“I have a terrific headache.” -Franklin Delano Roosevelt, 32nd President of the United States
Physically, there are many ways to get hurt and luckily for me, I have not experienced all of those ways. Unfortunately, I have experienced a good handful of them. From having my eyebrow sliced open with a hockey stick, to broken arms and legs from riding bikes and skateboards. Those are relatively common, honestly tame compared to other injuries but most importantly they are pretty easy to fix. Unfortunately, there are some injuries that are much harder, if not almost impossible to fix which I have enjoyed 4 times, concussions.
I have been distinctly unlucky to knowingly experience this 3 times, thanks to a few doctors and possibly a 4th time where I did not receive medical treatment. Concussions suck in the moment because it hurts to walk, talk, blink, have lights on, listen to anything, and really do anything that makes your head move. This is additionally unfortunate because it’s hard to describe. With a broken ankle, you have a cast and crutches where people can see your injury and when you step on it or hit it, you will cringe and people can understand because there is that visible indication of your pain. With concussions, you have to explain what happened to you, but luckily, the sensitive pain filled part of a concussion is over relatively quickly, especially in comparison to a broken bone where you can’t use the limb for weeks or months.
First Concussion
My first concussion is almost comedic in how I got it, I took a header into a padded floor. I was at a party taking place at this fun park place with tons of inflatable things, slides, platforms, race tracks etc. It was something that seems childish but I don’t care it was so much fun. I was egged on by my friend Amanda to do a flip after we raced up to the top of this slide. My plan was to do a flip, hit the ramp of the slide and roll down the slide, however over-zealous as I was to make a good impression, I jumped too far, landed head first on the luckily padded floor but I landed on the crown/back of my head so I not only did bang my head, I also had my legs fall forward over the front of my body so I did something like a reverse scorpion and strained my neck. It was a really stupid accident and my neck hurt and I was a bit dizzy. I didn’t feel great but good enough and then when I went home I never brought it up as if nothing happened. It was stupid but honestly, it was just a bit of a headache and neck pain. When I woke up, I felt worse, a bit dizzy and just off but not too bad until I went to class. I had Spanish in the morning and like normal we started off the class with some kind of video of people speaking Spanish to get us used to hearing native people speak Spanish. Then my teacher passed out the quiz we were going to have on the video. Then she flipped on the lights suddenly so we could see take the tests and I immediately felt horrendous, I closed my eyes, got super dizzy then just threw up in the middle of class. It was and still is exceedingly rare for me to throw up, even when sick. It surprised everyone, possibly most of all me. It was horrendously gross. I went to the nurse, told her everything then my parents picked me up, we went to my doctor to make sure everything was okay. I was fine but had to be watched and I wasn’t allowed to sleep again for a while to monitor me, I basically spend the next 24 hours in a blacked out room with nothing to do but listen to tv or something that wouldn’t strain me further.
I was okay, stupid kid, doing stupid things. Could have been much worse and that was at least a positive. While leaving I was warned by the doctor that I needed to be careful because, after one concussion, they become easier to have in the future and that they are more likely to be increasingly severe. I trusted him, but I didn’t have an idea exactly how bad it could get.
Second Concussion
The next two concussions were both due to playing soccer, funny to me as someone who played hockey his whole life up to this point to get hurt playing soccer. When at University, I was playing with a team there nothing too serious but we had a good time. This day we were playing and I was playing back defending a free kick, the ball came into the box and it bounced a bit too high for my foot to get too but I wanted to get it away. So I lunged and kind of dove to head it away, when I did that, someone else from my team figured they could kick it away. He raised his foot to kick the ball away, got to the ball right before I did and kicked the ball, but doing his follow-through his foot also found the side of my head. I went down for a second and stood up but my bell was rung. It was jarring I shook it off, but I didn’t feel so well. I was really dizzy and could not run at all so I called it a day. I got home, kept the lights off because that felt nicer, skipped class the next morning, and had my roommate check on how I felt. I was a bit off my game but it wasn’t anything major, I didn’t throw up but it was just a big hit. Why didn’t I go to the doctor this time? Probably because it had been years and I got kicked in the head, in my mind it was different from the last time where I landed on my head. I didn’t throw up so I didn’t feel that it was as serious.
