Carlos Vega loses job, gets cancer, needs surgery

Thirty years ago, when my sister Kelly was dying, she told me that the hardest thing about her whole situation was asking for help. Man, she was not kidding.

Hello, my married name is Tracy Vega. My adopted name was Tracy Bignell. My birth name was Tracy Querry. If you know me at all, then you know I’ve exhausted every option to remedy this situation without having to ask for help. There are no words to explain how humiliating I find this to be.

Please bear with me as I try to explain the confluence of events that led us here. Hopefully, it won’t sound too much like I’m whining or writing a bad country song. I apologize if I seem flippant but without my sense of humor, I wouldn’t be able to get through this at all. Please forgive the bullet points; the swelling in my head and menopause have turned my brain to mush (plus there’s a space limit anyway). Here's the timeline:

1995 - Before she died at just 33 , I promised my sister Kelly that I will take care of our mom

1999 - I moved to Sacramento for a fresh start and to buy my first house; moved Mom up later

1999 - Three days after I moved my mom up here, she had her first heart attack

2000 - I sold my house and Mom sold hers; we bought a huge corner duplex together

2004 - Met Carlos Vega; told him it’s a package deal: me, my mom, my dog, and the house

2005 - Married Carlos, he moves into my two-story side; Mom’s in the smaller one-story side

2006 - Happiest time of my life, little debt, $100K home equity, future inheritance assured

2007 - Infertility treatment (I was already 40) then five miscarriages; I could not carry to term

2007 - Carlos loses his job; fighting a lawsuit caused $20K in legal fees; our savings was gone

2008 - Mom had her second heart attack and then a third which prompted open-heart surgery

2009 - My adoptive father passes from prostate cancer; substantial inheritance expected

2009 - Mom’s memory issues following cardiac rehab force her into early retirement

2010 - Economic downturn; I get laid off; cannot find work; Mom’s income drastically reduced

2011 - Estate issues; my step-siblings destroy the trust, hijack my seven-figure inheritance

2011 - Mom gets officially diagnosed with Alzheimer’s; I become her 24/7 caregiver at home

2012 - Upside-down in the big house; got out of it via short sale and moved into a rental house

2013 - Mom finally gets the Alzheimer’s is terminal; I promise not to put her in a nursing home

2015 - Mom no longer knows me or Carlos; We call her Not Mom now; she’s vicious, combative

2016 - My car accident; CT reveals brain swelling, torn ACL/PCL in R leg, many cracked teeth

2016 - Chronic, brutal headaches. I was diagnosed with Chiari Malformation (explain this later)

2017 - Black mold; we lose $10K furniture, electronics due to a clause in renter’s insurance

2017 - Mom hits me with her cane; punches me in the mouth, causes more broken teeth

2018 - Months of mold remediation; owner decides to gut the house so we have to move again

2018 - Mom has 4th heart attack; dies in hospital 2 hours after we get keys to the new rental

2019 - Keeping my promise to Mom took huge toll physically, emotionally, financially on us both

2019 - I find out Mom let her life insurance lapse and with everything else happening, I missed it

2020 - Just starting to look for work when CoVid hit; Carlos got laid off; my job hunt stalled

2021 - Carlos working again but at a lower rate; new owners enacted a hiring/promotion freeze

2021 - Cancer scare. I had surgery to remove enlarged lymph nodes, thankfully all were benign

2022 - My Chiari is so bad that I don't drive, rarely leave the house, and fall even with a walker

2022 - More tooth loss and a serious gum infection, all upper teeth are removed (Thanks B&N)

2022 - Owner increases the rent again, now we’re in trouble because I still have no income

2022 - Carlos working his regular job plus overtime and also a side gig when possible

2023 - My Explorer’s brakes and rotors are shot and Carlos’s Tacoma blew a head gasket

2023 - Stroke scare. Went by ambulance to ER. Thankfully, not a stroke, just severe Chiari pain

2023 - Carlos promoted so higher hourly wage but now no OT; 2 steps forward, 3 steps back

2023 - Owner raised rent again; Sacramento market is insane; our 3BR/2BA is $1966 per mo.

