Senior year is when I got my second concussion. It was during volleyball practice and it wasn't even a hard hit. Any athletic person would know that after your first concussion it does not take very much to get a second or third one. I was basically benched my whole senior season except for one night, my senior night.
Senior night meant everything to me. It was the night that I thought that I could actually get through this if I got to play that night. Well, I did play, but not for long.
During my concussion my mind played tricks on me. I was sad when I shouldn't have been and I cried for absolutely no reason at all. I slept even when I wasn't tired. I couldn't figure it out. I didn't know how to stop it.
To get on that court that night I had to tell my neurologist I was okay when I really wasn't. I was still having trouble focusing and I still got bad headaches. But, in order to play I had to tell him that I was okay. He told me I wasn't cleared but I could play this one game.
When I was cleared it didn't really make a difference because I still didn't play. It broke my heart. This was the only sport I had played and loved my entire high school career.
At the end of the season I began to really focus on school and catch up on things that I had missed because of my concussion. Everyone was checking up on me at this point, my friends, teachers, family, EMTs, Police. Everyone. They wanted to make sure i was okay, but honestly they made things worse.
"Kara, how's your head?" or " You okay?" were the ones that really got me crying.
Later on, I felt my vision not focusing correctly when I was reading something. when I went to the eye doctor they told me I need glasses and the cause may be from my concussion. I was stuttering when I wanted to say something or I just couldn't get my words out at all. It was frustrating me.
To this day, I still have those side effects. I get migraines and severe headaches to the point that I want to cry. I still can not focus on anything. That is my fear now that I'm in college. That this will affect me. That I won't do well because I never told my parents that these things are still going on. I hid from them how bad it was because I didn't want them to be worried and I didn't think it would still be affecting me. But now I have to push myself to do my best and work through the obstacles and hopefully come out the other end in one piece.
Advice to anyone who has/had a concussion: Don't push yourself. Let yourself heal. Be open about what's going on, don't lie or hide anything. Tell somebody. Let somebody help you. Believe that you'll be okay.
Trust me I didn't do any of that and look how well that turned out but maybe one day the side effects will go away and I'll go back to the way things were. Having a concussion changed me, some ways that are good and some ways that are bad.
