I smile a lot, but I’m afraid. I laugh but I’m terrified, I can’t differ the truth from all the lies. To chase a dream, where you hear the fans scream, stands filled with jerseys of ya damn team. A man’s game, a man’s pain, sacrifice my all, why should I feel this shame? War scene, you’re a friend to me battling against our enemy, armor shield body guard, but my head is losing memory.
Never forget the memories of this wonderful sport, even if I’m older and all out of sort, inches away but came up short. What’s going on inside my head? Who are the voices I hear? I try to imagine but the images disappear. Search through iCloud, but nothing’s quite clear, is this something for me to fear? Don’t complain ‘cause men are tough, life is hard, the game is rough, the crazy thoughts, my brain is stuffed, is this God’s Plan, I need an angel’s touch, left behind, I was just angel’s dust.
This must be a mistake, I was meant to be great, losing my balance due to this shifted weight, stumble sometimes and can’t walk straight. Even though it’s for protection, my mind is like a weapon, I believe my whole life that this was my blessing; so why the rejection or the feelings of severe despondency and dejection. In other words it’s depressin’, to play the game my whole life and finally get taught the lesson. Not afraid to fail, not afraid to lose, didn’t know the scars would still bruise. I smile, inside me is still that little child, whose joy I haven’t felt in a while.
Round and Round, my head pounds the sound, of my heartbreak as my head mounds the ground. Telling me I’m up next and couldn’t be more closer, Doctors visit just to tell me that it’s over, tried to cry but I was given no shoulder, missing old days cause I hate getting older. I smile a lot, but I’m afraid. I laugh but I’m terrified, it’s something going on with what’s between my eyes.
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.
I got my first concussion when I was ten years old, but the concussion that scared me the most was my fifth concussion when I was in eighth grade. I remember sitting in school the day before, writing an essay on John Brown and Harper’s Ferry, and the next thing I remember is sitting against a brick wall in the gym the next day. My teammates had to tell me what happened. It was December, so we were practicing indoors, and I was going in for a tackle but I got tripped up with another girl and fell and hit my head against the wall. I was knocked unconscious and hit my head again on the floor. I was only out briefly, but when I came to I was crying. I was hallucinating mice and started vomiting uncontrollably. I went to the doctor two days later. He said I probably had a small brain bleed, and that I definitely had a concussion. I missed three months of school. I could never have imagined how much a concussion could impact my daily life and how long the symptoms would plague me.
I spent all my time at home laying in a dark room during my recovery. At school, I spent most of my time in the nurse’s office sipping ginger ale and eating saltines. I couldn’t think. Math that used to be easy for me became impossible. I couldn’t exercise at all for eight months. When I was finally able to get my heart rate up again, I would go blind in my left eye. Ten months after my fifth concussion, I lied to my doctor and went back to soccer.
My sophomore year of high school I was playing for the varsity team. I played through concussion after concussion, but my tenth concussion cost me my soccer career. I’d gotten a concussion in practice the day before, but I was able to hide it. The next day, I was body checked from the back. I never saw it coming. My head was flung forward and I hit the ground: hard. I couldn’t see anything. That didn’t stop me from playing, though. Later in that game I was going for a loose ball in the box and went to volley it but instead kicked the goalie in the head because of how bad my vision was. I never reported my injury and continued to play. Finally, after ignoring my concussion symptoms during the winter and part of my spring season, I went to the doctor because my head hurt so badly. I had an abnormal neurological exam and the doctor ordered an MRI. The scan showed some scarring. I was told I would never play soccer, or any contact sport, again.
Unfortunately, my concussion history doesn’t end there. I went to overnight camp that summer. It was August 2015. During color war at camp I was playing an intense game of team handball. I don’t remember what happened, but I woke up on the ground. My friend was holding me on my side and yelling my name. I sat up and was so angry for no reason. I couldn’t organize my thoughts. My head was killing me and I was extremely nauseous. A few minutes later I started to vomit. I ignored these symptoms, played them off as dehydration, and I continued with my activities. A few days later I went home and went to the doctor. We decided that I should do half days of school, but when this was too much to handle we decided I should take the year off to focus on my health. Instead of preparing for junior year and the SAT, I was going to 10 doctor’s appointments a week. I was laying in a dark room in debilitating pain. I was depressed. I felt so alone and many of my friends could not understand why I stopped going to school. I ended up losing many friendships.
