Brain Surgery
For about a year, I’d been getting headaches off and on. Bad ones, but spaced out enough to ignore.
Then November 15, 2025 happened.
I was at work, the day was winding down, and I felt another one coming on. No big deal. Head home, pop some Tylenol, go to bed.
At 3 a.m., I woke up to pain so intense it didn’t feel human.
It felt like a knife coming up through the bottom of my jaw, through my nasal cavity, and straight into my right eye socket. Another blade shoved sideways through my jaw. My teeth felt like they were locked in a vise. My right eye felt like it wanted to explode out of my skull. And someone was driving an ice pick into my ear.
Sounds like fun, right?
That round lasted about an hour.
My wife wanted to take me to the ER immediately. I brushed it off. “Let’s wait it out.”
Bad call.
The pain kept cycling all day. Eventually, I went to the ER. They ran some tests, told me I had a headache, and sent me home.
This was no headache, asshole.
A couple days later, I went to Urgent Care. Different doctor. One who actually cared. He said it was most likely trigeminal neuralgia—but I needed an MRI.
While waiting on that MRI, I ended up back in urgent care two more times, each visit flirting with the top of my personal pain scale. For reference, I’ve previously given birth to five bouncing baby kidney stones.
The MRI results showed up in MyChart with one helpful word:
“Abnormal.”
No explanation. Just that.
Within an hour, I got three phone calls:
Neurology, to schedule an appointment
Neurosurgery, to set up a consult
Oncology, asking if I had my life in order
What. The. Fuck.
Stress level officially pegged.
Turns out I managed to stump a brain surgeon.
The MRI showed a tumor on the left trigeminal nerve. Problem was, all my pain was on the right side. He told me that shouldn’t happen—it should be the other way around.
Long story short, we decided to open my skull and take a look around.
Once inside, he did find an issue on the right side and fixed it.
After three days in the ICU, I went home to die.
Well… maybe not die. But I kinda wished I would’ve.
Recovery was brutal.
As I write this, I’m only two weeks into it. I’m doing better, but I’ve got a long road ahead. I’ve got property work that needs to be done. A regular job I’ll have to go back to. And zero patience for sitting still.
But I don’t have a choice.
Ten‑pound weight limit for three months. Then I can add ten pounds per month after that. Try telling someone wired to do things that they’re not allowed to do anything.
And here’s the best part…
I still have the tumor on the left side.
Once I recover from this surgery, I get to do the whole process all over again.
Before the operation, I was scared. But at some point, I came to grips with the idea that I might not come off the table alive. I realized there were a few things I wished I’d accomplished before dying—but there wasn’t much I could do about it then.
I did come off the table alive.
And now I’m making plans for what to do with the rest of my life.
We only go around this globe one time. It’s short. And now it’s even shorter for me.
But I’ve got shit to get done—for me, my wife, my kids, and my grandkids.
