Author and brain tumour survivor has over 475,000 Facebook followers

Adam Nicke was born and raised in South Wales and has resided in the small border town of Chepstow since he was a teenager.

He graduated from the University of the West of England in 1995 with a BA (Hons) in Literary Studies, the same year the first edition of his supernatural books were published.

Fate took a nasty turn in the following years until finally, in 2015, Adam collapsed with what was subsequently diagnosed as a tennis ball-sized brain tumour.

Can you tell us about your experience from finding out about your brain tumour, to surgery and early recovery?

I believe that my brain injury began decades ago. I’ve been told by a neurosurgeon that for a meningioma to have reached 6cm it may have been growing for up to thirty years.

I was 48 years old when I suffered a fit and that was after three years of indescribably physical pain and mental anguish, with various GPs ascribing it to such things as depression.

One Saturday morning in 2015 I drove to my local supermarket, and then on returning home, collapsed on my kitchen floor. Somewhere that morning I’d lost my phone so couldn’t tell anyone.

I’d said on Facebook how ill I was feeling and someone thought to check on me. She called the police, the police called an ambulance, and I was rushed to hospital.

I’m told that I couldn’t inform doctors of my address and that they thought I’d taken an overdose. I was then transferred to a high-dependency head trauma ward in Cardiff. I can remember being told the night before the operation by the Neurosurgeon that there was a chance I wouldn’t make it through the operation the following morning. I believe that I was in surgery for nine hours, suffering tachycardia at one point. When the size of the brain tumour I had became apparent I’ve since been told that the neurosurgery team thought it had to be malignant.

How have you managed recovery and rehabilitation?

I live alone so rehabilitation was very difficult as the only person I had to rely on was myself - made doubly difficult by having to surrender my driving licence for a year.

Since my operation I have suffered from chronic insomnia, often waking multiple times per night, and for prolonged periods. I was B12 deficient but have since had the B12 shots. I am also sensitive to caffeine which gives me a thumping headache.

I now know that I have scarring in the right frontotemporal region and any damage to this part of the brain can affect sociability and disinhibition, which has at times been extraordinarily difficult. I’ve always been a recalcitrant person and despise racism, sexism, and cruelty to animals and so I’m very happy to berate those espousing such values. I haven’t lost any powers of expression, and most people find me a formidable foe if they dare to provoke an argument.

What is life like for you now?

Free of the physical pain and mental anguish the undiagnosed tumour had been causing me I have gone on to have my early works republished, and even written more books. I have Facebook following for my author page and groups of over 475,000.

I find that once they know about my surgery, people assume I’m stupid. But I’m not an idiot.

I recently lost my dearly loved dog. She had seen me through the death of my maternal grandmother in 2012 (my mother having died in 1990), my brush with death in 2015, and the publication of six books and the acquisition of over 475,000 Facebook followers. I was heartbroken without her, but have since gotten a new dog, and she's helping me get over the heartbreak, bless her. It's a joy to watch her play with other dogs and try and make friends with them.

You can read a Q&A with Adam here.