A NEW LIFE BY THE SEA
- By Jackie Commissar
- •
- 27 Jan, 2019
OUR WONDERFUL VIEW
OUR PIECE OF PARADISE
It was now 2014 and we had sold our house and were planning our move to our beautiful beach front apartment in Spain.
The cosmetic business that Stephanie &I had enjoyed was no longer a viable project as Stephanie had decided to move to Scotland, and we were off the Spain, so we parted company after a fond farewell and both began another new chapter in our lives.
The move from our house in the UK to Spain was fraught with problems. We had already totally furnished our Spanish home, yet we had also had a houseful of furniture and household equipment to dispose of or to take with. We managed to sell most of it but still had a huge van filled with all our possessions booked to drive to Spain.
Once again, my emotions were all over the place, should we be doing this, leaving our precious daughter and grandchildren in the UK. Poor Katie was going through the trauma of a divorce and trying to deal with her emotions, should we stay to help her through it.
Katie did not want us to stay in the UK, she had seen us go through so much stress with business and she tried to explain that by us going to live by the sea without the stress that we had been experiencing, would help her to deal with her situation. She explained that she constantly worried about us and knowing that we would be happy in the Spanish sunshine would help her get through this difficult time.
We knew we were only approx. 2 hours flight away and would be coming back the UK on regular visits, also Katie and the children would be spending every summer with us in Spain for at least 5 weeks, so we reluctantly packed up and left for the sun.
It’s a strange thing that I had never understood how some of my friend’s parents could live in Spain when I was young, after all they didn’t speak the language and why would they want to leave their families and set up their home there. It is not until you spend time on this coast, the Costa Del Sol, that you understand the beauty of the place.
When you visit Marbella and its surrounding towns you will find that most people speak English and there are thousands of expats living there.
When Marbella first became popular with the British, retired couples decided that they had had enough of the English weather and were able to sell their homes and buy new ones for a fraction of the price in Spain.
Unfortunately, there was a lot of crime on the coast, stories of people like ‘The Great Train Robbers’ hiding on this coast were reported, there was also a lot of money laundering.
The Arabs had been the first to spend millions on building magnificent villas and homes in Marbella, they also bought beautiful enormous boats which they moored in the famous Peurto Banus, and to this day you will see these fabulous yachts and expensive cars when visiting this port.
After many years of the Arabs predominantly occupying the coast, the Russians then came and invested their money in property. They did not stay as long and in recent years the laws have changed and been enforced.
Every 10 years or so there is a boom in the property market and you will see huge cranes everywhere building new stunning developments of homes on the beach or in the mountains with incredible views.
During the time that we have owned our apartment we have seen the property market completely crash and build back up again, when we bought our home in 2002 it was booming on the coast, but it wasn’t long before we saw a crash in the market and the laws become a lot stricter as to where builders were allowed to erect their developments.
There is something about this crazy place that makes you want to be there, whether it’s the holiday season, when you will see thousands of Brits arriving with their children to soak up the Spanish sun or experience the quieter times when the weather is cooler, and the husbands play golf while the wives get together for a delicious Mediterranean lunch in a Chiringuito (beach bar). It’s a relaxed atmosphere and we are so lucky to have made so many friends, and to also get together regularly with old friends who have holiday homes on the coast.
When we first bought our home, we would invite friends and family to come and stay with us regularly, this resulted in a couple of our closest friends, and Tony ‘s sister and her husband, buying homes on our development. As our children produced their children we would find in the summer months that there would be an influx of grandchildren arriving, they have all become firm friends now and every year we enjoy seeing how they have all grown.
Luckily Rob & Sky have been able to come to visit us every summer for their holiday, so the whole family enjoy 2 weeks together. Its chaos in our 2-bed apartment with the 3 grandchildren sharing the 2ndbedroom and Rob & Katie bedding down in the living room, but we all love it, and Tony and I look away from all the mess and the clothes that pile up all over the place!
In 2014 when we moved I was still actively working my network marketing business with ‘It Works’ because it is an online business and I could work from my lap top anywhere. I recruited some friends to join my team in Spain and before long we were holding ‘wrap parties’ in local hotels and restaurants and having fun. The wonderful thing about my business is that when I am working alongside fellow distributors and attending events it is always great fun.
