This site is purely for friends and family.

I originally started it while recovering from my brain surgery. When I was discharged the nurse said to find no stress options to keep occupied and get my brain working. She suggested blogging and pursuing hobbies as examples. I chose to write, to program (in Coda.io) and to re-engage in my photography as ways to build back my mental capacity. That was the early part of 2022, and it worked, or so I thought. I went back to work feeling my brain was alive and clearer than ever. Then things unwound, and I’ve had to take a sabbatical to reset – see The Truth Is Always Best. So I’m starting to use this blog again, as I journal every day, and not just to capture all my medical details, but to help me personally with my rehab and recovery. As It helps me to share some of that journey, I’ll do that here.

My writing – the story of this blog and my learnings from it.

I’ve always written for work, but prior to my operation never for myself. In hospital I had to write to communicate while my brain really wasn’t functioning. Much of my early writing was scratched out on paper during long nights at the hospital lying awake due to the drugs I was on. Slowly but surely I graduated to typing out my thoughts more coherently. Many were random ideas, but gradually I learned to focus, and found more of my judgement so as to be able to make sense of my thinking. It’s was also an interesting experience, almost a game, to make sure I found the balance between joy and stress, and between just writing, and then editing to deliver something worth reading.

I was very lucky to have my family and gradually my friends review and edit with me. They helped me both critique and validate what I was doing until several weeks later I started to feel I could write more substantively, and purposefully to share more broadly. That said I only managed a couple of posts before being drawn back to work. The first two blog posts I felt I should share are still live here on the site – The (happy) story of a tumor and here – The ultimate gift, and I’m now starting to add new posts as of Jan 29 2023, marking Day 1 of leaving work to start my reset.

All the while I’ve been learning along the way…

I’ve had to re-start my daily life from scratch and as I did, I’ve consciously written (mostly to myself) about the building blocks that have helped me and that I hope might help others as I share them. For example in reading what would help my brain, fairly obviously, exercise is critical. I’ve had to find a way to build up my exercise quite carefully as too much has on occasion set me back as I picked the wrong form and duration. What this taught me was to create a routine and to track it. So that is one of the first follow on articles I wrote – Getting down to business. Routine? 

It all sounded good, but re-reading these later, I’m glad I did blog about this journey, because it helps me reflect on what does and does not work over time. I’ve had to go back to basics again and again, and learn new techniques like mindfulness to build on positivity, as well as develop deeper strength using tools like meditation to not just get short term wins, but figure out how to sustain myself for the long term.

I have had many learnings, the biggest of which is that I failed to re-build my previous resilience into my first attempt at a full recovery and learned the obvious, that without shock absorbers, the bumps in the road ultimately grind us to a halt.

Photography

When I got further into my recovery, I promised myself I’d make some time after decades of taking photographs that I never reviewed, to curate a few of them and post them from time to time in my Photography. I managed 2 or 3 posts and then once again got pulled back into the demands of my work and day to day life. It’s sad to reflect on how fast that happened. I even took a trip to Italy with my brother and so enjoyed the photography and the experience but literally didn’t review a single photograph after I got back. I hope to to rectify that now!

And my photography posts will be updated as I curate, but it’s a very slow process, as at the moment I get overwhelmed fast. So this will be a barometer for me as to whether I’m pacing myself right and building up that resilience I know I’ll need for the long term.

In the meantime, I’m very grateful to everyone who has helped during this whole process. Thank you all – I’m excited to continue the journey to full health and return stronger than ever with many positive learnings and hopefully even inspirations.

If you wish to access my private writing, I’ll not promise to share a password because I’m containing much of it to close friends and family, but feel free to ping me at michaelskok@gmail.com to request one.