It’s an invisible injury, something that’s really not there, just a trick of the mind. That’s what you might have heard. But lately, more recently, you might have been told that it’s real. All those invisible injuries, the fake ones, they’ve been proving to really be there. So what is it like to live with an invisible injury? I’m sure some of you know the feeling. Hiding what is going on under the surface because it is impossible to explain, because it is impossible for other people to understand. These invisible injuries are far from fake, but they are far from being understood. I have had an entire year of experience with an invisible injury, I can’t say it was the most fun thing I have ever dealt with. I had a concussion for a year last year.

I didn’t realize how much I didn’t like looking back on my concussion until I started writing this, but I want this to help people. I want people to understand what it’s like to have a concussion, not just what it is. Maybe this will help someone understand what a teammate, a friend, or family member is going through. Maybe this will help someone that has a concussion know that they are not alone and that one day, they will beat this. Maybe this will raise more awareness about concussions. Either way, I hope that despite what I had to go through, this helps someone, some way, some how.

It all started October 2, 2015. It was the first game of the year, I was on the half wall on the power play and I faked a pass back to the point before cutting back sharply. That’s when my head got body checked and I dropped. After the game, people would tell me that it looked bad, really bad. That I dropped like a sac of potatoes. My trainer would tell me later that when she crouched down next to me on the ice, I said “I just got rocked.” But all I remember was that my sock was pushed half way down my shin pad and my leg was cold from the ice. I remember saying that I was fine to play the last 5 minutes, that I just felt a little out of it. I remember being told to undress. I remember doing memory and balance tests. And then, 30 minutes later I remember my first headache. The headache that would last me a year, little to my knowledge at the time. It hit me all at once, shooting pains through my head, aching across my forehead and all the while my head felt like someone had tried to inflate it with air.

I have a high pain tolerance for headaches because I have always had them growing up. Perks of not knowing you’re gluten intolerant until you’re 19. But since I was so used to headaches I brushed it off a first. I really thought it would be gone in a week. I stayed out of most of my classes and away from hockey the first week. I stayed in a dark room. And then it was another week and another. It felt like someone had physically removed me from my own life. Like I was a petal that someone plucked and left drifting in the wind. I went from a full day of classes, practice, seeing my teammates, making meals, working or volunteering and doing homework all in one day to maybe going to a class or two. I remember trying to write a one page paper review that would normally take me less than an hour take me an entire day. I remember holding back my nausea when I would drive the 5 minute distance to school. I remember feeling like the projector screens were going to burn holes in the back of my eyes. And I remember dreading having to read labels and look through items at the grocery store because I would feel so dizzy. All the while I remember the sharp pains shooting across my forehead and the ever increasing pressure pushing against my skull.

Three months later I was getting impatient. I was going to vision therapy, I still couldn’t play hockey, I still couldn’t do anything but go on the bike and I was still getting headaches. I remember starting to feel frustrated that I couldn’t play hockey, go to parties, even go on road trips, or participate in the life that I once took for granted. I remember starting to feel lonely but I still remained hopeful. Because it was only three months. People usually get better around three months., but I didn’t. So I stayed at home over intercession to see a specialist. It was helpful to be at home because I could make sure I didn’t try to push myself too hard to get better quicker. That’s the other thing. When you’re an athlete, you think the hardest thing in training is pushing yourself beyond your breaking point. Mentally forcing your body to work even when it feels like it weighs 500 pounds. It wasn’t until I got my concussion that I realized the hardest thing was not to push yourself. The hardest thing was to bike for 50 minutes without your heart rising above 80 beat/min. Yes that is a walking pace. The hardest thing was to think about all the training you put in for the season that you wont get to play in. Never knowing if you would feel normal again, let alone play.

It was around this point in my concussion that I was getting scared I wouldn’t get better. The worst part is; no one can tell you it will. Because no one actually knows. They can’t give you a time frame like any other injury. There’s just, “if you keep doing the right things for your brain, one day it will be better.” As a doctor, it’s easy to say, but when it’s your life? It not easy to hear. It feels endless. It makes you feel anxious, helpless and hopeless, but you can’t do anything about it so you just have to keep trying. At the end up of January I was doing better. Keep in mind though, that all I was doing was gradually progressing my work outs and maybe watching a half hour of TV a day or hanging out with a friend for an hour. Yup, that’s it. Concussions make you tired. Really, really tired. I would sleep for 15 hours every day. The rest of the time, everything hurt me so much I would just lie in a dark room. Trust me, it gets old fast.

At the start of February, I came back to school. The headaches came back full fledge right away. Classes were too much for my head. My doctors all told me to lower my class load but I was stubborn. I had my own agenda of graduating on time. I probably would have gotten better sooner if I did. Instead, my life revolved around surviving my days. I could only do so many things in my day without my head feeling like it would actually break. So I had to pick and choose what I did each day. I picked only the essentials, rehab and school. I would go to class, I would take hours on homework assignments because I had to take breaks every ten minutes my head hurt so badly. I would take naps. I would do rehab. I would go to bed early. And repeat. I was a zombie. I was starting to lose all sense of reality. I still couldn’t travel with my team so I was alone every weekend. It felt like my old life no longer existed. I almost couldn’t believe a time where I could even listen to music in my car higher than at one bar.

I remember one weekend, my parents drove me to my teams playoff game in Penn State because I couldn’t be on the bus, or in restaurants, or have a scheduled day because my head would hurt so badly. I remember watching the game with the loud music in the rink. I remember throwing up because it was hard for my eyes to follow the game and the game horn was so damn loud. I remember moments like these scaring me not just because, well that’s just so beyond normal, but because I was scared they would set me back even more. That since it got so bad that day, I would have to live an extra week with a concussion.

When playoffs finished I was around 6 months deep into my concussion and it was getting scary. Dark rooms were really starting to wear me out at this point. I wanted to be able to have fun and go out with my teammates but my head hurt so badly it wasn’t even worth it. It was around this time that I started to feel like I was losing it, like actually going crazy, because it was at this point, that I forgot what it felt like to live a normal life. I remember I would tell myself I could only cry for ten minutes a day. I would set a timer. I was scared I wouldn’t stop if I didn’t. Sometimes, on really bad days I would let myself cry twice. Some nights when I couldn’t sleep because it felt like someone was hitting my head with a hammer, I would just drive. I would drive an hour away at 1 am and then when I felt a little better I would drive back.