Once we had finally settled down in our apartment and had done some refurbishment, we decided that we wanted to spend some time with Rob & Sky in Florida. We were getting used the living in the sun and wanted to escape the winter months, even though they were never that cold in Spain.
We spent 3 months with Rob that year, we helped him organise his home, which he was now living in on his own. My motherly instincts kicked in and I cleaned the house and did his laundry for him and painted Sky’s bedroom and kitchen with some help from Tony!
We also enjoyed a great Xmas with Katie and Harry & Ruby in Disney World sharing a beautiful rented villa.
We had looked at some property developments near to where Rob was living and loved one in particular which was called ‘Riverstrand Golf & Country Club’, it had great facilities and we decided that we should invest in 2 apartments, renting one out and staying in the other one on future winter trips. We had sold our home in the UK and we funded this investment with the money from our house.
Property in the USA is considerably cheaper than the UK so that was how we were able to purchase both apartments and in August 2015 we were the proud owners of 2 fabulous condos in Sarasota Florida.
I flew over to Florida to sign on the new properties without Tony, as unexpectedly they needed for one of us to be present when the final paperwork was completed, so Tony stayed in Spain with Katie and the children and flew out on another flight in September.
This meant Rob & I ran around furnishing the apartments together and we had the best time! This was something we were, and still are, very good at doing which is spending money!
I couldn’t believe that when you chose furniture they would arrange delivery for the next day! In the UK it would take 6 weeks to have any furniture delivered. Within 2 weeks I had completely furnished both apartments, I had delayed delivery until Tony arrived, so I could be sure he was happy with everything.
It was such an exciting time, the apartments looked fabulous when we had finished and before long we were enjoying all the facilities of the clubhouse at Riverstrand with its restaurants and pools. Tony was playing golf, and that Xmas Katie and the children came and stayed with us for another wonderful holiday.
In 2016 during our next trip to Riverstrand I started to experience excruciating pain in my back and my left leg, the pain shot into my foot and I couldn’t get relief. Being in America I had no idea how I would deal with this problem and I just hoped it would go away. I found a chiropractor who carried out laser treatments and massage etc. Nothing seemed to help and eventually after calling an ambulance when the pain was so bad, and being given morphine to relieve it, I was advised to get an MRI.
Thank goodness we had travel insurance and the company were brilliant, they immediately agree to pay any costs involved with treatment which helped to relieve my stress.
I continued with the treatment with the chiropractor and arranged to get an MRI, but first I had to keep a very important date.
We had booked a trip to Las Vegas that year to see Andrea Bocelli in concert, there was no way I wasn’t going, with or without pain. I dosed up and hobbled through the airport to board the plane using my adrenaline to make the trip. The excitement helped me to try and forget the pain and discomfort, we stayed in the fabulous Cosmopolitan Hotel on the famous strip and had the most amazing time.
I was living on very strong painkillers and when we returned back to Florida I finally had the MRI that would reveal a cyst that had appeared on my spinal nerve. The chiropractor had requested the scan and was the one to deliver the news, he said that it must be dealt with by a Neurosurgeon and that there was nothing else they could do to help relieve the pain.
I scoured the internet looking for neurosurgeons who specialised in this condition. I learned as much as I could about condition discovering that it was quite common to get these cysts as we age, but mine was sitting on a nerve which created a problem.
I finally found a surgeon who had a fantastic resume and reputation, and who specialised in delicate spinal surgery and went to see him. He immediately explained the severity of the condition and explained that if it wasn’t removed very quickly it would cause a condition called ‘drop foot’ where the nerves in the foot become damaged and I would be dragging my foot when I walked. I was petrified and proceeded to book the surgery for the 2ndJanuary with trepidation.
By this time Katie & the children had arrived for their annual trip and I really did not want to spoil their time with us. I was determined to enjoy the Xmas holidays and tried to hide my fear from the family. I knew how serious this surgery was and should anything go wrong I could be paralysed. Even though I had researched the surgeon religiously and had done all my homework, I was still in a relatively strange country away from friends and relatives who would have given me personal recommendations.