Third Concussion
However, next time, throw up or not I had to go to the doctor. I was playing soccer again at the University and I was defending a corner, since I was short I got on the post to help the goalie while the bigger guys went for headers it’s probably not the best strategy for me but it worked. Well, like normal I was standing next to the post but moved a bit to the right so I was instead standing basically in front of it instead of essentially making the post bigger (admittedly, I was doing my job poorly). The ball went to the ground and an opponent took a shot. Instead of flying into the net, it flew directly at my face. It came so quick I didn’t have time to react or brace in any way. It hit me in the face and as I was standing in front of the post my head bounced straight backward and slammed into the metal post. I immediately fell to my knees holding my head and everything was ringing, I was curled up on my knees like a baby with my face to the floor, and hands to my face. It was fucking miserable and I don’t really remember what was going on at that time other then everyone stopped playing immediately. They called the university police over, and the officer helped me wobble over and lay down in the back of the car where he brought me to the health center, After the health center knew what happened, the University police brought me to the hospital to get checked out. I had another concussion. That was miserable and honestly worse than the first in every way except that I managed to not throw up this time.
Fourth Concussion
Finally, the most recent and worst concussion. I was doing martial arts training with the Marines and we were supposed to be paired up with people of a similar weight and height to go against. We were doing pugil stick fights, pugil sticks are basically big q-tips connected to your hands.
As you can see above, we wore a football helmet, mouth and crotch guard for protection and the way it worked was: You got your gear on, Stood at your side of a 25-30 yard strip of grass/dirt. When someone says go, you two sprint at each other full speed, meet in the middle and beat each other with the sticks until someone falls over, concedes or the instructor just decides its time to stop. As I said, we matched people up with someone their size, mainly because it was just for fun and getting used to getting hit and continuing to fight. We were lined up with tall guys paired, shorts guys paired, skinny or massive guys etc to make training more enjoyable and make sure everyone gets something out of it. Well, I was always excited to do it because it was always fun, it was a few moments of chaos, a bit of pain but always fun. I got on all my stuff but the guy in front of me was struggling to get on his helmet so they sent me ahead of him. Now in hindsight, this was not a good idea. Waiting for the guy ahead of me to go would have been the best move but the Marines was never about taking a pause to think, it is about speed and efficiency. The guy ahead me was a solid 5 or 6 inches taller, this led to my opponent, who was already a slight mismatch from him, being relatively massive.
Well, the whistle blew, and like ever we were supposed to break out into a war cry and yell as loud as possible, with the pugil stick over our heads. Normally, however, when you clash, you have brought the stick down a little and fight but this not what I did. As I understand it, it seemed that I lost my balance a little or just refused to stop. My body basically outran my legs and leaned a bit forward, lowering my head and arms towards my opponent who was taller and to compensate, he crouched down a bit and went for an uppercut. This uppercut caught me off balance, in the face and just crushed me. I was off balance got hit in the face, (allegedly and I believe it) both my feet left the ground, I landed backward on my upper back, banging my head right into the regularly packed dirt. I was completely unconscious. I don’t remember how long it took but it was long enough that the Corpsman made it over to me and was standing over me. He had my pugil-stick, gloves, mouth guard out with my helmet/chinstrap unbuttoned but still on my head. Additionally, there was the Sergeant in charge of our training and one of my closest friends alongside him. They did the things where they asked me some questions and my friend Cortez asked “What is your girlfriend’s name?” and my response was “I don’t know…… but she is pretty and I like her.” which while that would prove to win some brownie points with the girlfriend, it did not impress the doc and that was when they decided they needed to get me more help. They helped walk me to the medical center once I got my helmet off and dusted myself off. The Chief got my information and sent me to the hospital to get scanned due.
I honestly do not remember much about the incident. Everything is gone from it up until about when the Sergeant was standing above me saying that I got “knocked the fuck out” and that it “looked like the coolest shit ever.” Joking as we always do no matter the situation, which honestly I appreciated. So much of my “memory” of this came from people telling me their view of it in the days following and randomly over and over every time we met up for actual years following where it could be fit into the conversation.
It was by far the worst injury I have had and it basically destroyed me in more ways than one.