It was never that people weren’t there for me or tried to understand. It was that no one could really understand, even if they tried. It was in these months that I realized how truly alone I was. Medically, there was no cure. Emotionally, as much as people tried to make me feel better, they couldn’t. The only thing that would have made me feel better was to be better. Concussions don’t just sideline you from your sport, they sideline you from your life. They take your ability to live. I mean really, what can you do if you don’t have a brain? I couldn’t really work, I couldn’t really burry my head in school work, I couldn’t be around groups of people, I couldn’t be in loud or busy settings, heck I couldn’t even watch Netflix. You are just left alone, day in day out, sitting in a dark room with your thoughts and killer headaches. Your crazy, scary thoughts start to consume you and it’s hard not to think about how you don’t even know who you are anymore. If you will ever really be happy again. If you will ever be a functional person in the world. I missed living. You start to realize that there is no reason to cry for help. That there really isn’t a point in crying because no one can really understand and no one can make you better. You start to accept the loneliness.

When school ended, things started looking up. I went home for the summer. I went to a vestibular therapist and they helped. I went to a concussion optometrist and they helped too. Turns out my whole perception was off, I saw the whole world a little too much to the left. I couldn’t even walk straight. I had to wear prism lenses. I wish someone could have told me that 9 months earlier. Over the course of summer without school, I started to feel better. I started ramping up to doing my teams work outs and I had my eyes set on getting cleared in the fall.

Funny thing is, I did get cleared. I remember thinking that when I got cleared, this nightmare would be over. I would be like my old self again. I don’t know why I was so naive. Being back playing hockey again was amazing. Waking up without a headache was amazing. Reading a chapter of a book without a pounding headache was amazing. All of these little things we take for granted everyday, that’s what I loved the most about feeling better. Although all these things were amazing, I felt like I had stepped out of a time machine. Like a year of my life was fast-forwarded. I could play hockey again but I hadn’t touched the ice for a year. I was back with my team again but I missed a whole year of inside jokes. I missed a whole year of my life. I was in the same house, played the same sport, went to the same school but everything was different. I was different.

I wasn’t as carefree and I was structured. I was scared that if I started to do everything again I would get headaches. I was right. They came back a little, but they were tolerable. I could deal with tolerable. I couldn’t deal with another year in a dark room. Looking back at my years at RIT, it’s hard to say that I was really here for four. To me, my third year doesn’t even count. It’s hard to count it as existing because really, I think of my third year as a dark room. But just like any scar, they heal. Just like my head did, but scars, they stick with you. I would get panic attacks if my teammates went hard into the boards. Even if they were fine, the initial moment would send me into sheer panic. The last thing I would ever want for anyone was to go through what I went through. When I got cleared to play, I was scared too. I never got back to playing like I used to. Partially because I missed a whole year of hockey. Partially because I couldn’t get past my subconscious fear. The thing is, I didn’t want to get past it. I wasn’t scared of getting hit in the head and dying, I was scared of getting hit in the head and having to live with another concussion. Of having to watch everyone live their lives while I stayed in a dark room, counting down an undefined number of days until I would be better again. It sounds twisted, dark and morbid but it’s the truth. It’s my story. These are concussions.

I believe there’s reasons for everything in life. Sometimes, it’s harder to find meanings behind some reasons, but I do believe that if we want to look for them, we can find them. Maybe we don’t have all the answers, but I think we need to find a way to make peace with them ourselves.

My name is Michael Corneau. I am 18 years old and I currently suffer from Post-Concussion Syndrome (PCS). I am an avid hockey fan, a supporter, and a former player. I played competitive hockey for the majority of my career. I just loved the competition of driving around Eastern Ontario, the rivalries with certain teams, scoring that game-winning goal in the final seconds of the third period to put my team ahead, and doing it all with friends I’ve competed with my entire life.

I started playing hockey as soon as I became eligible, playing under the ‘Timbits’ hockey program. As early as I can remember, I fell in love with the game. When competitive hockey became an option, there was no doubt in my mind I wanted to try out for the team. I successfully made the team as a defenseman but as cliché as it may sound, I wanted to score goals like Sidney Crosby, my favourite player. I decided to move to forward in my third year of competitive hockey, and have never looked back. I would not trade my years of experience, competition, and fun I had playing hockey for anything. I’ve gained life lessons that will forever be ingrained in my character, like developing leadership qualities, instilling trust into my team, and learning to be disciplined and punctual.

In 2013, I was the victim of a concussion. In a playoff game, I received an impact to the head from the hit of an opposing player. His hands came up under my chin and I was flattened on my back. I quickly stood back up and went to the bench. To this day, I am unsure if I hit my head on the ice when I fell. To my own detriment, I was unaware of the signs and symptoms of a concussion, and the seriousness with which they should be treated. So, I returned to play. This is what I want to speak out on. A trainer or teammate should have flagged that I was hit very hard in open ice and suggested to take me out of the game or wait a couple minutes to see if any symptoms arose. My trainer at the time just asked me if I am alright to continue playing, as well as questions of ‘Do I know where I am’, ‘Can I read the scoreboard from the bench’. I knew where I was, and I could read the scoreboard. I did not have an immediate headache after the impact, in fact, it was only after the game that I started feeling ‘off’ and that is also when my headache began.

Four days later, I was playing in another game when I received a smaller impact to the head, in the corner of the ice during a battle for the puck. The opposing player’s elbow grazed my head, but it was enough for me to notice that I did not feel myself, and hadn’t been myself for more than four days. This was when I knew something was wrong. I started feeling a headache and slight dizziness, and I knew I needed to step out of the game. I watched the remainder of the game from the bench, supporting my team.

I saw a concussion specialist who informed me that I had gone through what was known as Second Impact Syndrome. This occurs when a person receives a concussive impact, and then receives another significant impact to the head within a short time frame afterwards. I was told that I was lucky to still be fairly healthy aside from the symptoms that came with the concussion. My doctor initially said to stay out of school and minimize cognitive stimulation for approximately a week or two – meaning no school, no sports and no physical activity. At the end of week two, I was still suffering from symptoms. It took around six months of rest before those symptoms cleared up. I was out of school and sports for the entirety of that six months. I tried to attend school on days when my symptoms had lessened, just to catch up, but I could hardly attend two days in a row before they worsened. When I started improving, I was slowly increasing more incremental activities into my daily routine. I was cleared to return to full activity with no issues once I had recovered. Just over a year later, in December of 2014, I suffered another concussion. Luckily it was minor, and I was also well equipped with the knowledge I needed to take the proper precautions. By slowly integrating more activity until I felt like there was no more limit to what I did and how I felt doing it, I was again cleared to play.