Katie and the children were not coming until after Xmas day that year, they were spending Xmas day with their dad and coming to stay with us afterwards. Rob & I decided that we would drive to Miami and surprise my sister who was throwing a party with friends to celebrate Xmas day. I was able to drug myself up to help the pain for the 4-5 hr drive and Rob dressed up in the snowman’s suit we had bought to make it even more fun. We parked nearby to my sister’s house and waited until all her guests arrived then we crashed the party and had a wonderful night celebrating with my sister.
After a great time with Katie and the kids spending New Years Eve on the beach watching fireworks it was time for them to leave and for me to prepare for the surgery.
I was petrified but could not believe how quickly the surgery was done. I went into the hospital at 6.30am and was home by 10.30 after an anaesthetic. The surgeon was amazing and removed the cyst from my spine and within days I was up and about and so very grateful that I was no longer in pain.
We have continued to make these winter trip to be with Rob & Sky for the past 2 years, and during that time we sold our second condo as we decided we would take advantage of the currency exchange. Rob lived in our apt while he rented and then eventually sold his marital home and last year he finally moved into a beautiful new house with a separate bedroom suite for us when we visit, so the next step will be to sell our main apartment and move on to another business or investment…after all that’s what I do!!!
I hope you have all enjoyed my blogs, I really enjoyed giving you all a synopsis of my life so far. I am sure there will be lots more exciting things to come because life must be lived to the full, as you can see from my story none of us know what is around the corner.
I hope that by helping others through my experiences I can at least prove that its never too late to experiment with new ideas and businesses in fact right now my sister & I are embarking on yet another new idea which we hope to launch very soon…so WATCH THIS SPACE!!
Thank you for your lovely comments and for taking the time to read my story, I promise I will be back very soon, meanwhile my message to you all is
1) ENJOY EVERY DAY….AND KEEP THAT ‘GLASS HALF FULL’
2 NEVER LOOK BACK EXCEPT TO CHERISH ALL YOUR PRECIOUS MEMORIES
3) NEVER WORRY ABOUT THE FUTURE, JUST LIVE EVERY DAY TO THE FULL.
4) LIFE IS SO VERY PRECIOUS SO GRAB EVERY OPPORTUNITY WITH BOTH HANDS
5) NEVER FORGET TO SAY, ‘THANK YOU’ FOR WHAT YOU HAVE
Have a wonderful year ahead, dear friends.
The operation...
We were to spend another 3 weeks visiting Tony in the clinic before he could finally be operated on. It had taken some time for the Doctor to discover that the fever was from Pneumonia and he had to ensure Tony’s lungs were clear before he was given an anaesthetic.
I realised that had he been operated on in Malaga with pneumonia he would have been at even more risk of dying during the surgery.
We had booked into a hotel near to the hospital and every day we would visit Tony in the immaculate intensive care unit, which was at the far end of the corridor, where we were asked to gown up and put on shoe covers before we entered. This became a daily ritual and every time we started the long walk along the corridor my heart raced and I wondered how I would find him. The sweet little nurses tried hard to communicate with us and I would nod at them before we went in or shake my head to see how he was doing.
It's strange that I have never forgotten that walk along the corridor, the fear inside of me never abated, would he be alive, would he recognise me, had his condition worsened or improved. The uncertainty was draining us all, we couldn’t even talk to each other on visits the emotions were running high and it was always Rob that was the positive one, he used to say to Katie and I ‘dad will be fine today, you wait and see’ bless him he was constantly trying to keep up our spirits.
During those weeks Tony’s family flew to Zaragoza, and his sister stayed with us for a while. It was a harrowing time because we were only allowed to visit at certain times and we never knew how he would be or whether he had suffered a setback or another bleed. He was kept very still and the nurses were angels. Unfortunately, apart from Dr. Calatyud nobody in the hospital spoke English, on fact nobody in Zaragoza spoke English. On the Costa Del Sol, most people spoke English as there were so many British Ex-Pats living there, so we were spoilt.