My symptoms are still very severe. I can’t focus on anything for more than a few minutes. My short-term memory is shot. I’ve become impulsive and sometimes say things without thinking through the consequences. I’ve had to leave class to vomit in school many times. I always have a headache, and it spikes throughout the day. I get dizzy often, my balance isn’t good and I still go blind in my left eye when my heart rate goes up. I’m fatigued all the time, I have severe insomnia, and I also have tremors. I have anxiety and depression which at one point got so bad I wanted to kill myself. I got to a point where I’d take too many pain pills to see how far I could push it.
What gave me hope was being an assistant coach for my former club coach and his U-10 team. I helped them improve their soccer skills and got to know them as people. That was an extremely rewarding experience. I started to feel normal again. I had human contact. I was helping people. I found a sense of purpose that I had lost. I was able to pass along my knowledge of soccer and life to younger girls. I even recognized a concussion in one of the girls and I was in charge of explaining why she couldn’t go back into the game to her dad. I was also accepted at a new school and started back for my junior year September of 2016. Things were looking up, but I’ve had to accept that my life will never be the same.
Concussions changed the trajectory of my life, and for some time I let the concussions win by thinking I had lost my identity. I now realize that my concussions helped me figure out who I wanted to be in the future. Next year I will be a freshman at the University of Pittsburgh and will study neuroscience so I can go to medical school and hopefully one day specialize in pediatric TBI and concussions.
People ask me if I regret playing through my concussions. Depending on the day, you might get a different answer. Most days my answer is no. I realize that sounds strange given what I have and will deal with. But soccer was everything to me. I could not have lived with myself if I didn’t get everything out of soccer that I could. However, as more time passes, I’m starting to see that it wasn’t worth it. I’d never expect a teammate to play through a concussion, and I’d always let my coach know if I thought a teammate had one. I expect that from anyone. I encourage everyone who is reading this to speak up if you think you or someone you know has a concussion. And when you suspect you might have a concussion, always choose to come out of the game. I risked my life by staying in. I took unnecessary risks and there is much more to life than soccer. I encourage everyone to #TeamUpAgainstConcussions to prevent concussions from derailing more lives.
“As a woman, I know a lot of studies skew towards male subjects, so it’s important to have more female brains to study. I felt it was important for me to put my foot forward and pledge my brain to help this great cause and to learn more about the effects of sports. If it can help future generations, it’s worth it to me. I hope my actions can inspire others to do the same, specifically other athletes and specifically female athletes because any study has to have a balanced representation of both genders.”
Join Ruggiero and pledge to donate your brain here.
Mackey left an extraordinary legacy both on the field and off, and the John Mackey Youth Football Protection Act continues his fight off the field for the health of football players. On the field, Mackey spent nine of his 10 years in the league playing for the Baltimore Colts. His record setting 75-yard reception from quarterback Johnny Unitas clinched Super Bowl V for the Colts and remains one of the most celebrated catches in Super Bowl history. Off the field, Mackey was the first president of the NFL Players Association, where he fought for better benefits for players. With him in good times and bad was his loving wife Sylvia Mackey.
Sylvia cared for John during his 11-year decline from frontotemporal dementia (FTD), witnessing the progression of John’s symptoms as he gradually lost his memory, executive functioning, and speech until his death in 2011. A post-mortem examination of John’s brain at the VA-BU-CLF Brain Bank revealed that CTE was also responsible for his decline. After more than a decade as John’s caretaker, Sylvia began a tireless fight to carry on her husband’s legacy through the 88 Plan – named for his jersey number—which now provides financial assistance to players affected by neurologically debilitating diseases such as Dementia, Alzheimer’s, ALS, and Parkinson’s disease.
John’s legacy continues to help change the world, most recently through the John Mackey Youth Football Protection Act. Sylvia, a member of the Concussion Legacy Foundation board of directors since 2014, shared with us her thoughts on the bill.
What was your reaction when you heard they wanted to name the bill after John?
