The title may seem strong, and it is. But for all of its exaggeration, it is, in essence, true.
Concussions are surely no laughing matter – depending on their severity and what you do to heal, they can temporarily ruin your life. How, you ask? Well, as you may have read from my previous article, concussions do not affect only your sports career, but also your academic career, your music career, any extracurricular activities you participate in, your friends, your family, your faith, and your very definition of yourself. It shakes you to the core.
Pre-concussion me: I love to listen to and create music, I am a Quest Program graduate (taking the appropriate classes), I am in a number of after school activities, I am an active teen leader in my parish, and I love to play most sports – my favorites being tennis and soccer. But mostly soccer.
And it was while I was playing my favorite sport against long-time rival St. Michael that I sustained my concussion.
I am no stranger to injuries; my field position exposes me to much ‘violence’, the most common instances being that I get shoved, slide-tackled, tripped, etcetera, a number of times in any given game. I have come to nearly master not letting these things stop me, but it takes its toll – my knees are pretty banged up, I usually have a number of bruises, and most games you may see me limping off the field. It’s all great fun.
My position is called a Sweeper in soccer, but it’s commonly known as a center-back by anyone who is not a soccer player. I am the last defender before the goalie, and it’s my job to ‘sweep’ up any breakaway strikers (forwards) and clear the ball back across the field. I generally do this by slipping between the player and the ball and simply tap it to the side sharply, easily losing the attacker. But this usually puts me in a position to get injured. I was doing just this at our St. Michael game, as I had hundreds of times, but this instance was different. As I went to slip in and take the ball, I felt my balance shift (for what reason, I do not know), and I knew I was going down. Mayday, mayday!What I can remember is that I closed my eyes, and the next thing I knew, the back of my head slammed into the ground. My first thought was that it didn’t hurt. My next was that I was glad I was on grass and not on concrete. My third was that it was a lot like Marty McFly’s knock. And these thoughts all happened nearly simultaneously, which was weird.
And then there is this blank moment where either I was unconscious or I have amnesia. Which it is, though, is unclear. I next remember sound slowly coming back, and I was hearing the referee yelling at me “Are you okay?” in a not so nice way, as if she only wanted to get the game started again. I was kind of angry (which is uncharacteristic for me, honestly), just thinking to myself “Give me a second to figure that out, okay?”
But I knew that the game did need to get going again, so I opened my eyes and forced myself to sit up. It was extremely hard for a reason I couldn’t guess, but once I was up, I knew that it would be easier. I felt very dazed, but I thought nothing of it – I’ve been winded many times, and this didn’t seem any different from that.
And so I scrambled to grab my headband and staggered back to my feet, not even being able to put my headband back on before a St. Michael player threw the ball in, right towards me. And with me still being dazed and the action too close to our goal, our rivals scored yet another goal beyond our control.
And suspecting that nothing was wrong, I finished out the last twenty minutes of the game, trying my hardest but wondering why I felt so strange (I can’t even describe how it felt). Needless to say, St. Michael scored another goal or two even after that. It was miserable.
The shriek of the whistle that ended the game was both horrible and a relief. By now I had a pounding headache, and I distantly wondered if I might have a concussion. But when I thought about how if I told anyone I would be banned from playing for the next few days, I decided to keep my suspicion to myself (quite frankly, that is also uncharacteristic of me).
In listening to the accounts of my teammates after the game, the players on the bench said I looked like a ninja when I went rolling. Our keeper (goalie) claimed that I looked like a flopping seal. I pieced together that I had gone rolling head over heels (literally) twice in a row, and on the third roll, I lost momentum and snapped backwards. The fall sounded bad when they told it like that, and I desperately hoped I didn’t have a concussion.
But there was no hiding my condition, not when some of my teammates and I have known each other for countless years. They (and their parents) realized that there was something wrong with me – I just ‘wasn’t right’. Despite my pleading, our goalie went and got the St. Michael trainer (I was unreasonably mad about this), who tested me in a number of ways and had me describe my symptoms. He quickly concluded that I did in fact have a concussion, and I was told to sit with the rest of my team and watch the varsity game. I would have to wait until the end of the varsity game and a bus ride before I could even think about going home.As the evening progressed, my symptoms grew worse. A pounding headache plagued me, mild light and sound sensitivity developed into intense sensitivity, I grew moderately nauseous, I felt like my head was filled with clouds of confusion, I walked with dizziness and was completely unbalanced, I felt like crying uncontrollably for absolutely no reason (which was really weird and scary), and I felt like biting the head off of anyone who came near me (not literally). I was still mad at the goalie for ‘ratting me out’.
By the time the bus arrived back in Buffalo, I was a mess. I felt like crap. My mom came driving up quickly, screeching to a stop in front of me. My parents had left immediately after the game before I had even come off the field, unsuspecting of anything wrong with me. They had been notified of what had happened to me, and my mom leapt out of the truck to see if I was okay. She knew immediately that I wasn’t alright and sent me into the truck, going and briefly talking to my coach.
On the drive home, my mom interrogated me (much to my displeasure), and concluded right away that a hospital visit was in order. We stopped home temporarily so that I could take off my gear and grab some sunglasses, and to the emergency room we went. All I wanted to do was sleep, but I knew that falling asleep right after sustaining a bad concussion can cause you to go into a coma, so I didn’t allow myself to pass out.