Related video: When should an athlete consider retirement due to concussions?

After that hockey season, I made the tough decision to take a couple years off contact sports, choosing to play non-contact hockey instead. However, in the fall of 2016, I decided to play contact hockey for one last time with friends I grew up playing hockey with. During the first game of the season, I was hit to the head by an opposing player whose hands came up and made contact to my chin. To most people that have had a concussion history similar to mine, you would imagine that my first thought would have been for the health of my head. Unfortunately, the pain in my jaw overpowered any thoughts regarding another concussion. I had not fallen unconscious, but I wanted to talk to my trainer to let him know what was happening. I told him what I was feeling, and he thought I was okay to play the remainder of the game if my jaw was still in place and all my teeth were still intact. Although he is not to blame for letting me go back out to play after a head collision, this trainer was well aware of my concussion history. Luckily, I did not receive any significant hits that rattled my head for the rest of that game. When I got home later that night, I was feeling off. I recognized the feeling as how I felt when I had my previous concussions. My mom took me to the hospital the next day for x-rays of my jaw as well as a concussion diagnosis, which turned out to be positive. At this point, I had been reminded of the concussion protocol more times than I could remember, so I was able to remember to minimize my stimulation, and start my road to recovery from there.

After a couple months of rest; away from school, work, and limiting time with friends, I did not show any improvement. My specialist determined that I had progressed into the PCS stage. Post-Concussion Syndrome (PCS) is a stage in which your concussion symptoms have persisted longer than the normal course of recovery. The way it was explained to me, PCS is a stage in which your body can be constantly on high alert. Your body cannot find a way to reassure itself, which can exhaust you without having to conduct physical activity. This is caused by an amygdala (part of the brain) that is unable to stop subconsciously scanning for threats. When your body is always in high alert, or “fight or flight” mode, it causes muscles to tighten to prepare for potential threats. This created my pains, aches, and tightness throughout your body.

Although the physical aspect of constant muscle tightness and maintaining your pain levels can be exhausting, it created a constant anxiety within me which I had not dealt with before. It’s general anxiety, caused by this high alert phase. This limits my ability to be out of the house because when I am out, my alertness increases and worsens my anxiety as well as my muscular aches. My average outing that also tends to be one of the higher strain “activities” I do, is going to the grocery store with my mom. It becomes less manageable based on how busy it is when we go. When it is not too busy, it is still a tough task, because of the brightness of the lights, the people and the constant background noises. This is a very normal task for someone else, but depending on the stimulation, this could worsen my symptoms and take me out of commission for the remainder of the day, or I could manage making it out without any repercussions.

Through my journey, I’ve found out the hard way that concussions are often misunderstood by people who have never been educated about them, unless a close relative or friend has previously suffered from one. Of course, the vast majority know what a concussion is and how it can affect someone for a short period of time. What many people do not realize is that the severity of the impact and a person’s previous concussion history can make symptoms increase in severity and duration. As I mentioned, if you’ve suffered from a concussion or know someone that has, this information is nothing new to you.

However, many people seem to think a concussion involves just a bump to the head, followed by a dark room and no electronics. While that is partly true, there are cases (like mine) where symptoms get to the PCS stage where there has been no change in condition for a prolonged period of time. You remain limited in normal activities that others find to be trivial and mundane. To those around you who cannot grasp what you are going through, they can become confused as to why you are still struggling with certain things. As an example, I will use classmates at school. It is very hard for classmates to understand why you are no longer attending school. They see that you suffered a concussion and suddenly you’re out of school for a few months. Yet when they can come to terms with this absence, it becomes complicated again when they see you start integrating yourself into more stimulating activity, like seeing you at a grocery store or heard that you are having a close friend over to your house. They cannot figure out why you are able to go to a store and shop, yet you cannot attend school.

Concussions are not like any other injury, where you break a bone or sprain a muscle, because there really is no approximate time as to when a person will be fully recovered. The way I saw it was, if people couldn’t see the injury then they assumed I was fine. Therefore, I think classmates struggled to grasp why I was not seen in school for a long period of time. I believe the misconception of concussions had people wondering why I suddenly stopped attending classes to recover.

Truthfully, I never took what people thought to heart simply due to the fact that they do not know what I am going through or having to deal with. Whether it was the many appointments with various doctors, the acupuncturist, the massage therapist, the neurologist, or whoever I was seeing, the only person that fully understood was my mom because she was always alongside me. Other than my immediate family and close friends, no one really understands what I am going through on a day-to-day basis.

As frustrating as that misconception can be, I chose to accept it and work through it. It would be much harder to stay positive and continue progressing in my recovery if I spent time dwelling on what others thought. The only person that can dictate my recovery is me, by knowing my limits on how to push myself to do stimulating activities but stopping before I bite off more than I can chew. I know I will get better eventually. I know I will continue my life as planned, no matter what obstacles get in my way. The way I see my concussion and its limitations, is that it just put my life on pause until I am ready to take it on again. I may not have gotten my diploma at the same time as my fellow classmates, I may not still be working and making money like my friends are, but I will when this blows over. For now, the only thing I’m working on is my recovery.

I have had a concussion for about 11 months now. It has not been an easy road to recovery, but without the support and help I’ve had from friends, family, and doctors, this recovery would have been much more difficult. I missed the majority of my first semester of grade 12, along with the entire second semester, which means I lost the ability to graduate with my classmates. The one thing that helped me day in and day out was optimism, whether it was through others or reminding myself that I will eventually get back into what I was doing before this concussion occurred. I often told myself that my life was just on pause, that I was just sidelined, and I will succeed in what I wanted to pursue once I recover.

My “little” brother Michael – who of course now towers over me – has always been a sports fanatic. Hockey, golf, soccer, football, and even long-distance running recently (after years of me wearing him down!). A few years ago, he had his first concussion playing football. And then just a couple weeks ago, it happened again. This time, it was while he was playing hockey. He’s been off work recovering at my parents’ home in Cambridge, Ont. since then. Luckily, Michael lives in London, where he has access to the incredible concussion research and treatment at Western University, which is where we both attended school. That’s something our family is really grateful for.