Oh my gosh—it is a tremendous honor. It’s a tremendous honor for our family, especially since John wanted to lead programs for youth football for the NFL. He was already concerned about our youth. At the time it was more about teaching children the game of football, but if he had been around today he would have realized that he also has to protect them from the game of football. I think he’d be all for this bill and for the Flag Football Under 14 campaign. As president of the NFL Players Association he fought for the Mackey Law regarding free agency way before his passing. Now, after his death, he has another law to protect children. That is an honor.
It’s fair to say that by caring for John, you became an expert in the day to day realties of CTE and FTD. How does it feel to hear about this bill and know that people are fighting to prevent what your husband went through from happening to the next generation of athletes?
I know John would have been 100 percent behind this because at one time he was looked at to head up the youth football committee for the National Football League. Of course, he wasn’t able to go very far at the helm because of his disease. At the time that he played before he became ill, he couldn’t foresee all the problems that have turned up. However, I’m certain that if he knew what we know now, he definitely would have wanted to protect the children as much as possible and this football bill is a great start.
Do you see this bill as striking a blow against football?
No, I don’t think this is a blow against the game of football itself. We’re not saying that it should go away. In fact, my seven-year-old grandson is playing flag football and we love the game. John loved the game. The negative things that happen because of football such as CTE do not happen to the majority, but the minority that it does happen to is large enough for us to recognize and respond to. Nobody wants to see the game go away. I certainly don’t. I know there are some people who have turned against it. But we have to protect those who are playing it and make the whole game safer. We’ll never get rid of 100 percent of injuries. We’ll never get rid of 100 percent of CTE, frontotemporal dementia, Alzheimer’s, or other dementias. That’s just life. And some of it will be caused by the game. But we’re trying to lessen the impact.
What do you say to skeptics who argue that age 12 is too late for athletes to develop the skills necessary to play football at a higher level?
Well John didn’t start until he was 14 or 15, he didn’t go out for the team until sophomore year of high school. He’d been a pole vaulter and a basketball player before then. And he made it into the Pro Football Hall of Fame. To get an answer to that question, let’s ask every single hall of famer and every single retiree – when did they start playing? Some probably started at 5 or 6, but there are enough that started at 14 or 15 to support the reality that you can start playing later in life and become an extraordinary player. It’s simply not true that you can’t develop the necessary skills if you start at [age] 12.
Knowing that this bill is a step in the right direction, how optimistic are you that more states will follow suit to get out in front of this issue?
Just by the fact that two great states already have, I’m very optimistic that more states will. I’m not saying that they all will, but I’m optimistic that many more will. Only the future, which will be past our time, will tell by the statistics how effective the bill is. And I’m confident that it will be very effective.
A world-champion athlete who started competing for the USA Bobsled team in 2007, Meyers Taylor medaled in the last two Olympics—bronze in Vancouver in 2010 and silver in Sochi in 2014. But her bobsledding career was derailed by a concussion in 2015.
At the fourth World Cup race of the 2014-15 season in Koenigssee, Germany, Meyers Taylor and brakewoman Cherrelle Garrett crashed during their second run. They finished the race, but the impact left Meyers Taylor with a concussion.
Doctors cleared Meyers Taylor to race just four days later, but she knew something wasn’t right. “I felt OK, but my memory and concentration were off,” she told ESPNW a year after the incident. “I relied on my feel as a driver in the days and weeks ahead, though — and I won a world championship title less than a month after that high-speed crash. My concussion worries were behind me, or so I thought.”
Meyers Taylor received treatment in the offseason, but her drive and determination to compete led her to push through concussion symptoms again. “When I got back to sliding in October, my reactions were slow and my practice runs shaky. I took another knock to the head in November during a World Cup stop in Altenberg, Germany — one of the toughest tracks in the world — and then the headaches returned.”
She was forced to drop out of the World Cup to recover.
“I was devastated. There was nothing I wanted more than to slide down that hill. When that opportunity is taken away, it feels like your heart is being ripped out. I thought my season might be over — and maybe even my career. I’m a world-champion athlete, sidelined by an invisible injury.”
Meyers Taylor now looks at concussions and recovery differently. “If I’m tired or something doesn’t feel right, I make sure not to go again. It’s too dangerous to push through it.”
