Strobing red and blue lights flash all around me. Loud dancing music echoes off the brick walls. Exhausted from the night of dancing, I stop and rest for a moment in the middle of a crowd of sweaty teenagers. Everything seems normal. Then, out of the corner of my eye, I see a girl who’s head is speeding towards me at an unusually fast pace. She’s not in line to hit me, I thought. I don’t need to move. Boy, was I wrong.
What she was doing to achieve this kind of velocity I’ll never be completely sure of, but as far as my understanding goes she was either doing a back handspring, or threw her head back super hard while dancing or laughing.
Either way, amidst all the chaos and my exhaustion, she managed to hit my left eye with the back of her head. Stumbling back in the crowd, I couldn’t see anything for several seconds, I don’t know if that’s because my eyes were closed, or because my vision blacked out. When I recovered I had the sense that something had been hurt, and I suspected immediately that I might have a concussion, but I brushed the suspicion off at first, not wanting to face the implications of having a concussion.
I immediately went back to dancing, hoping that no one had seen me get hurt. Then I stopped, because I was worried that jumping itself might aggravate a possible concussion.
I first noticed evidence of something being wrong when I tried to walk and my body didn’t respond for a couple of seconds. Then, after trying harder, I got my body to initiate walking. It was a confusing couple of seconds. I was doing everything I normally did to start walking, but nothing in my body moved. Luckily, this phenomenon didn’t occur again.
After thinking for a while and stalling for time by lightly dancing (no jumping) I came to the decision of going to the bathroom to see what my face looked like in the mirror. As I reached the bathroom mirror and inspected my left eye I saw some minor redness above and below it, but nothing serious. I then got some ice from a kind Teacher’s Assistant and sat out the rest of the dance.
My mind was reeling while waiting for the dance to end. I had taken an emergency medical responder class, I should know the symptoms of a concussion, but the only things that came to mind were nausea and tinnitus, neither of which I had. In addition to that, I couldn’t stop overthinking whether you are supposed to put ice on your eye.
As the night wore on we transitioned to the after party of games and a movie where I noticed some confusion, brain fog, and had the overarching sense of everything being harder. I didn’t want to accept these symptoms though, because I liked to consider myself invincible. It took several hours of constant symptoms for me to accept that I probably had a concussion.
When I got home late that night I tentatively told my mom that I thought I had a concussion. I asked her if I should go to the doctor and she said no because she didn’t think it was that severe. That was a Saturday night. The next week happened to be the last week of school filled with all the senior activities that I longed to go to. The pro that I saw of not going to the doctor was that he couldn’t tell me that I couldn’t attend any of my senior activities. Similarly, the con of not going to the doctor was that he couldn’t tell me that I couldn’t attend any of my senior activities, which in hindsight, should have been abstained from.
The biggest set back was going to a rollercoaster park. Riding rollercoasters + a concussion = an unhealthy time. I’m pretty sure I got at least one more concussion on those rollercoasters since it’s easier to get another concussion when you already have one. I was also risking a lot by going on those rollercoasters because there is something called second-impact syndrome where you get a hit-even a soft one-after your concussion and it can cause your brain to rapidly swell and your breathing to stop, and it puts you in the emergency room if you even get that far before you pass away.
Doctors don’t know why some people get second-impact syndrome and some people don’t, but I was in the lucky category of not getting it.
The loud noises, jarring rollercoasters, and long, crowded walks left me dreadfully overstimulated and fearing for my life. This experience is why I will never ride a rollercoaster again. That being said, I did survive the day, but met my ride home being so exhausted that I was unable to speak even if I wanted to. Unfortunately, not speaking is a typical state for me so my ride (my dad) didn’t think anything of it. I wanted to scream that something was wrong in my head, but I couldn’t get any words out. I felt trapped.
The next few days were exhausting, but not rollercoaster riding, fearing for your life exhausting. Soon, came my high school graduation. To be short, it felt like a fever dream. I was out of it, had difficulty comprehending conversations, and was worried I was exacerbating my symptoms the entire time. Looking back on those pictures I look slightly pained and have a small red bruise just below my left eyebrow.
In general, what was worse, I felt like with every previously normal thing I tried to do after getting a concussion, I discovered a new deficit in my functioning. I felt like I was exploring my brain in a way I never had before, and not in a comfortable way. More like in a depressing and excruciating way. Try reading? My eyes couldn’t follow the words and frequently skipped. What about watching a movie? I was exhausted and got pressure in my head and brain fog. There was a similar story with every activity I did. I also had a strange sense of physical areas in my brain being activated differently and it was a constant reminder of my brain not working properly. I couldn’t even get my mind off the symptoms long enough to fully comprehend how bad they were.
I will leave this entry here since I don’t want it to be too long. In part 2 I will talk more in depth about my symptoms and what life was like with them. I hope this helps some people in putting words to what they may be experiencing, because I know I felt like I couldn’t put the proper words to it when I was experiencing it.
Thank you for reading this far. This has been a very cathartic experience for me and I feel more whole after writing this. I guess a part of me was still emotionally broken from this experience even after 3 years and writing it has helped me work through some of it.
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