I have a confession. I’m addicted to the first dance wedding videos. I love it when couples do really crazy things during their first dance. This one totally cracked me up!

Oops. I really didn’t mean to be gone from here for so long. It wasn’t until I spotted my email from Katy Blogless checking to see if I was ok that I realized how long it had been! Everything seems to be a blur when you’re not living your life by the calendar.

Speaking of emails, my mailbox has gone craaaaaaaaazy and the hosting company & I are going in rounds to get it fixed. Basically, sometimes I can get my email in Outlook, and sometimes I can’t. This, of course, is super frustrating. It also means that if you write me, I may not see your email. Or I may see it days later when the server decides to finally let Outlook download my email. I have actually been answering business email on my phone most of the time - which is not as fun as it might sound.

Ok, back to the update. Where was I? I think a list is in order.

– iPhone: Speaking of phones, I didn’t mention it here but the day after the two weddings, as Mike was driving me home, I started talking about the iPhone. He was scoping out my BlackBerry Pearl, and before I knew it he was telling me that I had shot two weddings the day before and if I wanted an iPhone we could stop at the AT&T store to pick it up. I think I might have been a bit delirious when I agreed. It did save me when I was in the hospital though, as there was no public access to their WiFi network, so even though I could see it, I couldn’t get online. I got online on my phone though, and fed my Flickr addiction in the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep. Isn’t it ironic that you get the worst sleep in a hospital?

– Post-op progress: I was having just general healing pain last week. Years ago when they removed my right ovary, I developed a lot of scar tissue that the doctor cleaned up when he did this surgery. Weird thing is, the right side is where I have more pain. Hm. I have finally made it to the point where I can stand up from the couch without help. I can move the laptop off of my lap. (Sliding inches, not lifting.) I spoke with his office yesterday and got clearance to drive at the 3 week mark instead of having to wait 4 weeks, as long as I’m not on painkillers then. I also got permission to do my engagement session photoshoot that I had booked on December 8th, as long as it is limited to 2 hours and I have someone else carry my extra gear.

– Sitting Still: Yes, it is official. I can’t sit still. I am now at the point where I’m getting edgy just staying in the house all the time. I have completed my full round of antibiotics though, and have clearance also to return to visiting the real world. (I just can’t drive.) My doctor must have missed that I am self-employed on my info sheet in my chart, because he said again yesterday that as long as I was working an office job where I spent all day on the computer, I could return to work if I felt up to it. I pointed out that I do spend a good portion of the day on the computer, but it is at home fortunately, so the no-driving thing works ok.

– Thanksgiving: We spent most of Thanksgiving at my parent’s house. My Mom made a fabulous meal, and I was lucky enough to be sent home with leftovers too! Mmm… I’m craving stuffing just thinking about it. It was a nice day, although it was my first day out of the house so I had to go and take a mid-day nap. (In addition to all the remodel work they have done in the past year, they also got a new bed. A super-duper comfy bed. I may have to return to nap on that bed in the future! Haha!)

– Day After Thanksgiving: No, I did NOT go shopping on Black Friday. Mike did go out and pick up two 500gb external drives - a whole terrabyte of space! Sweet! I need that for archiving all the wedding photos. He also picked up a few stocking stuffers. Later that day, we went to Mariely & Mauro’s wedding ceremony. I was originally supposed to be photographing their wedding, but that was no longer an option after the surgery. Once again, I am *SO* thankful for Elaine! She not only shot their engagement session along with Jeff who filled in for me the day after my surgery, but she was also shot their wedding and along with my friend Jesus Tirso of Decca Photography. It gave me such peace of mind knowing that Mauro & Mariely were in such good hands. Mauro & I worked together years ago at the evil web design firm known by us now as Scamatech, and I was really looking forward to their wedding day. We’re going to get together to do a “Day After” session in a few weeks though when I’m all better, and I’m glad I was able to attend their wedding ceremony! (I skipped the reception — I know myself well enough to know I would have never left!)

– The Emergency Wedding: While I’m wrapping up proofing Mercedes & Tim’s wedding from November 10th, I met with Lauren & her mother, Tami, on Monday — the bride from the other November 10th wedding. They came over to the Panera right by our house, and Mike drove me over there. We looked through their wedding photos, the wedding packages and album options. It was so great to have a chance to talk with them! Since all of my packages contain an engagement session, we’re actually going to convert that to an “Extreme Bridal” session! Whee! Lauren is having her dress cleaned since someone got wine on it the night of her wedding, and Dante will get all dressed up in a nice suit for us, and we’re going to go out and PLAY! I’m so stoked for this, I can’t wait! Really, it is something I would like to see all of my brides do in the future - I think the resulting photos are just so awesome. Meanwhile, they haven’t received the refund yet from the no-show photographer, but they are definitely actively working on it!

