So I Had Brain Surgery

Right, so. I had brain surgery. Last Friday, the 17th. It’s fine, I’m fine, everything is fine — I’m writing this from home and I’m recovering well and there’s really no need to make a fuss.

(There is, objectively, some need to make a fuss. Bear with me.)

I figured I should write something down before the recovery fog lifts enough that I start minimising it in my own memory and convincing myself it wasn’t that bad. That is a very me thing to do. I’m told it was, in fact, that bad.

How it started

I woke up at three in the morning with a headache. Tried to sleep it off — obviously — because that’s the rational first response and I’m sure it would have been fine.

Not a normal headache, as it turned out. The kind that gets you out of bed at 3am despite every instinct telling you to just lie there and hope it passes. I struggled to get downstairs, had some water, and tried to get back to sleep. My working theory at this point was food poisoning, which in hindsight is a very funny thing to have concluded.

A few hours went by. I was still wide awake. And then I was projectile vomiting — all over the bathroom floor. Crying. Apologising heavily to anyone who’d listen, because apparently that’s what I do in a crisis.

That’s the point at which there’s really no more “maybe it’ll pass” — that’s the point at which things move quickly.

A bit of context

This was my first brain surgery as an adult. It was, however, my fourth shunt replacement overall — so, you know. Old hat. Barely worth mentioning.

I have a shunt — a medical device that drains excess fluid from my brain — and it’s not something that always behaves itself. Previous replacements happened when I was younger, which I have very little memory of. This time I was very much conscious and present for the lead-up, which is a whole different experience. It’s one thing to be told, as a child, that you had brain surgery. It’s another to wake up at 3am knowing, in your body, that something has gone wrong.

I knew it would happen at some point. With a shunt, it’s never really a question of whether — it’s a question of when. So really this was just a calendar event I hadn’t gotten around to scheduling.

It was hell. I’ll be honest about that.

Friday and Saturday

It’s mostly a hole.

I don’t remember Friday. I don’t remember Saturday. What I do know — what I’ve been told, and what surfaces in flashes I’d honestly rather not have — is that I was screaming in pain. Not discomfort, not a bad headache: the genuine, visceral sensation that my head was about to explode. Like something inside it had run out of room and was making that everyone else’s problem. Beyond that: nothing. A gap where two days used to be.

I know I was in hospital. I know the surgery happened. The rest is just absence.

For about a day I couldn’t see properly; everything was blurry, which is apparently a perfectly normal part of recovery. Fine. Normal. Whatever.

I was discharged on Saturday night, which felt both too soon and like a relief. There’s a point at which you just want to be home.

Since then

Apparently the first thing I was worried about when I came round from the surgery was my college work. Not, you know, the fact that I’d just had brain surgery — the assignments. College have been notified and have given me the maximum amount of grace they can, which I’m grateful for, and which I mention mostly as evidence that my priorities are completely normal and fine.

I let people know on Bluesky fairly quickly, because I’m fairly open about my issues and it felt odd to just go quiet without explanation. Everyone who’s reached out — directly or indirectly — has been incredibly supportive, and I genuinely wasn’t expecting quite how much that would help. So if you sent something: thank you.

I’ve been resting, which — for the record — I am handling with tremendous grace and not at all spending significant mental energy thinking about my monorepo.

The fatigue is the main thing. That particular post-surgery heaviness where even thinking about doing something is tiring. There’s also a constant low-level nausea that’s just sort of… there, all the time, like background noise — not enough to be dramatic about, just enough to be annoying and vaguely remind me that my body has recently been through something significant. My sleep schedule is completely shot — I only barely know what day it is at any given moment, which is a strange thing to type but is genuinely where I’m at. Things went quiet from the 17th through to the 19th, with only sporadic activity since — I’ve barely been online. Aidan has been around, which has helped more than I can really articulate.

I want to get back into project development. I have ideas, I have things I was in the middle of, and the itch is absolutely there. The energy, however, is not. So that’s fun.

On that note — I do want to apologise for Jasper not being in a better state right now. It’s not where I want it to be, and I feel genuinely bad about not being able to push it further. That one’s on the brain surgery, unfortunately.

I’ll be back to normal eventually. In the meantime I’m taking it slow, which is genuinely not in my nature but which I am attempting to do anyway.

If you’ve messaged me and I’ve been slow to reply: that’s why. I’m not ignoring anyone, I’m just currently operating at about 40% capacity and spending most of the remainder on sleep and very gentle television. It’s totally fine. I had brain surgery, is all.