{"id":24939,"date":"2024-02-16T09:01:00","date_gmt":"2024-02-16T09:01:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/test11.f5test.in.ua\/personal-stories\/17-concussions-in-18-years\/"},"modified":"2024-09-17T13:34:05","modified_gmt":"2024-09-17T13:34:05","slug":"17-concussions-in-18-years","status":"publish","type":"stories","link":"https:\/\/concussionandcte.org\/en-ca\/personal-stories\/inspiring-stories\/17-concussions-in-18-years\/","title":{"rendered":"How 17 Concussions in 18 Years Changed My Life"},"content":{"rendered":"

Posted: February 14, 2018\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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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\u2019s office sipping ginger ale and eating saltines. I couldn\u2019t think. Math that used to be easy for me became impossible. I couldn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

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\u2019d 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\u2019t see anything. That didn\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

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Unfortunately, my concussion history doesn\u2019t end there. I went to overnight camp that summer. \u00a0It 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\u2019t 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.<\/p>\n

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My symptoms are still very severe. I can\u2019t focus on anything for more than a few minutes. My short-term memory is shot. I\u2019ve become impulsive and sometimes say things without thinking through the consequences. I\u2019ve had to leave class to vomit in school many times. \u00a0I always have a headache, and it spikes throughout the day. I get dizzy often, my balance isn\u2019t good and I still go blind in my left eye when my heart rate goes up. I\u2019m 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\u2019d take too many pain pills to see how far I could push it.<\/p>\n

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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\u2019ve had to accept that my life will never be the same.<\/div>\n

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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.<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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\u2019t get everything out of soccer that I could. However, as more time passes, I\u2019m starting to see that it wasn\u2019t worth it. I\u2019d never expect a teammate to play through a concussion, and I\u2019d 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<\/a> to prevent concussions from derailing more lives.<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/article>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

A powerful story of the dangers of playing through the pain and finding peace on the other side of the sideline.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"inline_featured_image":false},"inspiring-stories":[11],"legacy-stories":[],"class_list":["post-24939","stories","type-stories","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","inspiring-stories-pcs"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\nHow 17 Concussions in 18 Years Changed My Life - Concussion Legacy Foundation<\/title>\n<meta name=\"robots\" content=\"index, follow, max-snippet:-1, max-image-preview:large, max-video-preview:-1\" \/>\n<link rel=\"canonical\" href=\"https:\/\/concussionandcte.org\/en-ca\/personal-stories\/inspiring-stories\/17-concussions-in-18-years\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:locale\" content=\"en_US\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:type\" content=\"article\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:title\" content=\"How 17 Concussions in 18 Years Changed My Life - Concussion Legacy Foundation\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:description\" content=\"A powerful story of the dangers of playing through the pain and finding peace on the other side of the sideline.\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:url\" content=\"https:\/\/concussionandcte.org\/en-ca\/personal-stories\/inspiring-stories\/17-concussions-in-18-years\/\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:site_name\" content=\"Concussion Legacy Foundation\" \/>\n<meta property=\"article:modified_time\" content=\"2024-09-17T13:34:05+00:00\" \/>\n<meta property=\"og:image\" content=\"https:\/\/concussionandcte.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Claire-With-Teacher-2.jpg.webp\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:card\" content=\"summary_large_image\" \/>\n<meta name=\"twitter:label1\" content=\"Est. reading time\" \/>\n\t<meta name=\"twitter:data1\" content=\"7 minutes\" \/>\n<script type=\"application\/ld+json\" class=\"yoast-schema-graph\">{\"@context\":\"https:\/\/schema.org\",\"@graph\":[{\"@type\":\"WebPage\",\"@id\":\"https:\/\/concussionandcte.org\/en-ca\/personal-stories\/inspiring-stories\/17-concussions-in-18-years\/\",\"url\":\"https:\/\/concussionandcte.org\/en-ca\/personal-stories\/inspiring-stories\/17-concussions-in-18-years\/\",\"name\":\"How 17 Concussions in 18 Years Changed My Life - 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