Suffered a stroke in 2004 (migrainous infarction). Became half blind. Rested for a good year.
Became a photographer for 8 years, then switched back again to software development.
From then on, the limits were: WFH only, limit stress, run away from job if things go bad again. Nap if brain feels exhausted. Sleep, more and better.
20 years later (53yo), I'd say I'm doing great! Also fitness helps remind me to take care of the body...
Tech has built literal industries of people trying to stress you out, and they mostly don't have actual tech skills or the empathy that comes with them so back it up.
For me, I usually try to avoid anything where the working practices are strongly defined. Agile has long been a bad word.
> WFH only, limit stress, run away from job if things go bad again
I’m facing a similar set of health-based restrictions, it’s edifying and impressive how you’ve pushed through. I’m curious: how do you broach this with potential employers and shape your job search/career path around it?
Applying for pure remote positions puts one in direct competition with younger people who can pull obscene hours with no accommodation needs. Leading with disability/accommodation needs feels like the opposite of the ‘best foot forward’ honeymoon phase salesmanship associated with new jobs, and kinda soul crushing regurgitating the circumstances for chronic illness while hoping for a job. And uncontrollable management changes can eliminate medical protections and acceptable working environments, leading to an enhanced need to be able to hop jobs (exacerbating both the previous situations).
I’m fortunate my primary skills are amenable to straightforward accommodations, but you gotta get the job to do the job…
This feels like a very naïve viewpoint.
The reality being that you can't rely on insurance at all. You might have insurance but that certainly doesn't guarantee you'll be financially supported through health issues. You'll also be required to engage in legal battles with your insurance company which might be prohibitively complicated after a brain injury.
No, at least in Germany (pretty sure other western countries too) you are covered after stuff like this. You won't be rich, but enough housing food and your camera.
Had a stroke 2 months ago at 55, after an entire life (professionally since I'm 16) as a dev. I mostly followed these rules apart from when I got dragged into a project that was sufficiently interesting that I started overworking. 12-14h days.
Just don't do that. I used to do that just fine and that's why I thought I was OK. I mean, I USED to go on in huge coding benders, did'nt I ? Well apparently not at 55, when the pressure has been on for months instead of weeks.
Other things to watch -- diet! With the work came less free time, put on weight etc and all the good habits I had built for years, disappeared.
And the worst bit you can think of is "Oh but I'm so CLOSE to being done, I'll just fix it up later when I can relax". Just don't.
I lost all sensation on the right side. It is coming back slowly. I can still work, didn't lose speech or mobility or strength, I consider myself super-mega-lucky in that.
> when I got dragged into a project that was sufficiently interesting that I started overworking
This is what bites. I have some really narrow interest areas that I can end up being obsessive about, to my own detriment. We have to be careful.
Glad you didn't lose mobility and speech! I also feel lucky. I met others in neuro-rehab in far worse situations. For three months I couldn't walk and now thankfully do so with a stick and ankle brace. The hard stuff isn't the stuff you can see visually though. People see my floppy leg, and might presume that's the main thing, but nope. The big thing is the epilepsy, this constant monster present in the background. It's the invisible stuff that's often hard.
> HEADPHONES, blinders, and 'No'. Eliminate unwanted inputs at the earliest point of entry.
Open-floor offices, non-stop emails and chat messages, several meetings scattered throughout the week and the day.
This kills productivity and increases stress and fatigue for people that need to concentrate to work on complex stuff. There's also the time you need to properly switch contexts.
I haven't had a stroke but I did get a nasty tropical mono when I was young. You never quite recover from that one. I've got ibs since. My stomach just gets tired and stops. My mental focus feels the same. I sleep 9 hours a night, often 10 and I'm still tired.
I feel I always have less stamina than other people.
So this list is close to what I have always preached.
Time as in energy is my most precious resource.
Don't let processes suck the life out of you. They're there to serve the people not the other way around.
Strikes close to home. 8 years ago I was in a bike accident that took me out for 4 months. I instantly felt dumber. The headaches became a fact of life, and the need to get out of the house early in the day to avoid brain fog creeping in became a routine.
It... sucks. I've still progressed my career and made significant strides, and come to appreciate things that I never would have noticed if I kept on my previous trajectory, and while I don't think about it much anymore, for years it ate at me.
All of that and parenting. Notifications off, camera off, WFH to the max and keeping the journal of where you were before attention was hijacked by the usual suspects.
How strange to come across someone whose medical stuff so mirrors my own. I was just a decade older and don’t have epilepsy symptoms with meds. I can get behind all the advice here. Running out of “juice” and needing a break is very much thing. Before too but more so now. And taking a lot of semi stream of consciousness notes to help my more limited memory is too.
