So there I was a Private Pilot happily exploring this planet by air sharing the stories of my
travels here on this YouTube channel when one day they told me that there was a tumor growing
on my brain and suddenly everything paused if you watch the video I posted about that
you'll know therefore I had to stop Flying and I was told that I would need brain surgery to
have the tumor removed but I'm very pleased to report that I'm actually back from that surgery
which I had 5 weeks ago as I record this so let me update you on the brain surgery I'll
tell you what I've been doing since that point and also what the future looks like
for me and my flying and I will share with you in this video a story of a friend of mine who
almost exactly and very spookily predicted this entire thing before it even happened
So I was admitted to hospital one day before the actual surgery itself and on that day they
did some CT scans they did lots of checks on Me on the day of the surgery itself I then woke up I was
told to have a shower put on the hospital gown and those very attractive Hospital compression socks
that they make you wear that is a look that I will not forget I was then put on a trolley wield into
the theater and I'd love to tell you what happened there in surgery but look if any of you have been
through something similar like this you'll know what it's like the anesthetist makes sure you're
okay they tell you to count backwards from 10 by the time you get to about 8 you're waking up
somewhere else with no recollection of what happened in that period of time now I don't
want to share every single detail with you here in this video I hope you can appreciate as well
there are some parts parts of this that I do want to keep private and personal to myself but what I
can tell you is that the surgery itself well it went really well it went as well as they could
have been expected the tumor was removed I had another scan done the next day another CT scan
where they told me that basically everything had gone as well as it could go and on the scan
where I used to see a picture of the tumor from previous scans now I was looking at a new version
of my head which did not have a tumor inside there I'd also just as an aside I'd forgotten
how noisy it is filming this is my only my second time back at the airport I'll tell you more about
that in a second I've forgotten how noisy it is when it's windy and the hanger doors are anyway
I'm not complaining it's very good to be back the next day I was actually allowed to go to one of
the general Wards and that's where I stayed for a few days during that point the nurses actually
encourage you to get up and walk around you know it's good to keep the muscles moving good to get
the blood flowing so I started doing these laps of the hospital Ward and on one of those
Labs I actually discovered a door which I hadn't seen before which led to a Terrace where you could
actually go outside the hospital and one of the things that you want more than anything else
when you've been stuck in hospital for a while is fresh air so I walked through the door out
onto the Terrace I found a bench where I could sit down and I just took in the fresh air and enjoyed
what was actually a really nice view over the northern suburbs of Melbourne but in the distance
I noticed something very familiar and as I look closer I realized that from that viewpoint on
the balcony in the hospital I could actually see the control towers of Melbourne's International
Airport and so I just sat there for a good half an hour just 2 days after having surgery
watching the planes coming in and watching them take off again from our International
Airport and it was at that moment that I felt I was no longer just a patient in a
hospital I was Steph again I was just regular old me getting excited watching
planes taken off and Landing again that was a really important moment as when I felt normal
again four bread rolls and a pot of hummus for lunch
[Music] so I left Hospital 4 days after I had the brain surgery and before I went my neurosurgeon
came up to me and he said he said now go home and live a boring life and so that's exactly
what I've been doing I've obviously been resting sleeping a lot but I've been watching TV playing
some PlayStation I've also been reading quite a lot as well I did a blog post the other day of
some of the books that I've been reading I I'll link to those down below as well and I'm working
on my health and fitness I'm walking every day I'm exercising as much as I can just building
my my strength up so I'm ready when I do come back that I'll be a stronger and better version
of myself than before and I'll certainly have less brain tumors than I did last time I flew
a plane I'm in a good place honestly I'm in a really good place but I want to tell you one
other thing as well um this is incredibly spooky and I've never put this on YouTube before but
you remember when I flew to East Teo with my good friend [Music] Michael Michael flew a plane around
the world and he knew that was something that I wanted to do as well so he decided we should do
this trip to East Tour as practice for me I was reviewing some of the footage from that trip and
I found this clip of us having a conversation which bearing in mind everything that I've been
through the last couple of weeks um yeah I keep wondering when when this will happen for me how
old were you when you did yours Michael I must have been 45 yeah yeah yeah cuz I will so I'll
be older than you when I do it you know part of me would say you'd hate to leave it 3 years
and you lost your medical like so to say I'm going to do it in 4 years um there is a there
is a danger in that time frame something happens that means that you can never do it yeah now I'm
not saying I could have done my round the world trip between then and now but that conversation
and especially watching it back now on the other side of having had this surgery and
kind of having been given this second chance in my life it just really reminds me that nothing
in life is permanent something that I at that time thought was so unlikely to me I mean I'm a
relatively healthy 40-some year old person flying around running marathons that conversation we
had over the team orc that was just 17 months ago before I was on the operating table having a brain
tumor removed so as I sit here in the cockpit of echo Yankee Zulu you may wonder what the future
holds when will I be back here in this aircraft flying it as pilot in command that is a good
question so I will admit this is actually the second time I've been back here to my
home airport of morbin since I've had the brain surgery to be able to see
this aircraft for the first time since having that brain operation that was a big moment for
me still flying
so the reason I haven't specifically answered the question then of when will I be flying again is
because I'll be honest with you I don't know at the moment but I'll tell you what the plan is cuz
I think that will help some of you out there who may ever go through something similar I hope you
don't but in case you do this is what I'm going to be doing the first thing I'll be doing is talking
to cassa that's our regulator in Australia and AED who deal with the medical certification I'll
work with them work with my neurosurgeon we'll come up with a plan for when I'll be legally
allowed to fly as pilot in command again but between now and then what's really important
to me is as well is I want to continue to fly I can't go flying with a mate even if they are
A Private Pilot themselves I need someone like a qualified instructor just like if you were doing
a trial instructional flight for example where you want to fly the aircraft but you don't have
the legal certifications and ratings to be able to do that Aviation is such a perishable skill
that I don't want to all of a sudden get a letter saying I've got my medical back I can go flying
again and realize that I haven't actually operated an aircraft for as I record this
it's 3 months I also need to get my instrument proficiency check done as well cuz my instrument
rating would have lapsed and get myself to a point where not only do I feel like I've got my skills
back to the level that they were at before but I've also got my confidence in the aircraft back
[Music]
again two things I want you to learn from this experience that I've had the first
one is I want you to treat your health like you would treat the engine in your airplane
if you're flying along and everything's going smoothly but then all of a sudden something
doesn't feel quite right if you hear a noise or something isn't quite doing what it used
to do then stop just like you would in a plane land somewhere stop slow down and go and see
someone who knows more about that than you do I was very lucky in this situation because I had
a few headaches a few pains here and there it wasn't anything big but I saw my GP who
recommended I go for an MRI and in that scan that's when they found the tumor had I've left
it any longer you know maybe my future wouldn't look as bright as it currently does thankfully
as it currently does right now the second thing is if you have dreams and Adventures and plans
and things you want to do then don't wait I can be guilty of pontificating I have big ideas and
big plans and sometimes I even tell you about them here on YouTube and I don't always follow
through with them so from now on I'm going to keep reminding myself of what Michael tried to
warn me about over the t- orc that you never truly know what's around the corner that I should stop
things off just because I don't think the plan is perfect yet the adventures come in all shapes and
sizes and the very best time to do that Adventure is right now I'm just really grateful to have been
given this second chance in my life to be able to fill it with as many Adventures as I can now
however big however small and share as many of those as I can with you here on YouTube thank you
as always for watching Big love to you all I'm going to hug my plane now it's good to be back