I think that pretty much wraps everything up. While I’m working on getting better, the past day or so Jason has complained of not feeling well. Elaine also stayed home from work today because she is feeling sick. It is that time of year when everyone ends up with the winter crud - so I’m trying to avoid them all! Coughing is still very painful (you never realize what you use your ab muscles for until you can’t), so I really, really don’t want to get sick!

I have more pain today than I have had since I came home. Not major pain, but more dull constant pain. Guess it is time to up the pain killers and just take a nap because I hate the loopy effect.

Who can complain about an excuse to take a nap though?

The doctor decided yesterday that I had reached the point in recovery where the thing I needed most was rest. If you’ve ever spent the night in the hospital, you know just how hard it is to get rest there - the noises in the hallway, the people coming in and out to give you meds and to draw blood at 5am and everything else … you just don’t get to sleep. So we waited until I was feeling up to it, and we made sure that the new pain meds were ok (I’ve gotten sick from some in the past and didn’t want to have to deal with that after we left), and once everything checked out we headed for home.

It was nice to get 10 mostly uninterrupted hours of sleep in my own bed last night. I feel soooo much better today.

Thank you, thank you, thank you to everyone for all of your well wishes. I’m having to limit computer time over the next few days, but I hope to write everyone directly soon. Your support truly means a lot to me!

Mike here. Surgery is over, and all went well. She’s still in recovery, haven’t seen her yet. Thanks for the well-wishes so far.

Surgery is scheduled for tomorrow, at 1pm. The fibroids are not visible on the ultrasound now, and the ovarian cyst is gone. However, I have a very thick and enlarged uterus, and still have very bad bleeding. My body has no iron reserves at all. The bleeding has to be stopped. Due to the very enlarged uterus, I can not have the ablation, there is a size limit for the uterus. The last option is a hysterectomy.

I won’t lie. I am really not thrilled. I know it is the right thing to do though.

I will most likely be here through Sunday or Monday, depending on how it all goes. I will ask Mike to post an update for me.

I had an appointment still with the cardiologist yesterday, originally for surgery clearance. I did not want the Lupron without her approval. I asked Mike to drive me there because I had been getting pretty dizzy. Good thing I did that, because I basically fainted right after I got in the car.

The rest of the day went downhill from there.

We decided that the take iron and the Lupron option was not going to work. It would take at least 2 weeks to start to recover my iron stores. Obviously, I could not stay so weak that long, I would have been at risk for shock and other issues. Plus the Lupron can cause blood pressure problems. My original OB not only disagreed when we called him, he was quite rude about it.

So my doctor called on a different OB and got me in to see him right away.

That doctor saw me and immediately admitted me to the hospital for a blood trsnsfusion. We will be doing surgery on Friday most likely; the ultrasound results from late last night will tell us more. The transfusion helped a LOT and I feel much better today compared to yesterday!

OMG. OMG. OMG. (by the way, I do actually say OMG out loud, so it has gone beyond online for me.) This is THE FUNNIEST VIDEO I have seen in awhile. Kenny was telling Mike & I about it on Saturday before Elaine & I left for wedding #2, but … WOW. It is just too funny!

You don’t have to watch 24 at all to get how hysterical this is. Amazing how things have changed in 13 years, isn’t it? I actually had to watch it twice to catch it all - I totally missed the GeoCities reference the first time. Whoo hoo! GeoCities! I was a Community Leader back in the day, and even got 10 free shares of stock when they went public, later sold for $1000 and put towards a down payment on my 1999 Civic.

Surgery is postponed. It seems that having a Hemoglobin of 7.7, when about 12.2 is normal, is not an advised way to go into surgery. I’m officially quite anemic. Too much of a risk for a need for transfusions, and just my body is too weak in general.

However, we need to stop the bleeding - obviously - before it gets even worse. So the possible solution for that? Lupron. Chemical menopause. Once my cardiologist approves, that is. Good thing I have a pre-op appointment for tomorrow with her, although it is going from a pre-op appointment to a “what is ok to do next” appointment.

I am *so* over all of this. Sigh.

I wish this photo wasn’t blurry, but it is … and yet I think it is a PERFECT capture of exactly how we were all feeling at that very moment.