Good advice. I had one young too; I worked long days and had no life outside my company; it was in an economic downturn so I was also burning out (hindsight). I figured out what was important to me and that all changed everything.
Pre Texting, Pre Email in the 90s I believe this kind of work was normal. All this self motivated, hyper context switching jobs we all do are relatively new compared to human evolvement. And we see the tax on us.
Good advice. I didn’t have a stroke but a couple months ago I developed blindness in my left eye. It came down to my optic nerve being inflamed. I was later diagnosed with a rare autoimmune condition called MOGAD which “attacks” the optic nerve. Thankfully my vision is approx 95% recovered by now. But I still can’t read, eg code on my laptop, which is scary (my right eye is basically making up for it). And I’m scared of another attack happening. So I’ve been really looking after my health and trying not to do the 12+ hr coding benders I used to do. I appreciate these tips!
Even when I was young, I discovered that after a certain level of fatigue my coding became garbage, and after a night's sleep I had to delete it and redo it. After this tipping point, I just stop doing the hard stuff. If I still want to work, I work on routine things that didn't take much concentration.
I never understood how people can write complex code when fatigued. I just get negatively productive trying that.
Thanks for sharing! I feel the fear of another attack with epilepsy too. It is terrifying. The doom and the walking on thin ice constantly hoping you're not gonna over-step or do the wrong thing. And all that at the same time as trying to live your life fully. Do you have any devices or aid software to help with the not-reading thing? I imagine it's all really fresh still and you're just taking it a day at a time?
Could honestly change the title to "Tips for stroke-surviving software engineers (or anyone trying to avoid one)". All of us need these fresh little reminders that our brains are very different than the tech we regularly interact with every now and then. Recognize and respect your organic hardware!
It's very depressing how the article says "you don't have to do it alone! use AI"
ah this age where "not alone" means "AI"...
How about, enjoy good connections with nice people. Both in personal and work. Maybe those people can even see the warning signs and tell you to stop before you have a stroke.
Good tips. Not a stroke survivor but I developed epilepsy as a young adult… Not sure if work/stress had anything to do with it, but stress certainly triggers it!
I’m still able to work as a software engineer, and my career has progressed, but the condition has held me back in a lot of ways.
Another thing if you are recovering and have limited dexterity in your hands, after trying pretty much ALL the voice recognition I could find, the VScode/copilot assistant is the best by far!
I've now recovered enough that I can type/edit faster, but I still use it; I keep a Worksheet.md tab around and keep a whole running log of stuff, LLM prompts etc
Reading this, I'm reminded of the idea that we should all care about accessibility, because barring death or radical advances in restorative medical technology, we will all rely on accessibility tech in some way eventually.
Besides what is listed here, have you observed anything that your coworkers or managers can do to help accommodate you? i.e. Is there a version of this for folks working with stroke-surviving software engineers?
The accessibility field is pretty mature, with useful and thorough guidelines like WCAG. But many people in the software industry either ignore accessibility completely, or think it's "only" about the blind, slap some alt text on images, and call it a day.
> Is being part of a minority prerequisite for personal health care?
Discrimination doesn’t have to be racial. You can be discriminated because of a handicap.
From Cambridge dictionary
> discriminate verb (TREAT DIFFERENTLY)
> to treat a person or particular group of people differently, especially in a worse way from the way in which you treat other people, because of their race, gender, sexuality, etc.
Maybe it is better to invest cognition budget into more valuable things. Let AI write that test while you learn how Postgres Indexes work, for example.
But if you are sick you cant do X "healthy thing for normal people". If you are sick you cant get that hour of exercise a day and do weight lifting and work out your brain etc.
Suffered a stroke in 2004 (migrainous infarction). Became half blind. Rested for a good year. Became a photographer for 8 years, then switched back again to software development. From then on, the limits were: WFH only, limit stress, run away from job if things go bad again. Nap if brain feels exhausted. Sleep, more and better. 20 years later (53yo), I'd say I'm doing great! Also fitness helps remind me to take care of the body...
Tech has built literal industries of people trying to stress you out, and they mostly don't have actual tech skills or the empathy that comes with them so back it up.
For me, I usually try to avoid anything where the working practices are strongly defined. Agile has long been a bad word.
I'm glad you're doing well now.
> WFH only, limit stress, run away from job if things go bad again
I’m facing a similar set of health-based restrictions, it’s edifying and impressive how you’ve pushed through. I’m curious: how do you broach this with potential employers and shape your job search/career path around it?
Applying for pure remote positions puts one in direct competition with younger people who can pull obscene hours with no accommodation needs. Leading with disability/accommodation needs feels like the opposite of the ‘best foot forward’ honeymoon phase salesmanship associated with new jobs, and kinda soul crushing regurgitating the circumstances for chronic illness while hoping for a job. And uncontrollable management changes can eliminate medical protections and acceptable working environments, leading to an enhanced need to be able to hop jobs (exacerbating both the previous situations).
