What Happened
I had Gamma Knife treatment (brain radiation surgery) in 2021 for an AVM—an arteriovenous malformation, which is a growth of tangled, abnormal blood vessels connected to arteries in the brain. Post-surgery complications left me sensitive to all types of light and stress. When triggered, it causes chronic migraines that last for days.
The Gamma Knife treatment gave me chronic photophobia, which leads to severe, debilitating migraines that last for 2 to 4 hours daily. I reduce my daily output to help prevent them by wearing sunglasses 24/7, minimizing screen time, making sure I get proper sleep, mitigating stress loads, and staying indoors in low-light environments as much as possible. If I lift anything too heavy, I can cause more migraines and, in the worst case, a brain bleed.
The Decision
The top neurosurgeon in Ontario, Canada—whom I found to be pompous when meeting him—laid out my options. I immediately said to my partner, “He’s not cutting into my brain.”
- Open surgery: most risk
- Endovascular embolization (clogging the vessels with glue): medium risk
- Gamma Knife treatment: low risk
- “Go home, research them, and make a decision.”
I wouldn’t have chosen radiation if I’d understood what I was signing up for. I would have chosen the endovascular embolization, because in prep for the radiation I had to do an angiogram—which is nearly the same procedure. They go in through a main artery in the groin and snake a tube up to the brain to inject a special dye near the AVM, just before performing the Gamma Knife treatment. That same process is used for the glue method. I only found that out two days before the Gamma Knife treatment, when I had to sign a waiver. If I’d known, I would have chosen differently.
Daily Life
Every day I fight to keep mentally sane given these restrictions by working out and just trying to do things here and there that I like, limiting how much I do so I don’t trigger migraines.
Every day I reduce my output to 20% to 30% capacity, with my focus being on the ability to work to help take care of family. When I do get migraines, my mood changes into negative territory, which is mostly fueled by frustration and then getting depressed.
Why I Do This
This page isn’t here to sell you anything. It’s here because it’s the reason I do what I do.
Everything above is the same work I now help other people do. Not because I have a certificate—I don’t. But because I’ve spent years learning how to function inside limits that don’t negotiate: managing stress before it manages me, building routines that survive the bad days instead of only the good ones, and staying mentally steady when my body refuses to cooperate.
That’s the life coaching. The fitness side is the same thing with a barbell in it—working out what your body can actually handle today, and rebuilding from there instead of from where you think you should be.
If any of this sounds like where you are, I’d like to hear about it.
This page describes my personal medical experience. It is not medical advice, and nothing here should be used to make decisions about your own care. I am not a physician or a licensed healthcare provider. If you’re facing a similar diagnosis, talk to qualified specialists and get more than one opinion.