have several more photos than the ones that I am posting, but it’s late and I’m ready to go crawl in to my warm bed .  Here are a few photos from the event.
Cheers!
Lee

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Tags: Barack, Charlotte, Election, Obama, UNCC

We got to go all the way to Taylorsville for this wedding! When we arrived, we saw how beautiful Antioch Baptist is; the church is all stone and set back in the country amid rolling hills and blue skies. The setting was gorgeous, so we knew we were in for another fun wedding!

The new Mr. and Mrs. Wike’s wedding day filled with beauty, emotion, and happy tears. The day turned out to be perfect, from a thoughtful bridesmaid gift, to the presence of her parents all the way from Bolivia (see Bethany’s bridal portraits). Bethany’s gift to her bridesmaids was one that was personal and from the heart: she purchased handmade shawls from Bolivia and had her brother handcraft a “blessing bowl” pottery piece for each girl. As the ceremony rolled around, the look on Jonathan’s face exuded pride and love as Bethany walked down the aisle; you could tell he is deeply in love with his bride. The whole day was a lot of fun, and you could tell this couple has such a deep love for each other. I wish both of you the best in life and marriage! Enjoy the photos!

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