I’m fortunate my primary skills are amenable to straightforward accommodations, but you gotta get the job to do the job…
Whats your stack? (Software). Very impressive after 8 years to come back
Today it's Go-TS-react-node-K8s-mongo-PG-RabbitMQ
Well, I said "I'll never do IT again"... and when I say never, it usually happens in the end ;-)
Did you work with something else during your rest period?
I don't think most people wouldn't be able to, financially.
> I don't think most people wouldn't be able to, financially.
Pretty sure you'd be covered in a lot of western countries, and if not you have relatively cheap insurances that cover these things.
This feels like a very naïve viewpoint. The reality being that you can't rely on insurance at all. You might have insurance but that certainly doesn't guarantee you'll be financially supported through health issues. You'll also be required to engage in legal battles with your insurance company which might be prohibitively complicated after a brain injury.
No, at least in Germany (pretty sure other western countries too) you are covered after stuff like this. You won't be rich, but enough housing food and your camera.
Had a stroke 2 months ago at 55, after an entire life (professionally since I'm 16) as a dev. I mostly followed these rules apart from when I got dragged into a project that was sufficiently interesting that I started overworking. 12-14h days.
Just don't do that. I used to do that just fine and that's why I thought I was OK. I mean, I USED to go on in huge coding benders, did'nt I ? Well apparently not at 55, when the pressure has been on for months instead of weeks.
Other things to watch -- diet! With the work came less free time, put on weight etc and all the good habits I had built for years, disappeared.
And the worst bit you can think of is "Oh but I'm so CLOSE to being done, I'll just fix it up later when I can relax". Just don't.
I lost all sensation on the right side. It is coming back slowly. I can still work, didn't lose speech or mobility or strength, I consider myself super-mega-lucky in that.
> when I got dragged into a project that was sufficiently interesting that I started overworking
This is what bites. I have some really narrow interest areas that I can end up being obsessive about, to my own detriment. We have to be careful.
Glad you didn't lose mobility and speech! I also feel lucky. I met others in neuro-rehab in far worse situations. For three months I couldn't walk and now thankfully do so with a stick and ankle brace. The hard stuff isn't the stuff you can see visually though. People see my floppy leg, and might presume that's the main thing, but nope. The big thing is the epilepsy, this constant monster present in the background. It's the invisible stuff that's often hard.
> HEADPHONES, blinders, and 'No'. Eliminate unwanted inputs at the earliest point of entry.
Open-floor offices, non-stop emails and chat messages, several meetings scattered throughout the week and the day.
This kills productivity and increases stress and fatigue for people that need to concentrate to work on complex stuff. There's also the time you need to properly switch contexts.
I haven't had a stroke but I did get a nasty tropical mono when I was young. You never quite recover from that one. I've got ibs since. My stomach just gets tired and stops. My mental focus feels the same. I sleep 9 hours a night, often 10 and I'm still tired.
I feel I always have less stamina than other people.
So this list is close to what I have always preached.
Time as in energy is my most precious resource.
Don't let processes suck the life out of you. They're there to serve the people not the other way around.
Strikes close to home. 8 years ago I was in a bike accident that took me out for 4 months. I instantly felt dumber. The headaches became a fact of life, and the need to get out of the house early in the day to avoid brain fog creeping in became a routine.
It... sucks. I've still progressed my career and made significant strides, and come to appreciate things that I never would have noticed if I kept on my previous trajectory, and while I don't think about it much anymore, for years it ate at me.
Do you still have headaches?
All excellent advice even if you haven't suffered some health issue like stroke.
I think these are also good strategies for anyone who suffers from mental illness/burnout.
All of that and parenting. Notifications off, camera off, WFH to the max and keeping the journal of where you were before attention was hijacked by the usual suspects.
ADHD...
How strange to come across someone whose medical stuff so mirrors my own. I was just a decade older and don’t have epilepsy symptoms with meds. I can get behind all the advice here. Running out of “juice” and needing a break is very much thing. Before too but more so now. And taking a lot of semi stream of consciousness notes to help my more limited memory is too.
Good advice. I had one young too; I worked long days and had no life outside my company; it was in an economic downturn so I was also burning out (hindsight). I figured out what was important to me and that all changed everything.
Most of the advice is good for pre-stroke persons too. Might even avoid having one.
I think it is good advice for everyone.
Pre Texting, Pre Email in the 90s I believe this kind of work was normal. All this self motivated, hyper context switching jobs we all do are relatively new compared to human evolvement. And we see the tax on us.
