Healing, Legacy, and why I photograph the way I do

There’s a reason I photograph the way I do.

It started with a diagnosis that changed everything—Medullary Thyroid Cancer.

And it didn’t stop there.

Surgery. Radiation. Recurrence. And Grace.

I had my first surgery on June 20, 2016. Just ten days later, I drove three hours to attend a wedding Jeff was in—still healing, still sore, still choosing life.

Dressed up for a wedding 10 days post surgery

By August, I began 30 rounds of radiation.

The side effects were brutal. I lost hair, weight, and parts of myself I didn’t expect. My skin was burned and blistered. I questioned everything—especially when the cancer returned in the same area we had radiated, within the first year.

It was a punch to the chest. I wondered if I’d made the right choices.

But then—grace again.

God gave me people who created soothing balms that healed what doctors said would take months—in less than a week. Another surgery. More healing. I returned to work. Scans. Bloodwork. Monitoring. I even traveled to Germany in 2019 for a specialized test we couldn’t get in Canada.

That test in Germany revealed new tumors—yes. But since then, nothing else has changed. No new growth. No new spread. And in the world of chronic cancer, stability is its own kind of miracle.

Even though my cancer markers continue to rise, every scan since then has shown the same thing: stable disease. And I’ve learned to hold that kind of news with gratitude.

I had to be bolted to the table like this during each radiation treatment

Why I photograph now

This journey did more than shape my health.

It. shaped my sense of time.

My sense of purpose.

And my deep need to leave something behind—not just for my clients, but for my own family.

That’s when legacy took on a new weight.

I started writing more—blogging through treatment, sharing what God was doing in real time. Words became part of how I processed, and how I prayed.

But photography became something else entirely.

After having Luke, the weight of legacy became more real than ever.Pregnancy was a gamble. We didn’t know how it would affect my cancer. We trusted that if it wasn’t meant to happen, it wouldn’t.

But it did.

And suddenly, capturing my life—so Luke would always have something of me—felt essential.

So I started taking pictures. More than I needed. More than made sense.

Because I couldn’t control the unknowns…but I could leave something behind.

This is why I photograph you, too

You may not know this when you book a session.

But when I hold the camera, I’m not just capturing a moment.

I’m preserving a piece of someone’s legacy—yours or your children’s or your future self’s.

Because life is fleeting. And sometimes, healing isn’t just about medicine.

Sometimes it’s about remembering.

This is why I photograph the way I do.