As many of you know, there is a reason I seem to have suddenly disappeared from my new photography blog. On august 18th I had an accident, I was holding my almost two year old son and fell down a full flight of stairs to our basement. It was a terrible fall, quite honestly, the kind of fall that could quite easily cause paralysis, or worse.

We were very blessed. My son walked away without a scratch, my knee was not so fortunate. Apparently I landed directly on my left knee, allowing it to take the full impact for both of us, destroying all the ligaments and tendons in the process. The surgeon keeps calling it the injury of the year and says I am the talk of the orthopedic community around here – I am quite sure I would prefer less fame on this one.

I had major reconstructive surgery on September 1st. It lasted four hours and they were successfully able to completely rebuild my knee. I have been on bed rest for the last several weeks, with no movement of the knee at all for the first four weeks after surgery to allow it all to heal. I am still non weight bearing and spend much of my time in bed or on the couch, but I have started physical therapy and I am doing some exercise every day – I am certainly ready to walk again, soon!

So for now all sessions have been cancelled, session fees have been refunded and no new dates are being offered at this time. This has totally turned my family upside down and we don’t know when we will be back on our feet again, figuratively or literally. I appreciate all the emails and support I have received, please forgive my lapse in response at times.  I have had very little access to my Renee Stengel Photography email account, but also, the sheer amount of pain medication I have been on made me hesitant to send emails at times – I was dreadfully afraid of sending crazy loopy messages!

Please forgive me for taking far too long to post this news. To be honest, it was very hard to face. This accident happened, literally, on the eve of the launch of Renee Stengel Photography. As you know I spent much of my summer getting the ‘business side’ organized, building the new website, organizing the online ordering system, designing the marketing materials and finalizing all the details.  My accident happened on Thursday evening when the next morning I was scheduled to shoot a sweet little one year old baby girl – and was then booked straight through early November.  I was super excited about the 1st birthday cake smash fun, chasing families at a nearby farm (with tractors, pumpkins and an orchard!), sweet six month old babies,  sassy mamas to be, and precious newborns.  It broke my heart to have to walk away from all of that.

But, alas, I have come to a better place. A place where I realize that this is a detour not an end, a place where I realize that I now have the next few weeks to read and study a lot of materials on my wish list that I just couldn’t find the time for when I had two feet to keep me running, a place where I am determined to be better than ever when I have the privilege of being back behind the camera this spring.

So for those of you who will still have me, I am back, to the blog at least. There will not be as many photos for now, as I am just not able to take too many these days. But as I heal I will definitely be checking in with you all from time to time, giving you a little update on my progress, and maybe even finding some fun, non-falling-down-the-stairs related topics to chat about.

I hope everyone is enjoying this beautiful fall weather – don’t forget to get out and take a few photos of your little ones, the fall leaves make an amazing natural backdrop for photographs (and then perfect Christmas gifts for the grandparents!)

Xoxo
Renee