Welcome TO www.nickpetrofski.com

 

 

WELCOME...

ABOUT ME...

I was sitting here thinking:

"Let's be honest, most people aren't all that interested in another's life story".

"That's great for me, because now I don't have to write it".

However, that said (or rather, thought), this *is* a personal website, and there is no point in having one if I’m just going to leave the page blank!

I apologise in advance if it sounds like a bit of a sob story! I tried re-writing it numerous times, but every time it came out sounding a bit "woe is me".

To be honest though, it has been a somewhat difficult life, so I guess it isn't all that surprising!

Here goes:

In April of 1984, I was born into a family of three. Mum, dad, and three-year-old brother - Matt.

Not too much happened in my earlier life, but I was diagnosed with fairly significant hearing loss when I was roughly 5 years old.

Today hearing impairment is measured in dB of loss across the various frequencies, but back then they just said that I had a roughly 38.5% loss across the board.

There was better news in 1990 when we were blessed with the final addition to our family - my sister, Emily.

And NO, she didn't pay me to say that! She really is the best!

Aside from several sinus surgeries, things were pretty smooth between then and 1995, when our family was hit with the news that I had a brain tumour the size of a baseball attached to the cerebellum.

Whilst benign, its size and proximity to the brainstem were significant factors, and without immediate surgery to remove it, I would have only had a few more days to live.

The downside was that the tumours' removal caused significant injury to the brain (later labelled as traumatic brain injury), and it changed the trajectory of my life.

Since the surgery on the 10th of May 1995 (longer if you include the period leading to the tumours' discovery) I have suffered from severe headaches.

There has been a plethora of other health issues over the years (which unsurprisingly includes a few mental issues), but right now, in 2025, I’m doing pretty alright.

I get monthly painkiller injections, which gives me two weeks out of every four where the pain is pretty darn good, and two weeks where whilst not fantastic, IS manageable (the effectiveness reduces about a week prior to the next injection, then takes another week to kick back in).

These days I'm also an uncle to five wonderful kids, and when you've got kids around, life is all that much more "worth it"!!

interests / hobbies...

They say there are five types of hobbies everyone should have:

1) Hobbies that make you money
2) Hobbies that keep you creative
3) Hobbies that keep you in shape
4) Hobbies that build your knowledge
5) Hobbies to help you socialize

I don't know if they're meant to go in that order, but my first hobby gives me strike one, because it makes you haemorrhage money rather than make it!!

Anyway, here they are:

1) AVIATION

Whilst anything that relates to it gets me going, the time in my life that I enjoyed the most was when I was taking flying lessons.

Obviously, for health reasons, I was never going to be allowed to obtain a PPL, but it was an awesome time nonetheless!!

2) ELECTRONICS

Again, my interests in electronics are varied... In my time I've both created and repaired (though it has been a while).

NOW though, anything to do with technology makes me happy. Well, until it screws up!

3) PHOTOGRAPHY / VIDEOGRAPHY

That one is pretty self-explanatory… I love taking pictures of anything and everything, though I do have a soft spot for taking nighttime and sunrise shots.