I think one of the hardest things for my brother with this second concussion is that he knows exactly how long and frustrating the road to recovery can be. But along with the knowledge that this is going to be challenging and lengthy comes absolute and crippling uncertainty. Will he ever be able to play hockey again? Should he play, knowing that a third concussion could be fatal? Hockey – and sports in general – is what he loves. It’s honestly what fuels him. Those t-shirts back in the 90s that would say “Eat, sleep, play hockey”? That’s my brother’s life, always has been. Playing in the various leagues and teams he’s a part of gives him so much joy. And to see that potentially be over for him, forever? That breaks my heart.

We’ve always teased each other about our specific sports – his first word was “ball”, while my complete lack of hand-eye coordination means I’m much happier running and swimming! One small way I can support him is by running the Ottawa marathon for him and other athletes suffering from concussion. I’ve ran five marathons so far, and I’ve realized that what gets me through the dreaded “Wall” at Mile 20 is knowing that I’m doing this for something greater than me. When the marathon gets tough, when your legs get tired, you run with your heart. And this year concussion research, treatment and prevention will very much be on my heart.

On May 27th, Ottawa local Brent Sullivan will run the Scotiabank Ottawa Half Marathon. But unlike many of the other participants, Brent will be running for a cause beyond his own fitness, pleasure, or competitive spirit. Instead, Brent is running as an ambassador for the Concussion Legacy Foundation Canada to help raise funds for concussion outreach, education, and awareness.

I grew up in Carp, Ontario, a small town just outside of Ottawa. I was thrust into hockey right away as most young Canadian kids are. I immediately fell in love with the game and it has been my love ever since. I was able to play in the OHL with the Sarnia Sting in my junior career before I was forced to retire at the age of 22 due to concussion issues. I guarantee the majority of people know about me if you ask them. It’s not the fact that I was a hockey player they would remember, it’s the concussions they would remember.

Unfortunately, concussions have been the story of my life. My life and all decisions that have come with it have been affected by my concussions. Not being able to finish school, not being able to play the only game I knew. Relationships that ended due to personality changes. Losing people close to me because I have developed a bit of an anger issue. Losing all confidence in myself and looking in the mirror to see an exhausted, miserable person day after day. It’s tough. Some days are extremely hard to get through and there is no denying that. Mental illness has affected my life every day since my last concussion in March 2015. I have dealt with anxiety and depression issues, panic attacks and lack of sleep. All of these factors have affected me to the point where the person I once was seems to be gone.

However, you can always bring the positive out of something negative. I’m not thaaaaaaaat bad! Or, it could be worse! I’m very lucky to still have people close to me and to be able to coach the game I love. I have a job, I have two beautiful furry children (yes that means dogs) and I wake up every morning trying to do the best I can to win that day. Sometimes, I get crushed by the day. Other times, I know I crushed it.

It is nearly impossible for me to list all my concussions, when they occurred, and how they occurred. I received roughly 14 concussions in 10 years. Most of my concussions were from hockey and one I got from a car accident. Still, all my concussions were different. I remember getting one in hockey where I could not get out of bed the next day. Another time, I remember getting a concussion and feeling great the next morning. My most recent concussion, the car accident in March 2015, was the worst one I have ever had. It put me in a downhill mental health spiral. I let myself go for nearly two years until I said “enough is enough.” I had gained weight, lost relationships and lost close people in my life. I even lost myself for a while.

All the nightmares I had heard about concussion implications over the previous 10 years on depression, anxiety and sleep deprivation had come to life. It took me two years before I started to get better. It was something I had to make sure I was committed to; getting better. I know there are some things in life you cannot control, but I realized that every day I could at least try to ensure that I had a good day. This was something that I did not do for the first two years following my concussion after the car accident. It is only recently that I have decided to make a change and fight back. In June of 2017, I decided to commit to running a half marathon and raise money for concussion research. It has helped me drastically. A positive mindset added with your feet smacking the pavement chasing your dogs is an incredible kind of therapy. That meant getting up and going for a run, spending time with my dogs, saying no to going out for some beers or turning down a party where I’d feel some social anxiety. Some people didn’t understand. Some people have said that I’ve “been a ghost” but I knew I was doing what I needed to do to get better. At times, you have to be selfish about it. Always take care of number one!

Now, I am the best I have ever been. It’s kind of funny the change of tone that happened in just a few paragraphs. First starting off being negative, with the harsh things that come from concussions to now being positive and saying I am the best I have ever been. That’s the reality of concussions. One day, you will wake up feeling better. You try to string that one day into two days and then three days and so on and so forth. If there is one piece of advice that I can give you, don’t push away those wanting to help you. Make sure to lean on the people around you and use your support system.

The reason I am writing this is to let people know there is a light at the end of the tunnel. You will get through this. Some days it may seem like you have no chance of getting through it. Some days it’s okay to stay in bed all day, it’s okay not to answer your texts and it’s okay not to go out with your friends. At the end of the day, life is a marathon, it’s not a sprint. Make sure you are doing everything you can to ensure that you have a long and healthy life.

Who am I? In 1997, while representing Canada on the Canadian Equestrian Team, I fell from my horse. For the first six months, I was hospitalized. Months of rehabilitation followed. During the entire time I was determined to resume my old life so, when I was finished rehabilitation, I did just that. Although it took almost a year, it eventually became heartbreakingly clear to me that I was unable to continue doing what I loved.

Thankfully, my goal-oriented, persistent self found a new purpose. Three years after the injury, I enrolled at the University of Ottawa in the Masters program. Initially, because head injury had thrown a curve-ball at my life, I wanted to have nothing to do with it. However, it soon became obvious to me that my personal experiences would lend a most unique perspective if I were to study any aspect of head injury. After conducting such research for my MA, I didn’t stop. Continuing on in the PhD program, I completed another study on head injury and was awarded a PhD in 2010. Much later, it occurred to me that one reason that I had immersed myself in studying head injury was because doing the research had been part of my healing process. I realise however, that, although I will be forever approaching the end of my journey of healing, it will never be over.

Midway through the PhD journey, it became apparent that the head injury was not finished with me. Nine years after the head injury, Dystonia, a movement disorder that is in all likelihood a consequence of it, made itself known. Although I had cognitively completely recovered, the head injury, to that point invisible, became most visible when I started dragging my right foot. The psychological impact could have been devastating, but I didn’t let Dystonia interfere with my life until I had finished the PhD. Even though I used a wheelchair at my thesis defence I had, for at least 3 years leading up to that point, managed to successfully block the multitude of emotions associated with my compromised movement.

Eventually however, I had no choice but to deal with the psychological consequences of the chronic illness. It took a couple of years after the end of my PhD journey before I felt that I could emotionally and psychologically cope with Dystonia. A brace now covers my right leg. Because I can’t walk more than short distances, I use a wheelchair most of the time.