After spending an hour in the emergency room, it was deduced that I indeed had a concussion (no duh), and I was restricted from going to school the next day and a follow-up doctor’s appointment was set up for a week later.
The next day I slept for hours and hours, a lot more than usual, and when I was awake, I had to stay in my dark room and do absolutely nothing. I was bored out of my mind by the end of the day, so I was determined to go to school the next day.
Right away that second morning since my concussion, I felt terrible, but I pushed through, thinking “I’m fine, what’s a little pain?” I got to school, and in my first block I hyperventilated, my sight and hearing were on a painful level of overdrive, my headache was horrible, and I was totally overwhelmed. The hallways were a nightmare, band was unbearable (I ended up leaving class and laying in a practice room), and by the time I was through with history and math, I was in shambles.I got home, fatigued, in pain, and feeling awful. My mom saw this right away, and I wasn’t allowed to go to school the next day, a Friday. After monitoring me over the weekend, it was concluded that while I needed to go to school so that I could graduate, I was physically incapable of going whole days, so I was only allowed to go to school for half days, and extracurricular activities, soccer, and band were out of the question.
With missing so much class, it was impossible for me to keep up with the intense homework load of my two AP classes and CIS class, and when I was in class, it was futile. I was quickly falling behind.
I was banned from doing anything productive with the time that I wasn’t in school, which frustrated me to no end. I was not allowed to do homework, I was not allowed to watch TV, I could not even think about looking at a computer, phone, or ipod screen, reading was out of the question, I couldn’t listen to music without a throbbing headache, and drawing was impossible. I was trapped with only my thoughts, which were often consumed with feeling sorry for myself. The jist of it: Not. Fun.
My condition put a lot of strain on my family, especially my parents, and I was unable to keep up with and socialize with any of my friends. I quickly realized that I had previously defined myself very much by what I did everyday, and without my life, I didn’t feel like myself. I began seeing medical professionals for my condition, and with the help of many amazing doctors and therapists at both the Buffalo Allina Clinic and Hennepin County Medical Center, my recovery has been sped up. Buffalo High School administration and teachers have been very understanding and extremely awesome, my friends and family very supportive, and my parents…specifically my mom…have done so much to help me recover, and I would not be where I am without any of the people aforementioned. It is also important that I acknowledge Georgia Gorr, who notified a medical professional after the soccer game even when I wouldn’t. I would be worse off now if she hadn’t stood up to me and made me recieve help.Slowly but surely I eased back into my normal routine (with sunglasses and earplugs that dull my hyperactive senses), minus music and sports, but not without signs that I still struggled to get past my concussion. I need to wear glasses (bifocals!), which has been really strange for me (I tripped up the stairs many times because I was seeing four different interpretations of what was in front of me all at once). I had always had twenty-twenty vision (and I still do) but my depth perception, my ability to track movement, and the ability for my eyes to adjust to changes in lighting are greatly hampered. The hope is that the glasses will only be temporary, but they may not be.
My new routine also includes my visual therapy exercises that I do everyday, which are meant to train both my brain and my eyes to work properly again, and my meds. Since the first week of my concussion, I have had extreme difficulty sleeping, and so along with the five prescription pain pills (and two Tylenol pills as needed) I take everyday, I also take powerful sleeping pills (that even then don’t always work). The side effects are brutal; lightheadedness and extreme drowsiness are the most bothersome side effects of my medications.I still do not participate in any physical activities (besides walking); I cannot risk hurting my brain further from another impact or whiplash, and I need to be monitored to make sure that my breathing and heart rate do not accelerate out of control and to dangerous levels because of my brain being messed up. One of the most difficult parts of my recovery is the fact that I have to watch my body break down from lack of exercise, and I can’t do anything about it. I have grown jittery in the extreme, and it is not uncommon for me to be craving any sort of physical exertion that will not delay my healing.
I have only just started listening to and making music for short periods of time and at low volume levels, I can only tentatively participate in extracurricular activities, and I am still working overtime to catch up to and keep up with my classmates. I have had my concussion for nearly four months now, and needless to say, my GPA has dropped and I may possibly lose the chance to move up in band and soccer if I cannot make a quick enough recovery.
Every concussion is extremely different, just as every brain is even more different. This kind of injury is completely unpredictable – I may be better in a month, or three. I would hope the former is true, but it is more likely the latter will play out. At this point I am simply thankful for where I am at now and that I have hope of recovering. My lesson learned and the lesson I want to share with everyone else is merely this: Don’t get a concussion!Yes, I know, that advice is impractical. If you do happen to get a concussion (because sometimes there is no avoiding it), you probably won’t even realize it. Try to do a self-evaluation after a serious hit, and if you feel at all abnormal, tell someone right away. Be honest, and advocate for yourself – hiding a concussion only delays your recovery and puts you at risk for more serious damage to your brain (second impact concussions can be fatal).
Do everything you can to protect yourself, and avoid dangerous situations if at all possible. Concussions can be minor, but they can also be very severe; you risk losing your life at worst, possibly sustaining permanent brain damage. There are a number of cases where young people have been confined to a wheelchair for the rest of their lives because of a terrible concussion.
So take care of yourself, be proactive, don’t push yourself too hard, and don’t lose hope. Never lose hope.