2023 - Finally reached the tipping point

My car accident in 2016 led to the discovery of something called a Chiari Malformation in my head. Apparently, I’ve had it since birth and since then have had a random collection of symptoms but we never knew that this is what caused them. Sudden trauma (such as hitting a light pole head on while driving with a migraine) can kick Chiari symptoms into overdrive.

Here’s a way-oversimplified explanation. There’s a hole at the bottom of the skull where the brain connects to the spinal cord. In some people, this hole is too small and any swelling in the brain can cause the cerebellum to push out of the skull into the spinal column. This can put pressure on the nerves and interfere with the flow of cerebrospinal fluid and cause many symptoms, the worst of which are these damn headaches. Most days my head feels like your thumb when a cut gets infected. It’s painful, throbbing, and feels like it’s going to split open. On my pain scale of 1 to 10, that’s around a four. This is every day. If it was just that, I could suck it up and still work. For context, I’ve had migraines for 50 years and those are around a seven.

The problem is a physical issue unique to Chiari – anything that puts sudden pressure on the back of the head or neck such as coughing, sneezing, straining, turning the head, looking up, etc., sends pain like a railroad spike into my head. My vision shuts down, I get dizzy even if I’m sitting down, if I’m standing, I will often fall down. This pain (8 or 9 on the scale) can last from hours to days. I’ll need to lay down. I won’t be able to drive. All this makes working a regular full-time job in any field in an external location extremely problematic.

I can’t get Social Security Disability because I haven’t worked in the last ten years - unless I can prove these debilitating Chiari headaches and other symptoms are tied to the head trauma from the car accident in 2016. I last worked in 2010 which is within the ten years so I would then be eligible. There are additional tests I need to prove that, but I can’t get those until I’ve paid the past due Kaiser medical bills for the tests, surgeries, ER visits, MRIs, etc., that I’ve had since the accident.

I’ve checked out jobs where I might work remotely via computer at home on my own schedule (between headaches) to see if I could supplement Carlos's income that way but my laptop is too old to run Windows 11, so it cannot interface with newer computers. (Five years ago, my brand-new computer was among the $10,000 in electronics and furniture that we lost because they were infected with black mold in our previous rental house.) If I work remotely, even if I couldn’t do it for long, if I could just meet the number of hours required for my AFLAC Short-Term Disability policy to kick in, or even State Disability, that would be very helpful.

This summer I reached the end of my rope. In 14 weeks, I fell three times; didn’t break anything but developed incontinence after the worst one perhaps because my latest MRI found two tumors on my thoracic spine. Carlos’s V-4 2002 truck blew a head gasket so he’s driving my 1998 V-8 Explorer because it was cheaper to replace my brakes than repair his truck, but now the gas cost is killing us. The $275 battery finally died on the electric scooter I’d use to get food from the food bank down the street from our house. My doctor’s prescribed insulin but I can’t afford it because of the incontinence supplies. The neurologist wants to try some injections into my head to try and relieve some of the nerve pain. And, oh yeah, I’ve had Shingles for the last six weeks.

Basically, your donations would be paying for medical expenses - past and present, new computer, past-due utilities/rent, new scooter battery, past-due DMV fees, Carlos’s truck repair, prescription drugs including insulin, and if there’s anything left over, denture prep and full-mouth set of dentures for me.

I turn 60 next week and Carlos is going to be 64 in December. The "golden years" are not what I expected nor what I thought I had so carefully planned for. My husband is the love of my life and he's working himself into an early grave trying to take care of me. How could I be laid so low just because a hole in my head is too damn small? I come from a long line of warrior women;

I should be able to overcome this.

This is where my sister Kelly would say, “You can…with a little help.”

Thank you for anything you can give.

Tracy and Carlos Vega

I will post additional information about Chiari Malformation and those Warrior Women.