High-level sport requires single-minded focus. After my injury, enrolling in university provided me with another focussed goal into which to sink my energies. However, when I graduated, I had to psychologically confront Dystonia. It was only after I had put this latest loss in perspective that I realised that my world was wide open. I love to write, so that’s what I do. It’s an occupation well suited to my limited mobility, and there’s always an article to finish or research to do. I constantly have a goal. My memoir was published last year and has done very well. I also write academic articles and I’m starting on my next book. I swim, a form of exercise well-suited to my limited mobility.

These days, I spend a lot time giving back. I’m on the board of the Ontario Brain Injury Association, and on the Leeds and Grenville Accessibility Committee. I’m a friendly visitor at a seniors’ residence. Until recently, I was a Board member of the Brockville YMCA and on the Board of the Wings of Phoenix, an organisation that raises funds for individuals who have sustained head injuries to access rehabilitation services. As a result of these volunteer efforts, I was nominated for the Amazing Person of the Year in Ottawa in 2017.

Life is good.

“Embrace life’s detours.” Sacha, my yoga instructor, said at the end of this evening’s class. “Sometimes things don’t always go as planned and that’s okay. There will be bumps in the road, but know that you are more than able and capable to get through these challenges.”

“Ugh. That’s just great,” I thought. “Here I am trying to enjoy my last savasana and be mindful, and all I can think about are my detours and embracing them. THANK-YOU Sacha!”

Okay. Okay. I wasn’t really that mad. How could I be? Sacha just gave me a great topic to write about:

Embrace. Life’s. Detours.

Repeat this phrase three times.

Write it down.

Remember it.

Make it your mantra.

I am confident that Janine Shepherd would give the same advice. When a car accident shattered her dreams of representing Australia in the 1988 Winter Olympics, Shepherd was devastated. Not only would she never be able to ski competitively again, but she was also paralyzed from the waist down. Yet, it was when she was at her lowest, that she found her will to live and the strength to move on:

“I had a choice: I could keep fighting this, or I could let go and accept not only my body, but the circumstances of my life. And then I stopped asking, ‘Why me?’ And I started to ask, ‘Why not me?’ And then I thought to myself, maybe being at rock bottom is actually the perfect place to start… even though I had absolutely no idea what I was going to do, in that uncertainty came a sense of freedom. I was no longer tied to a set path. I was free to explore life’s infinite possibilities. And that realization was about to change my life. Sitting at home in my wheelchair and my plaster body cast, an airplane flew overhead. I looked up, and I thought to myself, ‘That’s it! If I can’t walk, then I might as well fly.'”

Within the year, she had earned her pilot’s license. She is now a best-selling author and a heavily sought after motivational speaker. Click here to listen to her full TED talk: “A Broken Body isn’t a Broken Person” — it’s one of my favourites.

Although my story is very different from and definitely not as inspirational as Shepherd’s, I can absolutely relate to her and her message. Shepherd stresses the power and importance of the human spirit and that we are more than our physical limitations. “I know that I am not my body, and I also know that you aren’t yours.”

My concussion occurred on February 19, 2017. While at a friend’s house, I fell, hit my chin on the way down, and knocked myself out. I don’t remember much from the accident; I only know that it drastically and dramatically changed my life. My recovery over the last 16 months has been painfully slow. My post-concussion symptoms, mainly the fatigue, chronic migraines and blurry vision, have made it impossible for me to return to my job as a CPA (at least for now).

The good news? Yes, there is good news. In the midst of the pain, tears and setbacks, I have found an upside: passion. Over the last year (and some), I have seen how costly and frustrating the Canadian Health Care System is for acquired brain injury survivors and their families (as I’m sure anyone reading this knows).

I WANT TO CHANGE THIS.

I am starting small and in the city where my injury occurred: Yellowknife, Northwest Territories, Canada. (You can read an article CBC North wrote about me, so excited to see what I can accomplish!

And more importantly, I know now — without a doubt — that Shepherd was right: I AM more than my disability. Life happens sometimes. It can be unpredictable, tough and unfair. The secret to getting through these difficult times? Use the setbacks. Take the opportunity to reinvent your life. Find your spirit.

And yes, embrace life’s detours.

Playing sports growing up I was never the best athlete out there. I was never the biggest, fastest, strongest, flashiest or most skilled. Success in sports never came naturally, or easily to me. I became used to having to be the hardest working player, became used to having to scratch and claw to earn playing time and became used to having to rely on toughness more than talent to survive and thrive in years of contact sports. Looking back on it, I wouldn’t have had it any other way.

I have never been one to brag, nor have I cared much for individual accolades. However, in order for me to paint a picture of how dealing with a concussion is like no other injury I feel there is a certain necessity for such.

Playing high level hockey, lacrosse, rugby and football meant taking and receiving a lot of hits. Despite regularly being the smallest player on the field/floor this was by far my favourite part. The bigger the opponent, the more inclined I was to try to knock them down regardless of what the expected outcome would be.

I had my most successful years in sports while playing linebacker at McMaster University. Despite being about 50 pounds lighter and half a foot shorter than a prototypical linebacker I was able to thrive based on physicality. I was part of a National Championship Winning team, played in two other national championship games and won 3 separate Ontario Championships along the way.

I was lucky enough to be named a captain, All Star, Academic All- Canadian and Defensive MVP as a student athlete along the way. When I received the MVP award my coach started out the speech by saying I was receiving it because I was the toughest ‘pound for pound’ player he’d ever coached. That team was full of future CFL draft picks and all stars and yet I was unanimously voted for the award. Yet again I was able to get by based on effort, tenacity and toughness. It was around that time that I began to realize I might be good enough to play football at the next level. A year or two later, near the end of my university career I was being contacted by pro scouts and had been invited to the CFL combine for graduating players looking to make the leap to the professional ranks

Unfortunately, I now sit on the couch watching my former teammates play in the CFL instead of lining up against them. My decision to try to be tough and play through concussions put an abrupt and unexpected end to my football career.

Up until 2012 I never let the fact that I was the little guy on the field make me feel small. That feeling was reserved for people who couldn’t take a hit, couldn’t bounce back up and couldn’t deal with the pain and physical nature of contact sports. I worked too hard to put myself in a position to succeed to ever feel small. At least that was true until 2012 when I suffered several severe concussions that made me realize just how small I could feel.

