5. Post Op, grief, and collapse of comfort. The toughest of times.
5 weeks after my microdiscectomy I started aquatic physical therapy. At first, my 80 year old pool appointment counter parts were showing me up. I marveled at their speed and strength and it made me doubt I would get back my physical abilities. Even in the water, being near weightless, it was difficult. At the 6 month point, of twice a week hour long sessions, I was getting better, stronger, and faster. My stamina in life was starting to return. I wasn’t needing naps, muscle relaxers, and frequent rest stops. I thought things were slowly returning to normal.
Then things started to take a turn. The Bertolotti’s issues were still present but managed by avoidance, ice, heat, massages, home soft tissue, and Duexis (800 mg Ibuprofen but coated Pepcid). My PT of 6 months announced he was moving just after I felt dependent on his help. Great. My husband and I decided that we had to move closer to his office because the commute was becoming an issue which also meant I would have to close and relocate my shop after 9 years, leaving my beloved community of strong female lead business owners. I moved from 1200 sq ft organized store front with gallery space to a tiny old dark cramped garage. Just 2 months after our long and traumatic move I finally was going to an appointment with a prominent LA Neurosurgeon (that wrote white papers on Bertolotti’s Syndrome surgical studies). It was a nightmare, I had waited over 4 months to see him and he couldn’t have been less interested in treating me. Immediately after waiting 3 hours in the patient room, being gaslit, dismissed, and sent back out into a dark and closed office; I got a call that my little dog, my ride or die, Lula, had had a seizure at the vet’s office and to come immediately to say goodbye. This started a year long intense voyage of grief and this was just the start.
Lula. The most traveled little lady that was always on the road with me.
Grief is intense. It sparks anxiety, sadness, fatigue, lethargy, racing thoughts, and anorexia all at once. My life started to spiral and I was questioning everything. I lost my health, business, community, and dog and now I questioned my marriage. At multiple doctors appointments the doctors asked about my home life and my support systems. Did I have one? Right before Christmas I couldn’t take the fights or one more thing that didn’t put me first. I felt like I had to choose me or I would die. Newly single, after 12 years, I felt incredible lost, desperate, and sad. I took a girl’s trip with my cousin to the PWN shortly after the start of 2019 and it didn’t help. I was having major issues sleeping and trying to eat. The only positive thing was the anxiety was a major pain reliever. MAJOR. I was living inside a continuous flight or flight adrenaline rush. I was suddenly able to exercise and hike.
I started hiking a ton, and alone. Fear prevented me from doing a lot of things alone but now I didn’t care what happened to me and it was freeing. It was reckless but freeing. Immediately upon returning home from the PNW, I discovered my grandma was entered into home hospice care because of a uti. This once strong woman had stepped in to raise me when my mother passed away when I was 3. Without Grandma Becky and my Aunt Patti I probably would not have made it this far. She tried the best she could to fill that void and provide some normalcy to both my brother and I, she was no angel and wasn’t perfect but she loved me unconditionally. She and my grandpa “Papa” Dan took us on many vacations, day excursions, and we lived with them for extended periods of time when my dad didn’t have his shit together. Now I was here helping her transition out of the prison her body had become. Showing her the unconditional love she once showed me. While it was an active choice to stay up with her every other night for 3 weeks, the full situation was not. I was in no condition to help anyone. You know that phrase they say when you are about to take off on a plane, if there is a drop in air pressure, something about putting your oxygen mask on first before you help others? Well I was running around airless putting everyone else’s mask first. After she passed I was completely numb. I was sick of the toxic family shit. I realized that one of the very few people that was always there for me was gone. I realized that most of my family were fake opportunists and always had out their hands wanting their ounce of flesh. I wanted to make space, distance myself, and most importantly heal. No. That wasn’t in the cards.
Daniel and Rebecca De Leon, my paternal grandparents at my wedding in Kauai, 2006. Both passed in 2019.
Less than a month after my grandma’s passing, her husband, my beloved angel of a grandfather became very sick. The stress of loosing his life’s partner and a cold from his caregiver triggered fever, cellulitis, and his autoimmune condition Bullous Pemphigoid to explode. His body created a reaction that told his skin to separate away and caused giant fluid filled blisters everywhere. I mean everywhere. This evolved into a Bullous Pemphigoid, Bullous Pemphigoid, and Pemphigus Vulgaris outbreaks which wasn’t thought possible or ever heard of by any of his physicians. It was life threatening and very serious as the lesions went into his airways. Again, here I was trying to show unconditional love but as time went on it became apparent that I was the only one willing (though not fully able) to support, help, and care for him. His time in and out of hospitals and rehabs spanned several months and I was there with him almost every day (I think I missed seeing him 4 days in 3 months). I was in the car to and from facilities hours a day, bringing him special food, and advocating for him with doctors, nurses, and case workers. By the time he was well enough to leave the facilities he was discharged to my care. I had about $1000 to my name, was in the middle of a painful separation, trying to heal from grief and surgery, rebuild my business to reestablish myself, and now I was my 88 year old grandfather’s 24/7 caregiver.
On Papa’s first day of freedom from hospitals and rehabs we took a day trip to see the poppies.
Rather quickly I burned through my funds caring for him. Gas and specialty foods for him were not cheap. The emotional toll on him due to all of his life’s changes was greater. I lost 30lbs. I wasn’t sleeping more than 4-5 hours a night and I was beyond exhausted. Then I discovered the little house we were renting (for nearly $4,000 per month) was fully infested with mold. Black mold, fussy mold, IDK, it was all over and bad. A neglected leak in the crawl space went unnoticed likely for years and the El Nino and the costal weather made the bad situation worse. The mold was all over my clothes, furniture, shoes, belts, walls, and appliances. The landlord at first wanted to send a handyman to sand it off and cover with plastic. I turned this down and made her call a real mold abatement company. They wanted to do the remediation while my grandpa and I were living there but I said no. I had been sick once a month since we moved in and now I was realizing why. So she pressured me to leave as soon as possible which was no easy feat. I had no money, I worried about my grandpa’s care, and how was I going to work? Then my recently separated husband lost his job. There was no safety net. Shit got real.
