Brisbane legend Jonathan Brown has returned to public life, after undergoing brain surgery in March to have a “golf ball” sized tumour removed.
After a successful procedure and time at home recovering, the 44-year-old spoke in-depth for the first time about his ordeal on Fox Footy on Monday night.
Jonathan Brown and his wife Kylie after the brain surgery. Jonathan Brown via Instagram
He thanked his wife Kylie for pushing him to get a brain scan, after a career plagued with concussions and big hits to the head.
“It was just the nagging wife – and before you blow up at home, she’s got a saying now that ‘nagging wives save lives’,” Brown said.
“I guess there’s probably always that doubt when you read all the headlines about head knocks over the journey.
“Anyway, I finally gave in to Kyles and I got a head scan. Obviously, the last thing I was expecting when I got the phone call was that I had a brain tumour, but I had a brain tumour nonetheless.
“So I think that was the first for the AFL program, they don’t normally expect that. But fortunately enough, Gavin Davis, the surgeon, was able to get it out and fortunately enough it wasn’t a serious tumour.”
The goal kicking champion admitted the scariest part was how quickly and out of nowhere the scan changed the direction of his life.
“I remember flying home back to the Gold Coast that night – because I said I had to go home to the family for a few days to process this. My head was spinning, just thoughts running through your mind … You’re just hoping and praying that it’s not ‘it’, because you’re thinking of the kids and the family,” he said.
“A few days later, the last thought I had before I went to sleep … I’m lying on my bed and at the end of my bed are the TV screens where Gavin is going to work off the screens and there’s my brain just sitting there, a road map of my brain.
I’m thinking: ‘Six or seven days ago, I was going about my business, how the hell did I get here a week later? I’m about to have my skull cut open and a tumour is going to come out of my head and I hope like hell I wake up and I’m still the way I am normally’.”
Brown said once the surgery was complete, he then had to wait nervously to find out if it was cancerous.
“I got told on the first phone call you need an open brain surgery. I hadn’t even spoken to the surgeon, you go: ‘Hang on a minute, you normally don’t have open brain surgery for something minor.’
“Fortunately enough they get it out and then you still have to wait for the initial results. I had to wait another four or five days and got the word back that it certainly wasn’t a Grade 3 or 4 tumour, so you breathe a deep sigh of relief.
“But, yeah, I tell you what, it puts things into perspective.”