GLENDALE, AZ — Delia Lucio is back in her kitchen, wearing her gloves and headscarf and adding new cookies to the menu, just weeks after surgeons removed a brain tumor the size of a lemon.
Glendale reporter Kamilah Williams first spoke with Lucio and told her story in September.
Lucio, a Glendale mother and owner of the Little Lemon Grab and Go, had surgery at Mayo Clinic on Oct. 2. About three weeks earlier, she underwent an embolization, a procedure that cut off the tumor’s blood supply so it would be softer and easier to remove.
Surgeons had planned for an operation of about eight hours. It took less time, and they removed the entire tumor, according to Lucio and her daughter, Estrella.
“They got rid of the lemon,” Lucio said. “But the Little Lemon Grab and Go still remains.”
Recovery
Lucio spent about four days in the hospital, then two weeks at a rehabilitation center in Peoria. She said she did about three hours of physical therapy a day, working on balance and on strength she had lost on her left side. She also dealt with numbness and facial drooping.
She says she is improving every day, though her therapists tell her she still leans to the left when she walks. She came home from rehab walking with a walker and able to shower on her own.
Back to baking
Within days of coming home, she was baking again.
“I figured the only way to get back to the old me, the normal me, was to do the things that I was already doing,” Lucio said. “So I pulled out the gloves and the headscarf, and let’s get back in the kitchen.”
Her new menu items include Mexican wedding cookies with pecans. Lucio still has help putting trays in and out of the oven as she regains strength.
Estrella, who flew in from California, stayed with her mother at the hospital and during rehab. She says she’ll never forget the morning she woke up to the smell of baking.
“I walk out, and I’m like, what is that smell? I come out, and I see her adding new things to the menu,” Estrella said. “I’m like, Mom, you have new recipes now? And she’s like, I’m already back in the kitchen. She’s like, today’s my grand opening.”
Estrella said the family leaned on faith through the surgery.
“When I’m scared and when I’m anxious, we pray, because my mom has always said you put your faith over your fear,” she said. “My mom, she’s super mom. There’s nothing that she can’t overcome or come back from.”
A community of prayer
Lucio said the diagnosis brought an outpouring of support from family, friends, and strangers in different cities, states, and countries, including people in Glendale who told her they were praying for her in their churches and homes. She estimated the messages numbered in the thousands.
“It was supposed to be a scary movie,” Lucio said. “What it actually did is it had people in different cities, different states, and different countries reaching out to me. This bad news was turned into something beautiful.”
Lucio still has a road of healing ahead, but says she’s getting stronger every day.
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