Aftermath
This concussion and the severity worried the medical team at my unit and there are certain protocols that go into effect when things like this happen, removing me from training, altering schedules, doing some tests and checking on me etc but one of the things that was brought to my attention was possibly being discharged medically for my repeated injuries. This was a horrific weekend, I was hurt, feeling terrible, a little embarrassed if I am honest and was told that there is a chance that I would be forcefully removed from the Marines. This surely did not help my mental state that was already beginning to get worse. I ended up sitting with the doc and going through things. Basically, the informal agreement we had was no more martial arts for a while and regular checks on things like memory and mental state just to see how things were going and I was feeling. This was good because I was really freaked out at the thought of doing it again and getting hurt. The tradeoff to this was that postponing training would stop me from progressing to higher Martial Arts belts and eventually it would be an issue as higher martial arts belts are required for promotion but it was a temporary solution for sure.
This reassured me for the time, however as time moved on and I got further away from the incident, I started noticing myself getting incredibly timid when it comes to anything with my head. I would avoid anything that I thought could hurt my head. I would avoid trampolines, I wouldn’t go for headers in a soccer match, I stopped riding bikes off-road for fear of hitting a tree or losing control in the dirt/rocks. I hated being upside down, rollercoasters were and still are fine, if I am falling out of a rollercoaster, the least of my fears is another concussion but I couldn’t do flips into the pool, and if a friend picked me up and even hung me over their back, like one or two enjoyed doing, it would get me incredibly uneasy and I would usually fight them to let me down unlike the past. It felt like it crippled me mentally more than anything else. Something about it, it being the 4th time, or being knocked unconscious, the hospital visit and then the concern for the future of my career with the Marines. It just all bundled up into anxiety, fear and concern that I couldn’t get over at the time and in some ways, still haven’t gotten over. As I realized these new fears and roadblocks that I had going on in my head, I started to get worried about my career. It wasn’t decided if I was going to stay in the Marines but I wanted the option. It was something I always wanted to do but I wasn’t sure if it was right for me at the time. Regardless of how I felt about it, I knew that being afraid to do things that could hurt me would definitely cause problems in respect to my future in the Marines but I didn’t know what else to do. I was who I was and there was not a way for me to calm it down. I just had to get over it when I got over it.
The next time that I was with the medical staff, the medical Chief basically said that she was not willing to discharge me medically due to the fact that currently, I was still able to fully take care of my daily responsibilities. This was at least positive but the news that followed was much worse. I was informed that in addition to lacking the ability to be promoted due to failing to complete Martial Arts training, it is expected that I will fail the medical should I look to re-enlist. She told me that looking at my medical history and hearing how I was feeling about it all, she would not pass me for re-enlistment if the medical check was today. There was, of course, a chance that things could change in the following months/year but that news, the frank and clear explanation of my situation closed off that future in my head. I knew that someone if she was still stationed with my unit, would not be willing to sign off positively on my record to stay and without her explicit approval, there was no way to continue. For years, I had bounced around the idea of taking my degree, going to OCS, becoming an officer and making a long career, or at least a longer career in the Marines. It was something that I set out to do as a 17-year-old and it was still a great idea and that plan had seemed to evaporate in that moment.
It sucked, it was okay. I was fine. I think honestly at that point I was leaning more towards going back to normal life, take my degree, work as a Software Developer and just live that new life or maybe I just think that because I didn’t really have much of another option. Regardless though, in that moment, when I was told that she would not approve my medical papers to stay in, I wanted it to stay in the Marines. I wanted to be an officer and prove to myself that I was able to do it. Maybe it was a bit of you don’t know what you have until it’s gone or maybe you always want what you can’t have or maybe I just never thought about it because I had always known it was there. Either way, it hurt and it felt like I had something taken away from me because of my stupid head and the stupid mistakes that I had made in the past.
Life Since and Recovery?
This 4th injury was by far the worst. I had broken legs, arms, ankles, wrists, fingers but nothing quite fucked me up as this concussion did. The most immediate thing that alarmed me when it happened was I don’t remember anything about that day leading up to it. It is like my brain was writing down what was happening that day to save it for later and the concussion came, punched the pen out of my brains hand, got into a fight, then when it got the pen back and started back on recording the memory it just skipped to what happened after the hit. This seems pretty normal from what I understand, I am sure many people don’t remember what happened exactly before their injury and only has it pieced together afterward thanks to people who were with them and explained how it all happened. Luckily for me, my concussion was the funniest thing anyone had ever seen so in addition to hearing about it immediately when they were checking on me, any time Martial Arts or fighting or headaches or anything that could vaguely be related to a concussion or whatever happened to me came up, the story was always retold.. ?especially if someone around had not yet heard the story. This is probably the reason why I remember or at least think I remember so much about it. However the before time, why we were there, what exactly we were doing (remedial training, examinations, learning new things etc), where we were, etc… you know, the boring things, those are forgotten about. Gone because no one talked about those as they weren’t funny or important. It was always just that one moment and like some experimental film, I saw it from multiple angles with different twists on it.
