The Enchanted Escape (#14, #15, #16, #17)

January 25th 2007, I get a call from my 24 year old sister, Shelsi who had been battling a cough for several months which progressed into weight loss and night sweats. She said she finally had a proper X-ray done and the doctor urgently told her she needed to go straight to the hospital. Her exact words were "I needa go to the hospital because the doctor said it could be vewy vewy sewious!" (spelling errors intentional). It just goes to show how amazingly strong she was and how much she wanted to protect OUR emotions rather than giving into her own. When I arrived at the hospital, she was already in the ER, and ahead of a room full of people who had come before her. She was in the back and had several doctors around her. This did not look good. After a few scans, we were finally told what all the commotion was about. She had a huge 14 centimeter mass sitting in her chest. More biopsies and scans later, the diagnosis was clear- Primary Mediastinal Diffuse Large B-cell Non Hodgkin's Lymphoma (yep….I learned how to use some fancy words while in the hospital with her).

We were told that this cancer responded well to chemo and would most likely "melt away"; there was only one problem- it had already collapsed one of her lungs and penetrated her heart creating a huge risk of leaving a hole in her heart while getting treatment. There are no medical records of this ever happening the way it did and this hospital was not equip to handle a rare case like hers so she was taken by ambulance to Cedar Sinai Medical Center where she spent 5 straight weeks living in the CCU (critical care unit) and dozens of trips back and forth.

Fast forward 7 months (August) after she was told that the mass in her chest was shrinking and that she could start easing back into normal life with a clean bill of health…..she started to get really bad tension headaches and these were followed up with spells of gagging and dry heaving. With hesitation, she finally went into see Dr. Lil (her oncologist) again and a brain scan was done this time. Not good. She was told to pack another bag and check back into her hospital “suite”. She had a plum size tumor in her brain. Thankfully it was operable and so they prepped for surgery. It was successful with no complications. They explained to us that normal chemo will not penetrate the brain barrier so they have to give her some REALLY extreme stuff and pretty much poison the cancer out of her (I forgot the name of the chemo, I’ll try to update things I remember). This did not work. It grew back again by December.

In December of 2007, she stared brain radiation and was told that her only option would be a stem-cell transplant using her own stem-cells. Gods hand is truly in medicine people! I know that there are a lot of people that disagree with a lot of western medicine, and I know there’s a lot of truth to some of it, but what was done was so out of this world to me. March 13^th 2008, her stem-cells were drafted out of her- purified and preserved, then she was placed in a double door, pressurized room where they began a slow process of carefully killing her white blood cells (AKA: her immune system), and bringing her just about as close to death as you can get, and when her count was low enough, they put the purified stem-cells back into her body and those little guys go right to work in rebuilding her immune system. HOW WILD IS THAT!?!? Our bodies were incredibly designed.

This story in greater detail has been documented mostly by our mom, but also with entries by Shelsi and many other friends and family on a website http://shelsisentinel.stlawson.com/. So many amazing, funny, heartwarming stores can be found here. Thank you so much mom and Steve for putting that together!! It has been amazing to look back at all of that!

Here we are today….5 and a half years later and she is still cancer FREE!!!! The journey was one of the hardest things we have all been through and will ever go through. There were so many helping hands along the way- both from here on earth and from beyond the veil. She was even given a blessing by a General Authority of our LDS Church, Elder Christofersen. That was an amazing experience and truly a heavenly gift. Shelsi is the strongest, most beautiful person I know, both inside and out. There is truly no one like her in this universe and I am so blessed to have her as not only my sister, but my best friend. We have literally never fought in our lives. She never made me feel like the “annoying little sister”. She ALWAYS included me in everything she did. She truly doesn’t know her beauty which makes her that much more stunning. I am SO very thankful that our Heavenly Father let us keep her.  



My thoughts behind this creation.....
Shelsi loves butterflies.....well...she really just loves anything beautiful, but I had this idea of having her go from a cocooned butterfly to huge free wings to represent her escape from cancer. Then my hubby said that it didn't make much sense seeing as that a cocoon is just part of the butterflies beautiful experience....and cancer, well....SUCKS. I kept letting it simmer. I knew I wanted the first to be darker and a little more mysterious, but I still didn't quite have the right idea. One day after dropping my boys off at their gym class, and I was sitting in the parking lot talking to me and Shelsi's dad. He had the same thoughts about making the first set of pictures more dark and ominous. As we were talking, I had the vision! It brought tears to my eyes. I told my dad the idea of having Shelsi (the butterfly) first trapped in a spiders web before breaking herself free. We both shed a few tears together and I knew it was the perfect idea. 

My dad and his beautiful bride Carla were married in Hawaii last month and this last weekend was a nice dinner celebration for them in California. It worked out so well to drive Shelsi back to Las Vegas with us for a few days to complete this 2 days of photographing. It was perfect! And I found it to be a very fitting creation to post 6 days before Halloween!

Introducing.....




