Personal | 2025 in Review: the year I learned to walk

Dec 29

This year I shot 13 weddings spanning three different countries. I traveled the furthest I ever have for a wedding in Łódź, Poland and finished out the year on the tiny island of Saba Rock in the British Virgin Islands. I was published (again!) in Rock N Roll Bride, and won Junebug Weddings Best of the Best of 2025. Most importantly, this year I learned how to walk again, and I mean that in so many ways.

2025 began with a close examination of my business and creative processes, and ended in me learning to not only overcome major physical hardship, but to begin to trust my body again—which dealt me such a sly betrayal. I'd been running for years. I overloaded my schedule, pushed myself to accommodate everyone, win the awards, compete and accomplish everything I put my mind to. I was trained this way. It was my privilege to run, my privilege to push myself. I felt myself faltering. I really did. And then suddenly I couldn't do anything anymore. I couldn't get up. I couldn't shower. I couldn't go to the bathroom by myself. I simply couldn't do it, and like a child taking their first steps, I had to learn how.

No one wanted to use the word cancer, and so they didn't. It wouldn't have changed anything about the reality of my diagnosis; low grade, unlikely to spread, very “benign,” very rare. I had a brain tumor, a large one. It was removed three days after it was found, and I woke up temporarily paralyzed on the left side of my body. I had to relearn how to walk, how to text, how to hold a bowl of fruit. No one wanted to tell the paralyzed girl she'd probably just survived brain cancer without ever knowing she had it. Calling the tumor what it was would've allowed me to become more comfortable with understanding what I had just gone through, and much earlier in the process at that. All those moments I'd experienced, all the trips, the weddings I'd shot, the photos I'd meticulously edited suddenly paled in comparison to all the headaches I had and all those naps I needed. I had a slow growing brain tumor, sure but cancer? Oh.

My cancer journey was so disjointed and atypical I usually don't even refer to it as such. People with cancer get sick, but I got better. I'm still getting better. I was answering client emails 24 hours after my brain surgery, my ability to control my paralyzed leg returned so quickly it stunned my physical therapist, and I no longer needed naps—you best bet I still take them religiously. I started reading again, I began writing and painting almost regularly, and I even started running on a treadmill. I booked over 10 weddings in the four months after my surgery. I was walking again, slowly yet surely. I was moving on with my life. Then in early December a doctor finally used the "c word" and referred me to a specialist. It didn't actually change anything. I was already treated and healing. However, I still felt like I did all those weeks prior in the hospital. I suddenly was unable to get up again. Maybe I was physically walking, but emotionally I was frozen with fear. I didn't want to write about it. I stopped painting. I didn't want to discuss things with friends anymore. Two steps forward, one huge step back.

I had a long time client message me privately a few days ago. They shared their own experience with cancer. They were treated and cured at a very young age, and lived in fear for two decades that it would return. They advised me to seek help if I felt like I was living in fear, but the honest to god truth is that I don't know what to feel. I want so badly to move past this and never think about it again. I'm not even comfortable saying I had cancer let alone worrying about it returning. I usually say I had a rare, benign brain tumor which is all technically true. What I'm not saying is that the brain tumor in question is an extremely rare, nonaggressive type of sarcoma which is considered cancer. 

There are a million aspects of this story I haven't included because this is a personal review of my professional year, but what happened to me jarred so much of my life into perspective. I'm slowly learning to accept that like my photography career, this very unusual experience will be a part of me for the rest of my life. And if I'm stuck with this as part of my story anyway, I refuse to stay silent about it. Because I need everyone to know what you're feeling is valid. You are not crazy. You are not imagining it. Get the blood panel. Get a brain scan. Advocate for yourself. 40% of people get diagnosed with cancer at some point in their life, but only 0.15% will have the experience I did. The sarcoma specialist told me I was special. What I really am is lucky. At least for now.

As a child my favorite book was The Little Engine That Could. I've thought about that story every day for nearly four months. (Fun fact: I gifted a copy of this book to a couple in 2024 who did a book exchange as part of their engagement session. Funnily enough, the groom ended up being one of my doctors in the rehab facility where I first started walking again.) I had a the 1991 straight to VHS movie as a child and I nearly wore the tape out. I was fascinated by the train’s journey through a dark mountain pass and then her triumphant descent into the valley below. I'm over the mountain, I know that much, but I'm not quite at the valley just yet. I still feel humbled by going downstairs. I still can't control my left foot as precisely as I would like. My incision aches when the weather changes. I had to cancel so many shoots last fall, and my turn around is the longest it's ever been—though I'm almost caught up! In spite of all that, I'm moving forward. My career is still flourishing; my photographs still filled with color, and texture and light. My personal life is slowly being put back together. I learned to walk again. I'm learning to walk again, telling myself ‘I think I can’ every step of the way.