My Second Birthday

Today, January 4th, 2026 - I, Brandon Magee, am celebrating my second birthday.

I suppose that deserves some explanations. 

First and foremost, I did not exit my mother's womb two years ago today. In fact, my actual memories go back to the Carter administration. I have been working long enough at my current place of employment that a person born when I started would be legally old enough to drink in every country in the world with the exception of the African nation of Eritrea. So, yes, by all conventional measures of measuring ages, I am not turning two today.

However, there is reality and then there is a different reality that also exists and is also true. And it is in this different reality (which intersects with "actual" reality) where I am having a birthday today.

Since SARS-COV-2 (aka Covid-19) became a reality that hindered the entire world in 2020, my life has been less than ideal. Not that I am the only one whose reality has taken a hit during this time. However, when my wife Dawn was diagnosed with cancer in 2023 (a story for a different day), the painful reality of having to guide another loved one through cancer treatments was thrust upon me. Unfortunately, the burdens of caring for my wife meant that I was not as mindful of my own health. Missing and more importantly not rescheduling medical appointments for myself. When her first round of chemotherapy treatments ended in late summer, it should have been a time for us to start living again.

On September 5th, 2023, I visited a local walk-in clinic. While I technically had a primary physician at that time, I had not been to see him in multiple years, and I did not feel comfortable in going to see him at this time for a multitude of reasons. I had been extremely sick (calling out from work for four straight days), had a horrible never-ending cough, but they didn't see anything on the tests that they did. There was an assumption that it may have been a bout of Covid... and they sent me on my way. 

I muddled through for another month, managing to go see Babymetal a few days after the first appointment. However, I was still very much unwell. I went back to the walk-in clinic in early October because I still could not shake the illness. Again, they had no explanation for why I was still not feeling well... but this time they did order some antibiotics. Normally, without a solid rationale for why I should be taking antibiotics, I would have refused. However, my illness was such that I felt it was worth a try despite the downside potential risks. Surprisingly, the course of antibiotics did seem to give me some relief.

In November, my wife went back to the hospital due to intense pain. The cancer had come back. Which meant a daily life of going to the hospital and then going to work. Once she was out of the hospital, she went to a rehab facility which just changed one destination in my daily travels. I was running myself ragged. I was also starting to feel physically worse. I was extremely tired. I was starting to not have the same type of balance that I had always had. I stumbled and eventually fell in a back hallway at work, banging the back of my head as I fell. I was, quite literally, slowing down. Once Dawn was home, we again attempted to do the normal day to day things that one does. As it was the Christmas season, we went to visit her brother just before the holiday. I attempted to participate in the conversation but eventually ended up excusing myself and lying down on their couch. Strangely, headaches were also beginning to happen on a much more frequent and debilitating basis.

On January 1, 2024, I woke up with a headache that was really really not good. One might even call it debilitating. However, the lure of money for working the holiday made me go into work. It was only going to be eight hours. I then had two days off to rest. Everything was going to be fine. Yet, the headache despite medication never dissipated. Still, I did my job. Until... I didn't. What has been relayed to me is that I was getting something off a printer when I apparently screamed in torment and fell to the ground. I have no actual recollection of this or of the next several days, but I was taken to the hospital. Where I was given an MRI, which showed a 2cmx4cm mass on my brain. According to notes from that time in the hospital, I agreed to have a neurosurgeon open up my skull and take this mass out. 

On January 4, 2024, a team of doctors went and opened up my brain and took out this mass - a mass that turned out to be an abscess. An abscess that upon further study, turned out to be formed from fusobacterium. Fusobacterium that had apparently jumped from a diseased tooth and into my brain. Quietly growing until it loudly detonated.

The recovery from this episode and from the surgery was strangely quick and yet, absurdly slow. The confidence in my answers to questions were met by dumbfounded looks from those asking the questions as my brain's pathways furiously reconfigured themselves so that I could actually give correct answers. Like, I knew where I worked and what I did for a living... yet couldn't properly name the place that I worked for multiple days. I suppose, the question is still out whether I have completely recovered from this episode. Or, if anyone who has such a traumatic experience ever does.

Yet, it was only two weeks after having major brain surgery that I was at home. And, getting ready (as best as I could) to get ready for the next round of chemotherapy for my wife. The cycle of trauma was nowhere near ending.

Two years ago on this day, doctors rebooted my brain.