Tony would scribble little pictures to the nurses if he was thirsty or for other reasons and bless them they tried hard to learn the language even buying translation books. Katie was learning fast how to understand Spanish and she was our translator.
I kept in constant contact with Ana my beautiful new friend who had stood by me with Patrice her husband from day one, often asking her in the early hours of the morning questions that were worrying me and making sleep impossible.
Ana, I learned much later, was also suffering from emotions throughout this whole thing, she was totally traumatised and worried for me and the children, she was speaking to Dr. Calatyud in their mother tongue for hours and translating whenever he wasn’t able to explain clearly about Tony’s condition. Later Ana & I were to realise that we were meant to meet as we shared so many feelings and emotions. I will never forget how these dear friends helped me in my time of need.
Zaragoza is a beautiful city but only if you are a tourist and are there to enjoy the sites. Apart from the language barrier, we struggled to find restaurants where they served food that we were used to. We finally found an Italian style restaurant offering pasta dishes and we finished up going there most nights. Katie & I tend to eat when we are stressed and when we weren’t eating meals we were buying unhealthy sweets and chocolates to eat in between meals, Katie filled a carrier bag with them and carried that bag everywhere with biscuits for Tony and other favourite food she thought he may like.
During the long hours when we couldn’t visit Tony in the hospital we tried to keep occupied, I would take long walks and then write a diary when I was in my room alone.
Katie’s boyfriend Paul had come for a short time at her request to support her, but it was a new relationship and it put a strain on them both because of the constant worry. Rob would always try and cheer us all up, with his wonderful sense of humour he would often make us laugh, and he would occasionally have to placate Katie & I when the stress caused us to fight with each other. We were sometimes unable to control our emotions, and it would then turn into anger. We both knew that we didn’t mean to hurt each other and it would always end in tears with us hugging and saying sorry. The strain was getting us both down and we knew it, it was a waiting game and we had to be patient.
I was still recovering from my surgery, after having major surgery I was supposed to be resting and recovering, I was in pain a lot of the time and the healing process was taking longer due to the stress, but my mind was on Tony and his condition so it kept me from thinking of myself.
I also spent hours trying to deal with the insurance company, unfortunately, they added to the stress by fighting with me over paying the bills. I was frightened that we wouldn’t be able to afford the treatment, they had said I should not have moved Tony and should have left him in Malaga with the planned surgery, I tried to make them understand the situation and finally, they agreed to pay for the surgery, but at that point, we were still arguing over the accommodation costs.
My friends and family back in the UK and in Spain were a tremendous support to us all. We kept in constant contact and they would help me through difficult days when I was losing hope, by being positive and encouraging me to be positive too. I had days when I was convinced he would get through all of this but there were dark days when in my heart I knew I would never have the Tony back that I knew & loved.
When you are facing someone with a brain trauma it is very different from a physical illness that you can often help with by offering sympathy and medication. A brain injury is often so complex that you are not able to help the patient because most of us do not understand what injury the brain has suffered.
As an eternal optimist, I was trying hard to pretend to myself that whatever had happened to Tony’s brain, it would heal and he would back to normal once the surgeon had performed the operation, after all that is what was happening to me, even though I had major surgery to my womb I was beginning to heal and I would eventually be back to normal, this unfortunately is not the case with brain trauma, and I have had to learn this over the years.
After approx. 2 weeks in the intensive care unit of the Clinica Maz hospital in Zaragoza it was finally time for Tony to have his surgery. His pneumonia had healed and his lungs were stable enough for an anaesthetic. We were all cautiously relieved that Dr. Catalyud would finally be able to operate on his brain.
The operation was scheduled and family and friends flew in to support us during the procedure.
We were told to expect approx. 3-4 hours of surgery, so we gathered in the hotel, Tony’s brother Ricky, his sister Lys, Katie Rob and my neighbours began the long wait for the surgery to take place. We had seen Tony before he went down, his head had been shaved and when I saw him I had a terrible fright, but I assured him it was just a small operation to correct the problem that had occurred and he eventually accepted it.