After learning the importance of proper rest and treatment for concussions firsthand, Meyers Taylor is healthy and as competitive as ever. Meyers Taylor earned three silver and two bronze medals already at the first five of eight 2017-18 IBSF Bobsleigh World Cup races leading up to the 2018 Winter Olympics in PyeongChang.
As a kid I grew up in a small town of 2,000 black people in Shaw, Mississippi. I appreciate my hometown because it’s where I learned about how to get through struggles and how to work hard, but there was no diversity and there were few job opportunities. Then my family moved, and I discovered football. I started playing at the age of 10 when I first moved from Mississippi to Bloomington, Illinois. I saw that they had Junior Football League, and I was in awe because we didn’t have those programs when I was growing up. Football gave me a chance to see the world, to dream about seeing something different outside of Shaw. I saw that it gave me an opportunity to stay out of trouble and gave me an incentive to want to do something in life. Football gave me hope.
But I want people, both players and fans, to understand that this is a game. People say so many negative things about the players who are struggling. It hurts my heart to hear, “They knew what they were getting into. They knew what was going to happen.” That’s hard to deal with when the doctor tells you that your seizures are so severe that you may die at any time.
I love football, but we are not prepared enough to handle the risks that come with playing the game. My goal growing up was to use football to get out of poverty, to stay out of the homeless shelter, and to provide something different for my kids. To be in the situation I am in now—it hurts.
My concussions were recognizable, but I wasn’t aware of or able to remember most of them. The concussions came from big collisions when I played strong safety in college. It was a hard-hitting position and there were times I’d be knocked unconscious. Usually I’d be told about them later by teammates or friends. I’d also be told that I was placed back into that same game a few plays afterwards. This happened a few times. After a while, a teammate saw that I was having seizures and reported it to the team, but I was never told this may be serious or that I shouldn’t play anymore.
The consequences of the trauma started to show back in 2009, and they’ve continued up until now. There are blackouts. Memory loss. Seizures.
I wake up every day wondering if I’m going to have a seizure. On days that I have one, I’m unable to do anything. Being a former student athlete, I’ve felt fatigue, but never the type of fatigue that I have after a seizure. Every muscle in your body hurts. You’re in a bed for a full day.
Sometimes I wake up with my friends or my kids standing over me, crying, because I had a grand mal seizure. Or I’ll have seizures where I’m just standing there staring off into space. People wonder what’s going on with me. Sometimes they think I’m being a jerk when I can’t concentrate on anything except the pain in my head.
I usually have at least two or three seizures a week. Some weeks I’m lucky and I’ll have one, but a seizure-free week is rare. I take medications that slow down my seizures and make them less frequent, but they’ve never stopped. I’ve never had anything that stopped my migraine headaches. Some days I can’t handle it. It’s just mentally frustrating to try get through everything and not be understood.
Doctors don’t want me to be alone with my kids. They don’t want me to drive. They don’t want me to work, but social security doesn’t provide much for our family.
As someone who has pride in his work ethic and wanted to finish school and start a business, it’s hard for me to go through everyday life knowing the doctor has told me I can’t work. I struggled with finishing school due to my brain injury.
I don’t want to be on disability. I don’t want government assistance. But this is the reality of what I go through because the doctor is telling me I can’t work. If I sneak off and get a job to try to work to pay a bill, they would take the benefit. And if I end up having a seizure I risk losing that job because I have to sit at home for days or be in the emergency room to recover.
My family knows I’m worried, stressed, and battling depression because I don’t know how to provide for my kids, or what’s going to happen if I die. Is social security going take care of my kids? Am I going to die in front of my kids? What consumes me is the pain of figuring out everyday life.
When it comes to my family, I’m amazed at the support system that I have. There are situations where guys have committed suicide with their family not being aware of what they’re really going through, and it’s hard for them to get through that. I know my family sees that I’m struggling through pain and these seizures and my depression. It’s really important for them to recognize. But it’s still a huge struggle for us.
When we were in college, I ran away from my wife because I was so embarrassed by the fact that I had seizures, that I had to drop out of school, that I had memory loss, that there were times when I would use the bathroom and I would pee on myself, or throw up from my headaches. I didn’t want her to see me as a weak man. But we fought through it over the last seven years and she stood by my side.
