Let’s just get this out of the way right now. I am an accident waiting to happen. You can find me with bandages, ice packs and Advil at almost any given moment. But this injury wasn’t your typical cut that healed in a few days. It never fully healed and it forever changed who I was.
First, let me say cheerleading IS a sport. These girls defy gravity and do crazy things with their bodies that you wouldn’t think is humanly possible. It’s reasonable to think the flyers are the ones who are constantly getting hurt… And it’s true… They do get hurt. But a rule that you know as a cheerleader is you do NOT drop your Flyer. Being a Back in cheerleading, it was my responsibility to catch my flyer if she fell. So naturally when we didn’t successfully hit a stunt, I did what I had to do to catch my Flyer. As I caught her, I fell onto my back and smacked my head and back on the floor… I thought I was fine… And I probably would’ve been fine if I didn’t get hit two times after that initial hit. But I wasn’t told to take it easy and I kept cheering. By the third hit, I saw stars. My world was literally spinning. I knew right then and there that I was going to be in big trouble.
Three hits to the head. That’s all it took to change my life. At the time, I didn’t know how bad my concussion was. No one could’ve predicted that I was going to be out of school for a year. The worst part is that there is no cure for a concussion. But the symptoms, well, let me tell you about the symptoms.
I had a constant headache, but it wasn’t your normal headache… It was a headache that was piercing. Sharp pains. Pressure. My whole head felt like it was going to explode. Nothing was comfortable. I would lay in bed with my mom for hours with an icepack on my head in the pitch black, hoping I would get some kind of relief. Any kind of relief. There was no medication that could help, and no doctor that could tell me how long I was going to feel sick.
Anxiety. All of my friends lives continued and I was stuck home. I was isolated. Of course some people stayed in touch and made sure that I was okay. But others who I talked to everyday in school acted as if I never existed. And if they would see me out they would act all kinds of concerned. But honestly, if they were actually concerned all it takes is 5 seconds to send a simple text asking “how you are feeling?”.
Foggy mind. Loss of balance. Blurred vision. Depression. Memory loss. All from just three hits. I had to learn how to cope with my new “normal.” I started wearing glasses to see distance. I had to retrain myself how to read. Had to practice my balance. And what would have taken me a half hour of work now took me an hour.
To this day, I am still dealing with residual effects of my concussion. And to this day, my friends make jokes about my concussion. They say I’m a faker and I wanted the attention. Honestly that hurts the most. The people who you care about most taunting you with something you have zero control over.
Talking about my concussion at first wasn’t easy. In fact, it was almost impossible. I couldn’t go into a doctor’s office without crying. It’s just recently that I have come to terms with my concussion and what my new normal is. I try my best to ignore the people who give me a problem, and I now know who truly cares about me. What really sucked was being wrong about people. Realizing that you would do anything for other people who wouldn’t do anything for you.
It’s traumatic events in our lives that show us who we can truly depend on. And sometimes it surprises us who comes to our side at our times of need, and who doesn’t.
