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"title": "So I Had Brain Surgery",
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"plaintext": "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."
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"block": {
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"plaintext": "(There is, objectively, some need to make a fuss. Bear with me.)"
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"block": {
"$type": "pub.leaflet.blocks.text",
"plaintext": "I figured I should write something down before the recovery fog lifts enough that I start minimising it in my own memory and convincing myself it wasn’t that bad. That is a very me thing to do. I’m told it was, in fact, that bad."
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"level": 2,
"plaintext": "How it started"
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"block": {
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"plaintext": "I woke up at three in the morning with a headache. Tried to sleep it off — obviously — because that’s the rational first response and I’m sure it would have been fine."
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"$type": "pub.leaflet.pages.linearDocument#block",
"block": {
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"plaintext": "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."
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"block": {
"$type": "pub.leaflet.blocks.text",
"plaintext": "A few hours went by. I was still wide awake. And then I was projectile vomiting — all over the bathroom floor. Crying. Apologising heavily to anyone who’d listen, because apparently that’s what I do in a crisis."
}
},
{
"$type": "pub.leaflet.pages.linearDocument#block",
"block": {
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"plaintext": "That’s the point at which there’s really no more “maybe it’ll pass” — that’s the point at which things move quickly."
}
},
{
"$type": "pub.leaflet.pages.linearDocument#block",
"block": {
"$type": "pub.leaflet.blocks.header",
"level": 2,
"plaintext": "A bit of context"
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"plaintext": "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."
}
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"block": {
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"plaintext": "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."
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"$type": "pub.leaflet.pages.linearDocument#block",
"block": {
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"plaintext": "I knew it would happen at some point. With a shunt, it’s never really a question of whether — it’s a question of when. So really this was just a calendar event I hadn’t gotten around to scheduling."
}
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"block": {
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"plaintext": "It was hell. I’ll be honest about that."
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"block": {
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"level": 2,
"plaintext": "Friday and Saturday"
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"block": {
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"plaintext": "It’s mostly a hole."
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"block": {
"$type": "pub.leaflet.blocks.text",
"plaintext": "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."
}
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{
"$type": "pub.leaflet.pages.linearDocument#block",
"block": {
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"plaintext": "I know I was in hospital. I know the surgery happened. The rest is just absence."
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"block": {
"$type": "pub.leaflet.blocks.text",
"plaintext": "For about a day I couldn’t see properly; everything was blurry, which is apparently a perfectly normal part of recovery. Fine. Normal. Whatever."
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"block": {
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"plaintext": "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."
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"block": {
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"plaintext": "Since then"
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"plaintext": "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."
}
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"block": {
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"plaintext": "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."
}
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"$type": "pub.leaflet.pages.linearDocument#block",
"block": {
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"plaintext": "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."
}
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"plaintext": "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."
}
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"block": {
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"plaintext": "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."
}
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"plaintext": "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."
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"plaintext": "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."
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"block": {
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"plaintext": "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."
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