A spinal fluid leak derailed my life of travel and food, but taught me to find beauty in the small things

After quitting her job as a lawyer, Jodi Ettenberg spent years developing a successful career centered around food and travel. A decade later, it all ended with a medical procedure gone wrong. Here, she explains how she processed her anguish and loss.

(CNN) — During any life-changing event, there comes a moment when the fog of the crisis temporarily clears, and you realize with certainty that things will never be the same again.

That moment gets a lot of airtime in books and movies, often as a pivotal, middle-of-the-night epiphany in a protagonist's narrative arc.

Sticking to the stereotype, that moment came for me at 5 a.m., on a morning about two months after I was left incapacitated by a lumbar puncture.