Elaine & I wrapped up shooting our Saturday (11/10/07) wedding, which started at 8am, at 3:45pm. I drove over to her house (on the way home) to back up my copy of her compact flash card. While we sat there chatting, she pointed out that we had both received a direct Twitter message asking if we wanted to shoot a reception *last tonight* for Dan, the owner of BarStool magazine. (We have done photo shoots for them in the past.)

We were puzzled, and I am normally pretty set in only one event per weekend for our sanity, but I decided to make the call.

Turns out that Dan was trying to find a photographer and was doing so to help out his best friend who had their wedding photographer NO SHOW for the wedding.

For a rather expensive wedding package. (Based on the prices on their website.) Where they took the time to collect the final payment 30 days ago, but were completely unavailable yesterday. No phone call. NOTHING. No response to a number of voice mail messages. They just were not there.

We were 40 minutes away, and the wedding was supposed to start in 15 minutes. They HELD the wedding for us, and we drove *fast* across Houston to pick up the ball.

As we walked in the door, we were greeted like heros. I love this shot, taken as I walked in the door where you can see the mom with her hands up in glee in the background, and the bride looks SO thrilled that we were there. We were cheered on the rest of the night.

I should toss in here that I had an engagement session at 9am this morning. And wedding #2 ended at midnight last night. (I begged Mike to drive me to the engagement session so I could just veg out in the car.)

I’m glad we did it though. Really, I had to do it though because a photographer not showing up for my wedding would have been my worst nightmare. I would have freaked out. I had to help her out - I couldn’t leave her stranded.

What a crazy night. But so wonderful and amazing. Man, crazy, crazy night.

Elaine, you are AWESOME and *THANK YOU* for going with me last night. I could NOT have done it without YOU.

Nasty, nasty headache this afternoon. Probably in part due to fasting until almost 1pm because I had a doctor’s appointment this morning (pre-op clearance with the cardiologist) and I instinctively knew she would want bloodwork drawn so I didn’t eat. Smart move, saved me a follow-up trip over there for the lab work, but now my head is painful.

Ok, ok, focus on the positive…

So instead of thinking about my headache, here is a cool link with a neat post - 3 Ways to Feel Gratitude. Positive power!

Back on October 15th, Gannon was born to Cari & Chris up in New York City. Chris is one of Mike’s best friends from high school and was one of the groomsmen in our wedding. When I went to NYC back in May, I had breakfast with them the morning that I was there, and Cari made the comment that she wished I lived in the city so that I could photograph their baby when it was born. I pointed out that a plane ticket to New York is cheaper than what most photographers there charge, and that if they would pay for it I would fly up and take his photos.

I spent the better part of a day with them - Gannon was fussy and had been having a hard time eating, so we took our time with him. (Plus it was great to have a chance to visit with Cari & Chris!) I love, love, love so many of the photos we got from the day! I’ve posted most of them on the photography blog, but had to post some here too.

The above photo is of Chris reading their first of countless books together. His brother, Scott, had sent over this super cool custom book all about Gannon’s name. I had been up on the rooftop getting skyline photos, and when I came back to the apartment I discovered this beautiful moment taking place - I’m so glad I was able to capture it!

Below are some of my other favorites from the day.

(We’re saving that one for sharing with his first girlfriend!)

You can view his whole set over on Flickr.

I went back to Dr. P yesterday since the girly issues seemed to get better and then get worse while I was out of town. Of course, everything was pretty normal yesterday, and he didn’t actually examine me. He did take the time to talk with me though, so that was a good thing.

- I still have fibroids. No shock there.
- Surgery, still scheduled for November 14th.
- He will be doing a laproscotomy at the same time to check on the ovarian cyst.
- After surgery, it is best if I stay on the pill to prevent future fibroids.
- Of course, with blood pressure issues, being on the pill isn’t such a great idea.
- The other option is to have a tubal ligation and then remove my uterine lining. The reason for the tubal is to make sure I never get pregnant after that, because that would cause all sorts of other problems.
- I’m not ready to make that decision. So for now, I’ll stay on the pill.

So now I just wait for surgery in just over a week. I’m looking forward to lots of knitting time in my future.

Meet Rebekah. Her grandmother is a knitter. But she doesn’t just knit, oh no. She does pretty much every other craft you can think of too! She crocheted the blanket that Rebekah is sleeping on, and she smocked and made her beautiful dress. So amazing!

I love photographing babies - they are just SO sweet! More photos and more details over on the photography blog.