I cannot ever explain the fear and the worry that was inside of me during the long hours, which turned into 9 hours of surgery. I was convinced something terrible had happened, especially after we had been told to expect 3-4 hours, I was inconsolable and nobody could convince me otherwise.
Finally, we heard that we could go to the theatre and wait outside to see Dr. Calatyud. We ran and with the help of our neighbours and we were able to stand at the theatre doors to wait for him to emerge.
I will never forget the site of this little man walking towards us dressed in his green ‘scrubs’ and saying to me ‘2’....
OMG! I thought had he found 2 aneurysms? But no…he was asking for 2 kisses on his cheeks to celebrate that Tony had come through the surgery well.
We then saw him being wheeled through the door heavily bandaged but peacefully asleep. I remember thinking this would never have been allowed in the UK, to stand outside of the theatre waiting to see the doctor, the gratitude I felt at that time to the Spanish friends and Dr. Calatyud was indescribable.
The long road to recovery.....
Tony was taken to a recovery unit while we all celebrated with the champagne that was waiting for us bought by Lys & Ricky. I was elated phoning family and friends all over the world telling them that it was finally over and Tony had come through the long surgery. Unfortunately, Katie was not as ecstatic as I was, and I was later to find out that she had read too much about the after effects that could occur after brain surgery. She worried that Tony wouldn't know us, or be able to talk or walk, but she kept this from me and I was unaware that she wasn’t celebrating with us at that point.
We were told that Tony must rest as much as possible during the following day that ensued, but Dr. Calatyud explained he must eventually waken and be conscious so that he could check all his vital statistics. This was due to happen on one morning several days later when we were visiting him, and we tried to wake him up. Several attempts were made to get him to react and to wake but he resisted. It was almost like he was in a coma, I was terrified.
Finally, during that visit Dr. Calatyud was called because the nursing staff and his nephew, who was assisting him were were suitably concerned that they could not get a reaction from Tony. It was yet another setback which I was getting used to. The little surgeon arrived to see Tony in a deep slumber and then proceeded to pinch him in the groin and the neck in the 2 spots which he knew would bother him enough to wake up. Tony shot up in bed swearing at the surgeon for hurting him…it had worked, Tony was awake!!
It was now time for the healing process to start before we could arrange for his transport back home to the UK. Rob had taken a lot of time off from his job in PR and he was being asked to return. We knew he would have to leave and tearfully we took him to the airport and we all hugged and cried while he boarded the plane back to the UK.
Katie & I helped each through the following days, Katie was unbelievable with her dad, she would spend hours massaging his legs and feet making sure that his muscles didn't get too weak. We were only able to visit him at certain times and during the long empty hours in between we did what we always do when we are stressed, we ate!
Finally, it was time for Tony to fly home. I had contacted the insurance company to see if they would cover the cost of the journey, we needed to fly him in another private plane equipped with some of the same medical devices that had been in the plane from Malaga. They refused to pay for this, insisting that he was well enough to be driven by ambulance to the nearest airport that would fly direct to London, this would have taken hours. They were then only prepared to pay for a commercial flight which would have been full of tourists. This was not an option!
Fortunately, I had close friends who could help me arrange a private plane, I knew we would have to cover the cost of this but didn't care at this point, I was not going to compromise Tony's recover after all we had been through.
I asked Dr. Calatyud if he would accompany us on the journey and then we would turn the plane around for him to return to his hospital. He agreed which was a huge relief for me. I don't think I could have handled any kind of relapse from Tony on my own, and on a flight.
Katie flew home on a commercial flight, and we arranged to meet at the London hospital that Tony would be transferred to on his arrival back to Luton Airport.
Thank goodness Tony made the flight and I bade a fond farewell with many tears to Dr. Calatyud and waved him off on the plane back to Zaragoza.
We had a waiting ambulance at the airport and Tony was made comfortable for the journey back to the Wellington Hospital in North West London to be under the care of another neuro-surgeon who Dr. Calatyud had been in touch with.
When Tony & I recall this traumatic time in his life he has no memory of anything except that ride from Luton Airport to the Wellington Hospital.
See you next blog......