One month ago today I had brain surgery. September 11th will always have a dual meaning for me from that day forward.

I was terrified the morning of the surgery while we sat in the surgical prep area. We all tried to be strong for each other but it was hard.

That was far different than when I had my shoulder surgeries. 

While any surgery brings about a certain amount of fear, the brain surgery shook me to my core. We trusted my neurosurgeon and he helped us to feel calmer but we didn’t fully know what to expect.

When I finally came to I was hooked up to so many monitors, several more than I was connected to after my shoulder surgeries. The humorous thing was that in this neuro ICU room with probably millions of dollars of equipment, they had a very old TV hanging from the wall.

That first 24 hours post-surgery was really hard. My heart rate became irregular which meant being hooked up to even more monitors. I threw up several times and had to be given a shot. Laura wasn't able to stay with me overnight so I didn't have anyone there.

It was rough. 

Fast forward a month later.

Though I slept an hour less last night, I still slept well. I was able to sleep for about 4 hours straight before waking up for the first time. This was important because the previous 2 nights I woke up within a couple hours of falling asleep.

I continued to get my calendar organized for starting back to work next week, jumping meetings back into the schedule. While I am still on medical leave, calendars fill up fast so I needed to spend time scheduling meetings this morning. This becomes even harder when you can only work 20 hours per week instead of my normal 50 hours per week.

I started using Squarespace 7 (their newest version) last night and today. It is a major upgrade to the platform. It has been fun learning a new platform, which was the goal, instead of just defaulting to what I know best being Wordpress. 

I am behind in finishing up the new feature for Built Unstoppable. The past few days I have fallen off track. I am planning on spending time working on it more tomorrow to prep it for launch next week. 

We opened our new Raleigh campus today. It was a trip that I had been looking forward to for several months since so many of my colleagues were in Raleigh for the ribbon-cutting ceremony. Fortunately my team shared out a ton of content through our social channels.

When I see how we’re impacting communities such as Raleigh it makes me even prouder to work for Citrix. We have several other new buildings under construction around the world right now including one in Santa Clara where my office is. I’m not sure if any of them will be able to beat the new Raleigh office but it will be fun to open the doors on them.

Prior to heading to physical therapy I hit up the gym. I decided to bump up the resistance on the stationary bike (5). I was feeling good throughout the workout, happily breaking 7 miles in 30 minutes.

Physical therapy was hard, as I expected it to be. My left shoulder was significantly tighter today but I still pushed through all of the aquatic exercises. 

Though painful, a lot of the work we’re doing now is resistance-based exercises which makes me happy and is something that I’m familiar with.

After much thought I have decided that next Tuesday when I return to work is the perfect time to start mixing in other content again after 2 months of almost exclusively sharing content about my recovery. 

I know that I have likely overthought this more than is necessary but, as I have mentioned before, it hasn’t felt right to share other content intermingled with my recovery updates.