A veteran journalist left struggling for words after a brain tumour has written a book about his struggles, recovery and the challenge of ordering coffee when your brain and mouth are on different pages.

Adrian Robson, a former writer, assistant editor and sports editor for The Royal Gazette said that he was inspired to write Brainstorm by Alfredo Quinones-Hinojosa, the surgeon who performed his first brain surgery.

He said: “He was probably the best brain surgeon in the world, so I was very lucky to get him. He had written his autobiography. He said he had never operated on a journalist and he thought it would be a good idea to write a book about the patient’s point of view.

“I gave up about 14 years ago but the last time I was in Bermuda in February a friend said I had to do it.

“Bermuda and the people who live in Bermuda have been a pretty big part in this whole thing. These are the people who gave me the support I needed, people at The Royal Gazette, friends in Bermuda, friends who knew about me.

“Without their support, there’s no way I would have survived.”

Mr Robson, a veteran print and broadcast journalist, began to suffer the symptoms of a brain tumour during a visit to Africa when he travelled there to cover Bermuda’s national cricket team.

He initially ignored advice to seek medical attention but months later found himself at King Edward VII Memorial Hospital after suffering seizures.

A stroke was initially diagnosed, but after he was airlifted to Johns Hopkins, MRI scans revealed an oligodendroglioma, a rare, slow-growing brain tumour.

Mr Robson underwent surgery in 2007 and later returned to work at The Royal Gazette but the tumour returned and he had to go under the knife again in 2013.

While the initial surgery caused him some communication challenges, the second dealt a more serious blow to his language skills, forcing him to step away from journalism.

He said: “When I was a journalist, I really enjoyed it, so when I had to get out it was a bitter pill to swallow.

“If you are a journalist and you get out of journalism, there’s not a lot to do, particularly if your speech is gone and your writing skills are gone. There’s nothing left to do.”

He started work on Brainstorm shortly after his initial surgery but fell away from the project after writing the first five or six chapters.

Writing seemed even more daunting after his second surgery but he turned his attention back to the project after receiving encouragement from friends during a trip back to Bermuda, using language tool Grammarly to assist him.

Mr Robson said: “A lot of the words were typo-ed or scrambled. My spelling is completely shot.

“It would help me correct things that I just couldn’t see. I would look at two or three pages and not observe anything wrong but it would, very quickly.

“It has been difficult. You are trying to write a book but it’s hard to do if you cannot write. It did take some time to do it but luckily I had a lot of people to help.”

Mr Robson said his goal was not to tell a story of “doom and gloom” but incorporate humorous anecdotes into his story. He recalled calling everyone “Neville” after the surgery and inadvertently blurting out remarks better left unsaid.

He said a friend and former colleague, Gerry Hunt, edited the book for him and, to his surprise, two different publishers expressed interest in publishing the book.

Mr Robson said that while the book was available for purchase on Amazon now, it was hoped that it would begin to appear on store shelves in a matter of weeks.

“I didn’t do this for money. I only did this because Dr Q wanted me to write the perspective of the other side of the coin.

“When I was away from work, this gave me something to do. It was a bit therapeutic as well but I am glad it is finished.”