Unfortunately, As I mentioned much earlier, I had been told that concussions stack, the first is usually the best(? the least bad), the second and successive ones get worse and worse and the more you get the more inclined you are to get more which is a cruel joke in my opinion.
Even before this injury, I had noticed more and more little things about my life that I was starting to forget. It seemed like just the general growing up kind of forgetting. You remember less about school and childhood and other things that for a while felt like you would remember forever and I figured that was just a part of growing up. Therefore I didn’t worry too much but since the concussion, when the doctors told me that memory degradation was something that could happen so I was aware of it and made note of it when it happened. I started forgetting more recent things or at least noticing it. First, it was random bits of information, stories from my first semester at University, professors that I had or students that shared class with me. This was more recent information but still not big things, I had bigger gaps in memories for earlier. I was forgetting the names of some of my closest friends in school, people who I saw every single day basically for 5 or 6 years, played games with, worked on projects with. People who I bonded with and I would start to just remember that they existed and some of our adventures but not their names. Something so simple but honestly quite important. It was distressing and there would be times where I would lay in bed and try to replay stories and memories of us as much as possible, thinking it would rejog the memory, sometimes it would, but more often, it wouldn’t. The information was lost and I would have to ask someone adjacent to the memory to fill in that gap. Without fail they would remember immediately, it was weird and embarrassing, I would spend an hour trying to recall a name or memory and I would vaguely mention it to someone else and they would be able to pull it out of their memory immediately. Admittedly, it was something so unimportant and no one (except maybe the person whom I forgot) would care but I hated not remembering these things. It felt almost like I was stupid, not just forgetful but as if I was dumber now than I once was.
This only got worse as time went on, of course, things far in the past always sneaks out of people’s memory but now I noticed it, I noticed more and more misplaced memories, misremembering things that I did with one person but actually did it with a different person. Then there was the more immediate things that I would forget such as plans. For example, I would text a friend, agree to do something on Saturday then by Saturday I get a text about “when do we meet up” or whatever and I would have either completely forgot and had to rush to get ready or worse, I would have already made plans with someone/something. I also would occasionally forget more innocuous things. Like I would(and still occasionally do) go to the store and buy milk twice in 2 days because I was out so I went out got more, then forgot the next day so I went out again and bought more. Milk is one example but not the only one and I know these all seem pretty pedestrian but when they happen and you make note of then, it starts to affect you. Not just mentally but psychologically, (or vice versa) I felt like I was getting stupider, sometimes at night I would get this insane fear that I was having some kind of early onset Alzheimer’s or something, definitely crazy but these crazy thoughts happen when you are lying alone in the dark at night.
I have spent a lot of time reading stories of people who had dealt with worse head injuries, multiple head injuries, longer unconscious periods, how they struggled, what it did to them and most importantly, what they did/are doing to get better to at least get as good as they could get. I started to keep a calendar, not just one where I put the occasional thing in but a proper one where I put everything in. I would put in classes, work schedule (both which I already did), but added meetings for school and work, study sessions, homework assignments, quizzes/exams, plans to meet friends and sometimes I even added tentative plans to meet people online and play games. I put in big things that couldn’t be missed but also less important things and sometimes just vague ideas of plans just to remember. It was a first real step for me. It was admitting that something was wrong and doing something to try and fix it. Something I wish I started earlier, but better late than never.
Then, I started putting friends birthdays in my calendar. There are one or two friends who have birthdays on or nearby other important events that will almost always remind me about them. Unfortunately, This year I even forgot my fathers birthday on the day. I knew his birthday but it was a weird combination of just not doing anything that day, having no work meetings, and never really looking at the calendar and I am not making excuses, just stating how I could have possibly gone the whole day without knowing what day it was. I went to bed normally then woke up the next day, my alarm was going off and I looked at my phone and saw that it was the 26th, the 25th being my fathers birthday and I freaked out. I have never felt like a worse son than on that day and this lead to trying to write things down more often and focus on these important things.
