Dream the Ride

This is a set of stories about recovering from brain injuries. It's an accountability journal for me — but I'm also sharing as many insights as I can keep track of. Brain injuries are everywhere, and the consequences are on everyone.

These are stories about traumatic brain injuries from the inside person, me, who is often at war with both his body and mind. It sometimes sucks, but it's also pretty exciting. Again, accountability starts here.

Seven months after I had a 'small' surgery to remove skin cancer from my abdomen, I ended up in the emergency room with brain tumors. There were clues in the days before, but I didn't recognize them then and can't really see how I could have realized that I had brain cancer.

The brain scans were relentless. Two large tumors in separate areas of the brain affecting all sorts of important things, like perception, language, reasoning. And a minefield of smaller tumors scattered through the brain tissue just waiting for their chance to shine. Brain surgery took out the two largest ones and I was back home to recover the next day — except that I couldn't figure out where the different parts of my body were, couldn't talk very well, and couldn't follow a thought or conversation. And my brain hurt. All the time.

This is my story of recovery and recapturing joy.