13/05/2026
Wonderful people who are happy to help every ability achieve their next goal whether it be compassion, companionship, confidence or physical 🤗.
8 years ago yesterday, I underwent a 9 and a half hour surgery to remove my brain tumour.
Afterwards, I couldn’t stop vomiting. I had extreme double vision (where the clock on the wall was actually 2, and they were about a metre and a half apart!) and visual disturbances (everything turned 90 degrees on its side - yep people were literally walking on the walls), permanent profound unilateral hearing loss and tinnitus so severe it genuinely made me question whether I wanted to still be here, a headache from hell, difficulty swallowing, facial palsy, a numb face and mouth and I couldn’t walk or balance properly. All of this along with being catheterised and a painful wound in my stomach with a drain, from where a fat graft was taken to plug the hole in my skull.
People often talk about surgery as though it’s the finish line. For many of us, it’s actually the beginning of a completely different life.
Every year this date feels different.
Some years it feels celebratory; a reminder of survival, resilience and everything I’ve managed to do since.
Other years it feels heavy, grieving the version of me that never came out of that operating theatre. The life, body and brain I left behind that day.
This year feels a bit strange.
Off the back of completing the National 3 Peaks at the weekend, I’m exhausted, broken physically, and very aware that recovery from something like this never really ends. You just learn how to deal with it differently.
And that’s exactly why The Beyond Recovery Project became so important to me.
Because I know first hand how unbelievably hard this “recovery” journey is. The isolation. The identity loss. The fatigue. The invisible struggles people don’t see once the scars heal and treatment ends.
People need support beyond survival.
They need understanding, community, purpose, movement, adventure, hope… and people who actually get it.
That’s what we’re trying to create through The Beyond Recovery Project.
So this year it isn’t really about celebrating or feeling sad. Maybe it’s both. Maybe it’s simply about acknowledging how much can change in 8 years… and how powerful it is to still be here, even on the hard days.
If our work has ever resonated with you, sharing what we do, supporting the organisation, or simply helping us reach more people genuinely means the world.