My family is what brings me joy—my stepson Isaiah, my nephew Kendrick, and knowing I’m coming home to three little girls, my daughters, Andria, Ayana, and Nina. I know that if I’m going through anything, they’re worried about “Daddy did you have a seizure? Are you ok? Do you need some pain medicine?” And when Nina gets picked up for daycare because they don’t want me to be alone with her, Nina just runs in the house straight to me saying “Daddy, Daddy, Daddy.” Those moments are my world, my motivation.
I went into motivational speaking because I wanted to reach at-risk youth and kids who grew up in situations like I did. I grew up in a poor, rural community and spent a year and a half in a homeless shelter when my family fell on hard times. But I made it out by working hard at something I loved to earn a college scholarship. I wanted to be able to mentor kids about mental toughness and how to get through things. About taking your health seriously and about taking your life seriously. But life didn’t turn out as the dream I wanted it to.
For people who are struggling with these things and for families who have lost their loved one to the struggle with depression, I understand how hard it is for you. I love everybody that is out here fighting and who’s out here on the forefront of the situation with concussions and mental health.
I struggle, but every day I wake up happy about being able to see my kids, happy about trying to be a motivational speaker or getting my own community center. I’m a survivor, and I hope my story can help others who may be battling with the same issues.
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.
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.
In 2016, the Concussion Legacy Foundation launched Team Up Speak Up, which encourages coaches to ask their athletes to Speak Up if they think a teammate may have a concussion. Understanding that athletes often cannot recognize when they have a concussion, or feel pressure to stay in the game, the goal of the program is to change the culture around concussions and help athletes play more safely.
Mack Gentry, a junior from Justin-Siena High School in Napa, California, was nominated by his athletic trainer Sarah Merkel for Speaking Up for his teammate on the football field last season.
Mack has played safety for the Justin-Siena Braves for the past two years, but he was sidelined during the 2016 season by a broken collarbone. Nonetheless, his commitment to the Braves football team remained resolute, and he was on the sideline of every game and practice, supporting his teammates.
It was during a very competitive home game that Mack put Team Up Speak Up into action. During a time-out, Mack saw that one of his teammates looked distressed. “He came out and it looked like he had been crying,” Mack said. “He said that he might have a concussion but he didn’t want anyone to know because he wanted to keep playing.” Even though his teammate wanted to stay in the game, Mack knows that concussions are too dangerous to hide. He approached the athletic trainer and told her what he saw. The athletic trainer immediately pulled the player, put him through the sideline protocol, and discovered he did, in fact, have a concussion. By looking out for his teammate, Mack may have saved him from being hurt much worse.
Mack knew that in the heat of the moment his teammate might get upset with him for telling the trainer, but he also knew that it was too risky to let him go back into the game without being evaluated for a concussion. “He was kind of mad at first because he wanted to go back in and wanted to play,” Mack said. “I think we were losing that game. But after a couple of days he realized, ‘Oh wait he did that for my safety’ and he said, ‘well, thank you.’”
“Mack is the definition of a spirited, loyal teammate,” said Merkel, who noted that younger players often “disappear” from practices after an injury, only showing up as support for home games. “But not Mack. He was at every lifting session, practice, and game, home or away, and it paid off for his teammate.”
Mack’s exemplary action revealed the critical role teammates play in diagnosing concussions. His team participates in the Team Up Speak Up program, the centerpiece of which is Team Up Speak Up Day, an annual nationwide event with the goal of getting as many athletes as possible to hear one simple speech. The message is clear:
1. We’re a team and we look out for each other.
2. A teammate with a concussion needs your help.
3. I expect you to speak up to a coach or athletic trainer if you think a teammate might have a concussion.
The speech originally comes from Harvard University Football Coach Bill Reid’s diary of the 1905 season, in which Reid records the team doctor’s annual safety lecture. The doctor emphasized that teammates must look out for one another on the field, and stop the game if someone is hit in the head.
This speech, lost to history for more than 100 years, demonstrates the core message behind Team Up Speak Up Day. A person of authority must instruct their athletes on the dangers of concussions and emphasize that athletes have a responsibility to report concussion symptoms in a teammate. Otherwise, many players might still believe they are being a good teammate by covering for an athlete with a concussion. Players need to know that no matter how big the game is, the risk of playing with a concussion is always bigger.
