I am speechless .. nothing I can say that wouldn't sound dumb

I had something similar with my grandma years ago, but in the end it wasn't breast cancer. Even so it was hard ... We'll pray for you both. Let's hope the situation will become better. She needs all the help, but I am sure you'll be just great. Best of luck to you both:let's pray for some good news too

oh Angie! I'm very sorry about your mother. I don't know much about cancer, but i can assure you i will keep her in my prayers.

Thank you both for your sweet responses. I will keep you updated as much as I can. Here's what has happened so far...

She told me on Friday just before I left for a weekend trip with Brendon. I went anyway, though it was the last thing in the world I wanted or felt like doing, because I knew she'd feel guilty if I didn't. Because it was such a late diagnosis, we have a long road ahead of us. The cancer has spread to her lymph nodes. She has an appointment on Thursday to determine in what order the treatments will be needed. Surgery and chemo are both necessary and must be done quickly, but we will know more after the appointment.

I'm an emotional wreck right now. I'm either crying my eyes out or in a state of constant melancholy. When I smile and tell people I'm fine, I'm lying, but what else do you say? I'm taking 19 hours this semester, which I signed up for before I knew about this. How can I handle my course load and my mom's illness, and take care of my brother and sister (who will be staying with us while mom is in the hospital) all at the same time? More importantly, how can I sit here and watch my mother suffer like this? What if I lose her? I can't even bear to think about it. I don't know how I'm going to make it through the next few months or years. How can life ever be the same again?

But I have to be strong. My mother needs me. My brother and sister need me. I have to find some way to pull myself together and do the things I know I need to do.

Sorry for rambling, I just didn't know what else to do right now...

I have never EVER been more frustrated with Brendon. EVER! I'm so upset and stressed that I can't stop shaking... and the bad thing is that it's not even really his fault. Well, it's kind of not his fault.

So I shot a wedding recently with my friend Lauren (who was also my own wedding photographer) and I've spent HOURS and HOURS making sure they look as absolutely perfect as they possibly could before I give them to her to give to the client. So today is the day she needed them and I was doing last minute adjustments, deciding exactly which pictures I wanted to send and which ones weren't good enough. So I had deleted a few which leaves a gap in the numbering. For example, if I deleted the second picture, the files would be Wedding001, Wedding003, Wedding004, etc. no longer nice and neatly numbered. So Brendon says "I'll batch rename them for you". He's done this for me before so I thought nothing of it and told him that would be great. Always good to look more professional, right?!?

He renames them, I open the folder...and they are ALL gone. ALL OF THEM! I panicked. I haven't stopped panicking! It took me SO LONG to get them all done and now all of that work is just gone...and I was suppose to turn them in today! I still have the original, unedited photos, but it'll take at least a week to edit them and have them ready again.

I'm so upset! Lauren will be really disappointed, the client will have to wait for her photos, and I have TONS of work to do now on top of everything else. I feel like I've let so many people down. I just can't stop crying.

Thanks for letting me vent.

oh that's nasty... did you talk to him about this? maybe he moved them to another folder or something... :roll:

I'm sure it was a mistake, but it still sounds annoying. If he deleted them, they should still be in your recycling bin, have you checked there? And I'm sure your client can wait. It's not the end of the world if she has to wait one more week for her photos is it? Perhaps you could send her the originals, plus an example of one you've touched up to help her see why it'll be worth the wait?

I'm feeling much better now. I talked to Lauren and she was such a sweetheart. It turns out she had an AWESOME day at the wedding so she has way more than enough pictures to give the client. I think she was more worried about how upset I was than the pictures. I'm lucky to have such a nice friend...

Sabriel, we checked the recycle bin immediately when I noticed the pictures were missing. Afterwards, we did a full system scan, looked through all hidden files and folders, and everything imaginable to try to find them. Hubby found some data recovery software and was able to retrieve about 40 photos, which is practically nothing, but still, it's a start! Hopefully we'll be able to find the rest! Thanks for listening to me vent earlier!

If you didn't write anything on the computer, you can use some restore program. Some can "undelete" files

Thanks Ramona! I definitely haven't saved even ONE file since those pictures diappeared! Everything has gone on a flash drive so that I don't overwrite where they were and make it impossible for a program to retrieve them. I have software running right now, but it takes a while...

At least nothing too calamitous (sp?) has happened, like the client demanding to see your photos instantly. And it's great that your friend had such a nice day. Since your work obviously takes a lot of time and effort, maybe it would be worth investing in a removable harddrive that you can transfer the files across to so you have a backup copy?