The next thing I needed to make a change was something to help remember things about my friends, especially people I recently met. Many friends who I have known for a while and continue to talk to, I generally have no problem remembering their basic information. Family, relationship, job/studies, basic likes and dislikes, and birthday etc. Pretty basic but still key bits of information. However, people I met recently or those who I am getting to know a lot better are significantly more susceptible to me forgetting things about them This embarrassingly causes me to ask the same questions two, three, more times and come off as either someone who doesn’t care or is really stupid. For example, a friend I met while traveling, we became really good friends but I have probably asked her what her birthday is, if she has siblings, what her hometown is(which I still fail to remember, I just know a nearby larger city) etc two or three times each. Each time it happens, the second I am retold I remember and have this wave of embarrassment crash over me. To the part where I have apologized. She tells me that it is okay and that it doesn’t matter but it still sucks. Again these moments have made me make a slightly drastic step which I am slightly uncomfortable thinking about but it is better than forgetting things about my friends. I have started writing/organizing notes about friends. Not everyone I meet, I mean I am not keeping dossiers on people like the CIA does for terrorists or the NSA for citizens but for those people who cross over from the casual acquaintance level to a friend with whom I talk to often. These are the people I make this, admittedly weird, extra effort for because I want to reduce the chance of forgetting important things.
These things are not some templated document, more just like random notes, usually including their full name, if I know their middle name, birthday, where they grew up, if they have siblings, about their boyfriend/girlfriend and then just some random facts about them and interesting information that they tell me that could be valuable and important in the future, food they like, allergies etc. Sometimes there is more than is really necessary but the act of writing it down and being able to re-read it every time I am trying to think about something helps and I have found that just the act of writing it down helps commit it to memory. Either way, it allows this guilt-free forgetfulness and hopefully, even if marginally, helps improve my actual memory. Unfortunately, sometimes I don’t recognize when I need to write something down initially and it usually takes until that second time I ask the same question. Once that happens, at least now I know that I can’t remember the information and I then write it down somewhere that I can check.
Today
I have started playing soccer again, I am back on a bike and trying to skateboard again but with more protection and care than I have in the past. I still live in a bit of fear, I hate being upside down, I can’t get over it. Rollercoasters are still, if not more fun than I remember but I can’t do a front flip on a trampoline, at least I can get on them but if I try to go inverted, my body just stops me my legs and arms will flair instinctively to stop the rotation and I feel completely powerless to hold them back.
Last summer, I was with my girlfriend at the time and there was a trampoline next to the place we were staying on vacation. It was not protected in any way, there was no netting and in a weirdly more concerning way, it was sunk into the ground so that the edge/frame of the trampoline was almost flush with the grass, maybe 2 inches higher but still. In reality, this meant that if I fell onto the ground, I would fall significantly less far than I would if it was raised like normal. However, to me, this meant that the ground was significantly closer and if I did a flip but didn’t make it all the way and/or went off the side, there was less recovery time to get adjusted and prepared for a fall. I wouldn’t be able to continue to rotate or get my hands out or something that I could do to save me from another injury. Anyway, she and her sister were trying to do flips in different ways, normal jump and flips, bouncing on their knees and flipping, bouncing on their butts then flipping etc. I was with them and occasionally they wanted me to film it for whatever reason so I did. Then, of course, it would be my turn and I just could never flip. I don’t know why. I would bounce, jump, start the roll then I would completely bail out and bounce on my sides/stomach/knees. It was weird and embarrassing. They kinda joked and told me to either flip or let them go. I would joke, try a few more times but it just never happened so I gave up and let them jump and flip while I just hung out with them. I never told either of them and I don’t think she ever knew about this weird fear of mine. That was over a year ago at this point and was the last time I was on a trampoline.
Luckily, I haven’t had any injuries, I haven’t even had any close calls. I avoid headers and have noticed that I am less physical than I once was playing soccer. I now spend more time on the wings and I no longer defend the posts for corners. Additionally, I try to just be more aware of my mental space. I take care of my physical safety and health more than I would in the past, I try to keep tabs on my mental organization and health but I also try to balance that safety and health with a realistic perspective. I know that just because something could hurt me is not a good enough reason to not do it. If I avoided anything that could hurt, I would probably never do anything. I just try to be smarter. I can’t be afraid forever and I can’t forget things forever. I know that I will remember how to properly do a backflip on a trampoline just like I used to but it takes time. I’ve been told that the only way out is through it so that is what I am doing, I am working my way through.