Everything was black. I could feel weight being lifted off of me and I could feel that I was lying face down, I only became concerned when I rolled on to my back and still I could see only darkness. At this point my vision faded back in from the middle outward, flooding my brain with information. The referee was helping me up and I remember him asking me a simple question. “Are you OK?” Seems simple enough, but at the time I couldn’t put any words in my mouth, I just sort of grunted and began to jog back toward the huddle as I was supposed to be in the receiver rotation for a couple more plays. By this point it was clear to me that something was amiss, I just jogged past the huddle and back to our sideline. Seeing as I had come out of the rotation early an assistant coach walked over and asked what was wrong. Again, a simple question, and again I had no words. After I took of my helmet he asked what city we were in, I knew it was an away game but I couldn’t find the memory of where I had gotten off the bus just a few hours before, I glanced at the scoreboard and read off “New London.” He had seen enough. I sat out the rest of the game and although I didn’t know it at the time that would be the last time I wore football pads and took the field.
I went to the hospital later that night because my parents wanted to take me. The doctor basically told me I had a concussion and that I shouldn’t play contact sports ever again. He then gave me a prescription for standard prescription pain meds, and sent me on my way. I don’t remember really thinking anything for the next several days. It is all kind of a blur when I look back on it, I guess it was mostly a blur then as well. I went to class, hung out with my friends, took hydrocodone, and just sort of existed. There was really only one thing I could think about while I was sitting in class, when I wasn’t just drowsily daydreaming, that was the pain. My head hurt a lot, all the time, and after I ran out of medication it still hurt all the time, so I took OTC medication, a lot of it, for a long time. By the next spring I still got headaches from just running around during the tennis is season and to this day it still only takes some jarring or a heathy bump to bring back that familiar pressure an pounding behind my forehead.
I had no Idea at the time just how serious my injury was and the people around me couldn’t understand why I was complaining all the time. I looked fine and it had been months since the injury, so I just self-medicated and told myself everything was fine. It must be fine, I thought, that is what everyone was telling me. People need to be more educated on concussion and concussion symptoms, particularly if they or their family member has had one. I think it is absurd that a doctor just handed me hydrocodone and sent me home without telling me or my parents how serious an injury like this can be, and what the long term consequences can be like. Sure he told me not to play contact sports again, but if you were sixteen would you listen to him? On the car ride home from the hospital I was already thinking about what I would have to do to get back on the field, I brushed off his warning in a matter of minutes while I was still in immense pain. People need to have serious conversations with kids when they injure their brains and just give them an idea of the stakes. I am just glad my symptoms were so intense and so long lasting because I know that I would have suited up again in a heartbeat if I felt like I could. I know most young people, like me, have no sense of foresight and are only worried about their next competition, but you only have one brain and it is pretty important, I think even a sixteen year old boy can understand that.
Symptoms:
http://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-conditions/concussion/basics/symptoms/con-20019272
Consequences:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3208826/
People Need to Understand What a Concussion Feels Like