I was sitting on my bed with the lights off and the blinds closed in my second year student house when I started to realize that I wasn’t dealing with just any ordinary injury. I had just woken up from what must have been my fourth nap of the day, something I became accustomed to since the 5 minutes after waking up was the only time I felt normal all day. The exact day, week and month are blurry but I remember the feeling like it was yesterday: panic. I had dealt with countless injuries before and had always made speedy recoveries. Why was I not getting better, why was this injury any different?

These consequences were a result of playing through numerous games leading up to the national championship in late November with a concussion. I hid my injury from my team trainers, coaches and doctors. The initial injury was not a result of a huge collision and therefore no one else knew I was injured. My thought was that I could rest for a few weeks afterwards then be back in the gym for the first month of offseason training in January. I thought I would play through it and recover just like I did with any other injury. Oh, how wrong I was.

Flash forward about 4 months after the championship game when I started getting desperate. I was still too proud to admit I wasn’t healthy. It wasn’t until an attempt at late night studying where I hit my rock bottom. I would read a page in a book and by the time I got to the bottom of it I had already forgotten everything I had just read. I remember that night vividly because it was the first time I felt entirely hopeless and the first time I felt completely out of control of my emotions. I didn’t know what to do or who to turn to. I felt so alone, so very depressed and frankly, so afraid.

That was a really long night, maybe one of the longest of my life. For a total of 9 months after my diagnosis I struggled with academics. I was unable to workout with my teammates and at times I struggled to hold conversations. I made the mistake of not looking for outside help because I was too proud and thought this condition was me just being weak. If I could go back in time, I would have spent these days and months so differently. I would have opened up about how I was suffering. I would have found help from professionals and I would not have tried to fight the battle by myself. That is not to say help wasn’t available, I had every resource from trainers, coaches, doctors and neurosurgeons I could have turned to. I just chose to ignore it all and it made things much worse during that time.

I just thought that what was happening made me weak.

Midway through the summer I was lucky enough to be cleared by doctors and for the next two and a half years was able to get back to the sport I loved. My grades rebounded and in general it looked like my issues with concussions were a thing of the past. It took a long time, but I started feeling like my usual self and I was able to move on with my life.

Unfortunately, my competitive spirit resulted in me making further poor decisions and not learning my lesson.

It was my 5th and final year of McMaster football. I had graduated with honours in the spring, decided to postpone my career search and was ready for one last year wearing the Maroon and Grey jersey.
Unfortunately, in our first playoff game I suffered another bad concussion and knew it immediately. No one saw the hit however, no one asked if I was fine or thought there was a chance I was not ready to continue playing. As a team captain, all-star and senior who was potentially playing in my last ever game in a Maroon and Grey Marauder jersey, I felt like I couldn’t let my team down. If my athletic therapist or team doctor found out I was concussed it would have ended my season and I feared sitting on the sidelines, watching my team’s season end.

So, I played through it again, and every game afterwards I got so much worse. Despite my terrible experience in 2012 still fresh in my mind I still decided to hide my symptoms. It’s still a decision I think about to this day. I let my competitive drive win over common sense.

The resulting post-concussion syndrome resulted in much worse consequences than back in 2012. We made it all the way to the National Championship game and I now look back at that game and know my resulting poor performance let my team down. This happened in a game where we lost by 1 point in heartbreaking fashion. There were a handful of plays I was not making that I regularly would have and I know they could have swung the balance of the game.

As an athlete I am my own biggest critic and unfortunately time does not heal all wounds, I still feel like I let my team down. That’s not to mention the fact that it took me years to feel like myself again and that I had to abandon any pursuit of the CFL because my team doctor and trainer, rightly so, would not medically clear me.

Having to reply ‘No’ to my only shot at professional sports stung. A LOT. It was the right decision, but it is something I would not have had to do if I was smarter with my injuries. Every kid growing up dreams of playing professional sports and I was no different. If only a younger version of me realized taking care of my body was one of the most important aspects of this dream than I might not be writing this story down. I may still be strapping on the pads today if I treated my head injuries better. More than that, I was barely able to start a working career due to sustained symptoms over the following year. At the end of the day, I made the decision to play and I can’t go back on it. I dealt with post concussion syndrome for a very long time but can now say that I believe I am back to normal. I am lucky to be able to say that because some people never fully recover.

If I could go back in time I would not quit football or avoid contact sports. Rather, I would have sought help when I was suffering and sat out when I knew I had a concussion. Hiding a concussion is not the tough thing to do. It just isn’t. My life would be so different if I had been honest with myself when I wasn’t healthy. McMaster has one of the best Sports Medicine teams in all of Canada. I should have gone to the experts to take care of me, because they would have done a much better job than I did.

Being tough isn’t about playing through head injuries. That’s just being dumb.

Toughness and head injuries do not belong in the same sentence.

I am lucky enough to now be healthy and to be working with the Concussion Legacy Foundation Canada. I hope to use my negative experience so that someone will listen and not make the same mistakes I did. We need to speak up, it’s as simple as that. Whether it’s about your own head injury or a teammate’s. Competitiveness will always make that a hard decision to do, but sports are only a small chapter in our lives. Brain health is much, much more important. Playing sports helped shape me into the person I am today, and for that reason I will never regret playing them. But I will never again think it is tough to play througha head injury. I just hope we can all come to that same realization.

On the morning of August 21st I was walking to the gym and I got hit in the head with a door.

Yes a door. You can laugh. It really is ridiculous. At the time I didn’t think anything of it. It hurt, as it was a heavy metal door and it clocked me right in the temple. But people get hit in the head all the time and walk away completely fine.

At least that is what I thought at the time.

I went to the gym. My head felt weird, but I thought it was fine. As the day progressed I felt really tired, but it was the end of August and I chalked it up to the fact that I had just come off a large volume block. That afternoon I biked to work. I still felt exhausted so I treated myself to an ice coffee from Bridgehead hoping the caffeine would chase away the exhaustion so I could get through my shift. As my shift progressed, the exhaustion didn’t wane, but increased instead. I had developed a small headache and there was swelling in the area I got hit. I have a history of migraines, so having a headache was not something that greatly concerned me. Still, thinking that something may be wrong, I called Ben and asked him to pick me up from work.

The next morning I still felt awful and the word concussion had crossed my mind many times that night. But I still wasn’t convinced. I had just spent the past year being injured and I didn’t want another one. I wanted absolute proof that something was wrong. So I went to practice. We were doing skate agility and sprints and I was off balance, I couldn’t sprint and I felt all over the place. I lasted 45 minutes at practice before I gave up and went home. At this point I knew something was wrong.