Good advice. I didn’t have a stroke but a couple months ago I developed blindness in my left eye. It came down to my optic nerve being inflamed. I was later diagnosed with a rare autoimmune condition called MOGAD which “attacks” the optic nerve. Thankfully my vision is approx 95% recovered by now. But I still can’t read, eg code on my laptop, which is scary (my right eye is basically making up for it). And I’m scared of another attack happening. So I’ve been really looking after my health and trying not to do the 12+ hr coding benders I used to do. I appreciate these tips!
> 12+ hr coding benders
Even when I was young, I discovered that after a certain level of fatigue my coding became garbage, and after a night's sleep I had to delete it and redo it. After this tipping point, I just stop doing the hard stuff. If I still want to work, I work on routine things that didn't take much concentration.
I never understood how people can write complex code when fatigued. I just get negatively productive trying that.
Thanks for sharing! I feel the fear of another attack with epilepsy too. It is terrifying. The doom and the walking on thin ice constantly hoping you're not gonna over-step or do the wrong thing. And all that at the same time as trying to live your life fully. Do you have any devices or aid software to help with the not-reading thing? I imagine it's all really fresh still and you're just taking it a day at a time?
Doesn’t the immune system attack the eyes if not for a protective wall? Or is that just a myth.
Could honestly change the title to "Tips for stroke-surviving software engineers (or anyone trying to avoid one)". All of us need these fresh little reminders that our brains are very different than the tech we regularly interact with every now and then. Recognize and respect your organic hardware!
It's very depressing how the article says "you don't have to do it alone! use AI"
ah this age where "not alone" means "AI"...
How about, enjoy good connections with nice people. Both in personal and work. Maybe those people can even see the warning signs and tell you to stop before you have a stroke.
This is good advice for non brain damaged engineers too (or maybe I am?)
https://stroke.jonasr.app/dates/
Quite a recovery. No it's not me, just a dev that works in the same field.
Good tips. Not a stroke survivor but I developed epilepsy as a young adult… Not sure if work/stress had anything to do with it, but stress certainly triggers it!
I’m still able to work as a software engineer, and my career has progressed, but the condition has held me back in a lot of ways.
Another thing if you are recovering and have limited dexterity in your hands, after trying pretty much ALL the voice recognition I could find, the VScode/copilot assistant is the best by far!
I've now recovered enough that I can type/edit faster, but I still use it; I keep a Worksheet.md tab around and keep a whole running log of stuff, LLM prompts etc
Reminds me of Fefe, hope he'll recover one day, too.
Wha? Felix had a stroke? <schocked> Didn't know that.
I haven't had a stroke (yet) but I find all that to be generally good advice. Good read!
Good ME/CFS engineer advice too. Thanks for writing up OP
> You, too, have a limited context window.
Love this!
I would add: 1. Go strictly keto 2. Walk as much as you can
Good read. Recovery takes time, and steady small steps help rebuild skill and focus.
Thank you for sharing.
Reading this, I'm reminded of the idea that we should all care about accessibility, because barring death or radical advances in restorative medical technology, we will all rely on accessibility tech in some way eventually.
Besides what is listed here, have you observed anything that your coworkers or managers can do to help accommodate you? i.e. Is there a version of this for folks working with stroke-surviving software engineers?
The accessibility field is pretty mature, with useful and thorough guidelines like WCAG. But many people in the software industry either ignore accessibility completely, or think it's "only" about the blind, slap some alt text on images, and call it a day.
We should try to do better.
I feel like any such advice would also be good advice for protecting the health of any of your staff.
I don't get it, why is this mentioning "anti-discrimination legislation". Is being part of a minority prerequisite for personal health care?
> Is being part of a minority prerequisite for personal health care?
Discrimination doesn’t have to be racial. You can be discriminated because of a handicap.
From Cambridge dictionary
> discriminate verb (TREAT DIFFERENTLY) > to treat a person or particular group of people differently, especially in a worse way from the way in which you treat other people, because of their race, gender, sexuality, etc.
> Let it hold state so your brain can judge rather than store and needlessly cogitate on stuff.
Isn’t that needless cogitation something that helps creating new links in your brain and helps against cognitive decline in later ages?
Maybe it is better to invest cognition budget into more valuable things. Let AI write that test while you learn how Postgres Indexes work, for example.
But if you are sick you cant do X "healthy thing for normal people". If you are sick you cant get that hour of exercise a day and do weight lifting and work out your brain etc.
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That sounds like a "you" problem. The site's "light mode"/"dark mode" choice seems to follow my system settings just fine.
FYI that article is rendering light-grey text on a cream background color here (Safari, iOS), it’s barely readable
Something may be off on your end. I’m on iPhone/Safari, and it’s white on black here.
(Can always try reader mode, if you just want to read the content without worrying about fixing it.)
it's very helpful though i did'nt suffered a stroke until now