UNM alumnus Russell Bonn Jr. had to shelve his dreams after a baseball-sized tumor was discovered in his brain six years ago.
The operation left him unable to keep his job, but that hasn't stopped him from pursuing success in a different field.
Bonn graduated from UNM in 1986 with a bachelor's in mechanical engineering and went to work as an engineer for Rockwell Industry.
While he was working for Rockwell, Bonn invented a machine that could rack pool balls.
Bonn said he came up with the idea when his friend broke a pool rack. As they tried to fix it, Bonn discovered it worked better broken into three pieces.
He said he was so inspired by his idea that he quit his job and took off to Dallas to get the idea off the ground.
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"I had the idea the whole time I was in Albuquerque," he said. "I finally got up the nerve and went for it by moving to Dallas."
Bonn said his life took a turn for the worse in Dallas, and his dream of patenting his pool rack idea was briefly suspended.
He began to notice he would forget things and get confused easily, he said. He went to see a couple of doctors in Dallas, but none could help him.
"They didn't do any tests or anything," he said. "They just sent me home."
Four months later, Bonn became very ill in his apartment.
"I could barely stand," he said. "I was lying on the floor for about a half hour before I could get the strength to call 911."
Bonn said he blacked out after the ambulance arrived.
"The next thing I remember is waking up in a hospital bed and the doctor telling me that I had a brain tumor and that they had to operate right then," he said.
That day, the doctors removed a tumor from the right side of Bonn's brain.
He said he was startled when the doctors gave him the details of the surgery.
"They told me they didn't think I was going to make it," he said. "That's when I found out that I had died six times during the surgery and shocked back to life."
Tom Tonnessen - one of Bonn's good friends from Rockwell Industry - went to Dallas to bring him back home to Albuquerque.
"We had to watch him all the time," Tonnessen said. "He would get confused and wander off. It was like caring for a child."
Bonn said he was devastated when he realized the surgery had taken away everything he had worked for.
"I couldn't do my job anymore," he said. "The tumor stripped me of my career."
Bonn said he has given up trying to regain his engineering abilities and now devotes all of his time to making his pool rack idea a success, he said.
"I really believe in my invention," he said. "It is my job now to make sure that this idea does not go to waste."
Bonn said he had been determined to remain positive and not let the surgery change his focus or who he is.
"I'm alive," he said. "I'm not complaining."