That afternoon I went to see the varsity Athletic Therapist at Carleton. We ran through my symptoms and did a SCAT 2 test. I scored a 55, which is pretty high considering you should be at 0. But the real indicator was when they tested my eyes and my balance. My eyes couldn’t follow a big black dot on a popsicle stick, and when I stood with one foot in front of the other, I tipped over; not wobbled, tipped over.

So I was diagnosed with a concussion. This prompted the following conversation:

Me: So how long is recovery?

AT: We don’t know.

Me: Well whats the average recovery time for someone recovering from a concussion.

AT: It varies drastically.

Me: Well what can I do to speed up my recovery?

AT: Get rid of your symptoms.

Me: Can I take Tylenol or Advil to get rid of them?

AT: No, that just masks them and this puts you at risk for making them worse.

Now for those of you who are unaware, those answers were not based on ignorance or lack of education on the matter. There is just so much variation in concussion recovery from person to person.

That being said, when I spoke to Dr. Taylor, a Sport Med doctor at Carleton she told me that 65% of people will recover from a concussion in 2 weeks. But you can still experience symptoms after that. Needless to say I was hoping to be one of the 65%!

Unfortunately for me, I drew the short stick when it came to things that caused symptoms. I was sensitive to noise and light so I spent the 3 weeks in a dark room with ear plugs in at every moment of the day. I was constantly dizzy and nauseous. I always had a headache and felt pressure in my head. I felt like I was living in a fog. I was emotional, nervous and anxious. I was exhausted, but I couldn’t sleep. I had trouble stringing together sentences and I couldn’t concentrate on anything. I was so sensitive to noise that the sound of my own heartbeat would worsen my symptoms. Even now, I struggle to remember most of late August, the entire month of September and early October.

I tried to take charge of my recovery. I had my mom write down all my symptoms and keep track of what I did that day. But in the first few weeks, this didn’t really matter because doing nothing made my symptoms worse and since I was already doing nothing, I couldn’t really do anything less.

So after two weeks of my symptoms not improving I became one of the 35% who don’t recover in the first two weeks.

At this point, from a training perspective I was not really phased. I was really bummed that I couldn’t train, but in the grand scheme of things, 2 weeks for me wasn’t that big of a deal. After spending a year on the sidelines I was chomping at the bit to get going again. But, you hit bumps in the road sometimes and it’s better to recover fully than push it. Especially with concussions.

However the weeks started to tick by.

3 weeks

4 weeks

5 weeks – school started and I was only able to do one class. First year French.

6 weeks – I was able to walk for 30 minutes, but then I had a regression and my symptoms got worse again.

8 weeks – the first big jump in recovery. I did physical activity every day. I was on the bike for 20 minutes, I did some body weight strength and I went for a 45 minute ski walk.

9 to 11 weeks – another big regression.

12 weeks – first time on skis! 30 minutes before symptoms appeared.

13 to 15 weeks – Some days were great whereas others were spent in bed.

15 to 18 weeks – slight regression but improvement continues.

18 to 20 weeks – first time where I could do some form of physical activity most days for two weeks.

Thankfully my recovery is still going up. It feels like 3 steps forward and 2 steps back, but even at that pace you are still moving forward.

I’m not going to lie, I had some really dark times over the past 4.5 months. It really sucks having sat on the sidelines for a whole year only to be put back there again. Recovering from my knee surgery, even as frustrating as it was, has come nowhere close to what recovering from this concussion has been like.

The most frustrating part for me was my difficulty sleeping. One of the symptoms of a concussion is sleeping a lot, but another symptom is having trouble falling asleep and staying asleep. Sleep is critical for concussions recovery, but no matter how exhausted I was, for the first month of my recovery, sleep was out of my reach. Even when I took Melatonin.

The other thing I struggled with was a lack of coping mechanisms. When I tore my ACL and I wasn’t able to do physical activity. At the time I felt like I had lost one of my biggest coping mechanisms – which I had – but there were so many other ways I could deal with what I was going through. Whereas with this, I couldn’t read, I couldn’t listen to music, or guided meditations or even other people talking. I couldn’t watch t.v. or play cards, knit, stretch, write, draw or doodle. Some days I tried to pass the time by thinking about mountain biking in Italy or skiing at Nakkertok, but I’d usually last 1 minute before that brought on symptoms. All I could do was lie in the dark. I felt lonely and isolated. Even though my support system could not have been better, I felt lonely, isolated and abandoned; and I had no way of coping with this.

That is something a concussion does. It isolates you. When I was recovering from my knee surgery, I could talk to other people who had gone through the exact same thing. We had the same scars, we had the same rehab program and we all had the same brace. Weirdly enough, there was a sense of comradery.

Whereas with a concussion, everyone is different. In Athletic Therapy at Carleton, in the early stages of my recovery, there were several other people recovering from concussions. Some were sensitive to light, but could listen to heavy metal music without a care in the world. Some lost their balance but experienced no other symptoms. Some had to walk around with sound proof headphones but other than that, they could function normally. It’s so drastically different, that trying to talk to someone else who is recovering can actually make you feel worse. I know it did for me. We’d try and support each other, but the only thing we had in common is how much it sucked having a concussion. I either ended up feeling jealous because they were recovering faster, or they had less symptoms; or they feel that way about me. Hence the feelings of isolation.

One of the best decisions I made in my recovery process was going to see a sport psychologist who specialized in concussion recovery. Speaking openly about what I was going through made a huge difference in my mental state. She suggested I try painting as a coping mechanism, so I started by putting paint on paper with no rhyme or reason. The first time I painted for 5 minutes. At the time, it felt great to do an activity, even if it was just 5 minutes. I slowly improved, and was able to start thinking about why I wanted to put a colour in a certain place and I was able to paint longer. Although I’ve never been skilled at art, painting definitely had a big impact on my recovery, and I would not have tried it otherwise.

With that all said, my biggest improvement – both in my mental health and my physical health – happened when I made the difficult call to not race until I feel better. This was really hard, but once I had said it out loud, all the pressure I had put on myself to recover so I could race disappeared. After 3 months of not training, the stress I felt about the approaching race season was having a major negative effect on my recovery. The decision was really hard, especially after last year, but it was the only option and it was the right option.

At this point things are on the up and up. I’m having more good days then bad and the really bad days are few and far between.

One of the best pieces of advice I got during this whole ordeal was from my Dad. He told me “You have two options in life. You can lay down and die, or get up every morning and do what you can do.”