The Enchanted Escape

This was not an easy project- emotionally or physically. Looking at the first set pictures gives me chills. Especially while looking back on pictures of her after brain surgery- pale face, gauze around her head…..all too familiar.

Before I go on, I just want to let you know that I have captured a lot of this process on video so I will also be working on a time lapse video/slideshow/tutorial. Stay tuned for that in the next week or so.

Her beautiful corset was once again from The Fashion Corset Shop online! I just love their stuff and most everything is very reasonable.  Shelsi has such stunning features and bone structure so black & white looks really good on her….who am I kidding….EVERYTHING looks great on her.

The skirt was incredibly simple! One of my black photography backdrops came with a second sheet of weird black fabric (I don’t know why actually), but I have never used it so I laid it out….cut a small slit in the middle for the waist and v-walla—a skirt! This was a trick I learned from a fairy friend of mine, Freckles! You can check out her amazing creations on her website. I wanted to add some white flair to the dress, so I did this woven technique to long pieces of lace. It’s just tied around elastic and then pieces loosely tide together over and over.

The wings were probably more intricate than the last dream catcher wings even. These took me 8- 10 hours to make. Pictures are below, but I used orange canvas. Then I began to bend and mold multi-purpose 9 gauge wire. This was EXTREMELY difficult. It is REALLY hard to bend. I would have to kneel down on one side to bend the other over and over again until it was close to the same shape as the canvas cutout (this will be funny to show in the video tutorial I’m sure). Then I hot glued the edges of the canvas around the wire…burning myself over and over again, lol. Once the 4 pieces were completed, I then drew and outline of the wing details with pencil, then painted with all-purpose black acrylic paint. Once that dried, I put the white polka-dot finishing touches on each wing. I then did a terrible job of mounting them so Andrew had to partially hold them while I was shooting—I love you Andrew!

The next thing that was created was the nails! My friend Lura is a rep for Jamberry Nails (nail wraps)! She told me that I should check them out, and I hadn’t for a while until one day I actually captured a beautiful picture of a real monarch butterfly up in Calico Basin (I’ll share a picture below). I went on her site to see if I could custom design nails and I could!! I was so excited to make these!! Knowing that it is my picture on her nails made it so much more personal. Unfortunately they aren’t showing as much as I wanted them too in the pictures, but you still get the point. And I took some more pictures of her below and one or 2 show them off even more.

Shelsi has some beautiful wigs from her bald days. The color wig I wanted to use is not a very long one so I asked to borrow my dear friend (Enchanted Indigo model) Erin’s gorgeous extensions! They blended so well together! Thank you Erin!!

Her makeup was fun both days…..but I’m sure she’ll tell you that day 2 was much more fun! Brittany did such a good job making her face nice and pale using Manic Panic Goth White Foundation some beautiful shading around her eyes. The second day was so much more intricate. Gorgeous radiant skin with orange, yellow and bronze eye shadow, smudgy but still sharp black eye liner, and bright orange lips! I absolutely love how it turned out! My sister never wears makeup this heavy or eyeliner in the waterline of her eyes so I know it was a different look, but it was so fun and cheerful! Brit you once again made me so proud! I love you!! Thank you!!

Both days, we headed up to where the burn scar begins in Mt Charleston far back in the mountains. It happens to be close to a ranch owned by some good friends and clients of ours. Most of the ranch was lost in the fire—so sad. There is still someone who lives up there and he drove by us a few times. The first day we were there, after we had filled the tree with webs, he drove up and stopped his truck and go out. I was REALLY nervous that we were going to get in trouble, but he proceeded to say….”of all the weird things I’ve come home to…this has gotta be the weirdest!” We all let out a big laugh and I let out a huge sigh of relief. Everything went off without a hitch. The lighting was gorgeous, it wasn’t too cold, it wasn’t windy at all, it was just right.

More thanks......

Big thank you also to Taylor (Pixie of Peace) who was up there with us the first day setting up webbing, taking pictures and assisting me!! I love you Tay-Tay!! Huge thank you to Art and Amy (brother and sister in law) for letting us use their truck AGAIN for the shoot! You guys rock! Thank you Shelsi's husband Eric who let us steal her away for a few days!! Your wife's a hottie, Eric! Of course Thank you Shelsi for being so open and willing to share your story with the world! You are incredible!! I love you to pieces!! And ALSO big thanks to my hubby for assisting, driving and setting up! You are my hero!

Enjoy some of the behind the scenes pictures of this entire creation and AGAIN….keep your eye out for the video!

The Fashion Corset and homemade skirt......

The making of the custom painted canvas homemade orange and black monarch butterfly wings (time lapse tutorial to come in the near future....)

 The complete custom monarch butterfly fair costume......

Time lapse tutorial of the making of these wings!!

Set up day 1.....

Right in the thick of it!....

2nd day set up. Mainly just attaching butterflies to the trees...

Fun extra modeling pics out in the desert and against my black wall with edgy lighting. Showing off those custom made Jamberry butterfly nails...

The picture that created the custom nails....

Dropping her off at the airport yesterday :-(

September 2007 shortly after brain surgery......