And that’s precisely what I’ve been doing. At the beginning of this, the most exciting part of my day was unloading and reloading the dishwasher. Now I can ski for an hour!

It’s really hard to see how far I have to go, but looking back and seeing how far I’ve come makes it a lot easier to keep going.

How long has it been since your last concussion?

My last concussion was June 4th 2010. This was my 6th concussion, which occurred while waterskiing and had a major impact on my life. Although it has been 8 years since my accident, I can close my eyes and it feels like just yesterday that everything fell apart.

How has that concussion and recovery affected your life?

To say that this concussion had an impact on my life is an understatement! Being a high level athlete with intentions of completing my University athletic career and dreams of going to the Olympics, I never thought my journey would be cut short in such a devastating way. Everyone knows the typical symptoms experienced such as the sensitivity to light and sound, the headaches, fatigue, dizziness and inability to concentrate but they never prepare you for the unspoken ones: the anger, frustration, emptiness, anxiety, depression and the feeling that no one understands what you are going through. I spent the last 8 years of my life as a completely different person than I was before my last concussion and I know the next 60 years of it will be affected as well. The thing is recovery is different for everyone; there is no cookie cutter protocol to follow and while you’re going through recovery you are not wearing a cast on your head like if you were to break an arm. For me personally, learning to not push through my symptoms has been and continues to be the hardest adaptation to manage. Athletes are trained to push and fight through no matter what because that is how you get better and ultimately achieve your goals. However, this is not the case with your health. Ignoring the symptoms without intervention does not lead to better health outcomes. I also never wanted people to judge me or see me as weak so I would just keep going through my day until I would collapse onto the floor in a ball, crying, nauseated and unable to open my eyes because I was in so much pain and agony. These episodes of collapsing onto the floor were almost daily occurrences for the first 4 years after my accident. I finally hit a breaking point and couldn’t continue to repeat that pattern so I decided to be open to all types of treatment. Through this recovery I have done every treatment under the sun. I have done the typical therapies but also added chiropractic, gyro-stim therapy, functional neurology, supplements and countless more. All of these therapies take a time commitment and I had to learn to fit these into the normal life I was trying to maintain. Juggling all these meant making sacrifices that I am still dealing with to this day: fewer friendships, missing family events, ending competitive sports and training of any kind, relearning how to manage school and truly missing out on my 20’s. Every day is different but over time you learn your new “normal”; you surround yourself with your “team”, and this is how I have managed to still complete an Undergraduate degree and then a Doctorate degree.

What kind of influence did educating yourself and learning from experts like Dr. Cantu and Dr. Stern have on your life?

Educating yourself is vital to your recovery! When mine happened, concussions and post-concussion syndrome were relatively new which meant that my mother and I had to be the “quarterbacks” of my recovery. We would spend hours researching therapies that could possibly help and finding providers in our area to give each one a shot. As I stated earlier, I have tried pretty much every therapy there is and through this I was able to construct my recovery team. Ultimately this led to me sharing my story and experiences on stage at conferences which allowed me to cross paths with Dr. Stern, Dr. Cantu and the Concussion Legacy Foundation. Learning from experts in the field will allow you to construct your team much faster and more efficiently than when I went through it. The quote of “stand on the shoulders of giants” rings true with these two amazing doctors as they have the experience and expertise in this ever changing field. The Concussion Legacy Foundation allows us all to connect, share our experiences and be reminded that we are not alone in this journey. Do not hesitate to reach out to any of us that have shared out stories on here. We are here for you and truly want to help you in any way we can.

What has the transition from student to working life been like?

The transition from student to working life has been rough. When I was not feeling well during school I could make the choice to stay home to rest/recover and catch up on that class at a different time. Now I have my own practice and patients that are depending on me being there and I always have to show up even if I feel ill that day. Being a chiropractor, I have to put a lot of energy into my patients and have had to learn ways to refill my proverbial bucket to be able to serve all of my patients even when I feel empty. Learning this new balancing act has been quite difficult, with a few flare ups of symptoms but every day is a new journey and over time I will figure out this new normal as well.

Knowing what you know now, how might you have changed your approach to concussion recovery?

Looking back after all these years there are a few things I would do differently if I had to go through it again. I never took an extended break from school to heal my brain, partially because I was never forced to by my doctors and partially because I had too much pride to “slow down and be behind my friends.” I feel this would have benefited me greatly in order to rest my brain. Surrounding yourself with supportive and understanding family and friends is vital to your mental health during recovery. Having to stop all the activities I loved and that defined me was extremely depressing. Having a circle of support during these dark moments kept me moving forward when all I wanted to do was close my eyes and never wake up. Lastly, having someone you trust to be your advocate at all of your appointments is pivotal. When concussed we tend not to think clearly. Our emotions are all over the place throughout recovery and we tend to make rash decisions that are not always in our best interest.

What is your advice/words of wisdom to others who have experienced a concussion?

My words of wisdom for anyone who experiences a concussion is to believe yourself and listen to what your body is telling you. Everyone’s experience with this invisible injury is different; you have to be strong enough to know that the symptoms you are experiencing are real and brave enough to go through the proper recovery to regain your health. Reach out to the resources around you, take the time you need and let go of the people in your life that don’t support you. Your life will always be impacted by your injury but you will learn a new normal and it is all going to be okay! Athletics and competition were always a part of my life before my concussion, so I have still found a way to keep them in my life even now. After a lot of trial and error with sports and activities like rock climbing, kick boxing, running, biking, volleyball, golf… the list goes on… I was unable to find an activity that I could perform symptom-free. That is, until I recently took up curling as a fun hobby that allows me to still be competitive yet has minimal risk of head contact and doesn’t exacerbate any of my symptoms!

As a practicing chiropractor, do you now have patients who have experienced concussions? What has that been like, going from patient to teacher?

Having chosen the holistic/chiropractic route versus the medical route was one of the best decisions I have made. As a practicing Chiropractor with my concussion history, my patients with similar issues definitely hold a special place in my heart. Going from patient to teacher has been an easier transition than expected. I believe that is because I have been given the opportunity to share my story and when I have a patient on my table, it is just another way to support this community. I have recently been in their shoes, I know their struggles and I am able to share what helped me which will hopefully help them as well!

My goal is to one day own a clinic that specializes in post-concussion recovery with all therapies in one place to make recovery seamless for anyone who experiences a concussion. This facility would be founded on co-management and would remove the inter-professional communication issues many patients have dealt with.