A Long Road

A Long Road 

For as long as I could remember, I was an athlete. That’s the way I liked it. In a way sports were what I thought defined me as a person. Unfortunately, when I was a sophomore in high school, I suffered four concussions in three weeks playing basketball. My first concussion that year occurred during a game, which I played through. I had the weekend off from practice, though so I thought I would be fine to play once the weekend was over. I was wrong. My next game was a few days later and the same thing happened only this time I was told to sit out for a week. Instead of listening, I sat out for four days and played again. My first game back was okay, but my second game back was very bad. I do not remember it, but I can go off of what I was told. After hitting my head during this game, I could not regain my balance, I could not see straight when I tried to shoot foul shots, and could not even sit up without falling over when I was waiting at the scorer’s table to get buzzed into the game. The trainer for the other team pulled me aside when she noticed this and didn’t let me go back into the game. She then called my parents who picked me up and took me to the doctor. At this point I was getting really tired of being told I had to sit out, so when my doctor said I had to sit out for two weeks after I became symptom free I knew I would have to find a way around it. Instead of waiting until my symptoms subsided, I was back to playing exactly two weeks after my doctor’s appointment. The game that I returned to was the last basketball game I would ever play. My last concussion that year happened when I banged the back of my head off of the court. I laid there for a few seconds, but was able to stand up on my own and walk myself to the trainer’s room before I fell down. I was brought home and to the emergency room the next day when my symptoms became to get much worse. They held me in the ER while I fought with them because they were “causing me to miss another basketball game”. I was a complete mess. 

At this point in time I had no idea the severity of my injury. In fact, I’m not sure anyone knew just how bad it was. I began going to a concussion center once every two weeks where I met a phenomenal doctor who has helped me tremendously. I was told I could not to take part in any kind of physical activity and had to monitor my symptoms. Every two weeks I had to take an ImPACT test on the computer. My scores at first were pretty terrible and since I didn’t have a baseline test for my results to be compared to, I had to retake the test until I reached average scores. By the beginning of my junior year, my ImPACT scores reached above average and I worked my way up to being cleared to do everything except play contact sports. I was so excited I practiced every chance I could to make sure I was ready for when I got cleared again. Then at one of my biweekly appointments, I got cleared! I cried. It was one of the best feelings I had ever had. 

However, that feeling didn’t last for long. During preseason of my junior year, I didn’t even hit my head, and every one of my symptoms came back. It was devastating and I was completely confused. When I told my doctor he told me to stop participating and we made an appointment at the concussion center as soon as we could. When I got to the office that day I knew something was wrong, my appointment was after hours and in a completely different office than I had ever been in. The appointment started with my doctor showing me a YouTube video clip of what was going on in my brain. He then explained that although my brain my had healed cognitively, it didn’t heal physically. I found out that I tore nerves in my brain, which caused scar tissue to form. Since I injured my brain so much and never really let it heal, it would never be able to reset itself again. This means that when I was running or doing sharp cuts on the floor (like you would do in basketball), my brain was moving more than it was supposed to and the scar tissue was hitting. He then told me that I would never be able to play sports again. So again, I cried. This time I cried for the rest of the appointment, I cried when I got home, I cried when I woke up, and I cried in school the next day. I felt like by losing my ability to play sports meant losing everything that I am. 

I was later sent to the neurology center at the Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia. Of course, I asked them if I could ever play sports again. When I did, they looked confused. They said, “Sweetheart, you need to just be happy that you are alive.” 

Throughout the next couple months my symptoms continued to get worse. It got to the point where I couldn’t even be in school and was home bound for the last four months of my junior year. Being home bound may have helped me physically, but emotionally it wrecked me. No longer was I just upset about just losing sports, but now I lost my friends, my freedom, and just the feeling of being like other kids my age. I fell into a depression and my health began to decrease because of it. 

By my senior year of high school I was cleared to go to school for half days. At this point in time my symptoms were still very bad and I struggled to complete normal, everyday tasks. However, I was allowed to workout as long as I didn’t jolt my brain too much, jump around, or take part in contact sports. So I practiced with my basketball team. Running around made me throw up because my brain was moving so much. Sometimes I would get sick multiple times a practice, but I didn’t care. Being part of practice at all meant everything to me. 

Just like my classmates at this point, I started looking at colleges. I was then told that I probably wouldn’t be able to go away to school since I couldn’t take care of myself then. I was told that I wouldn’t be able to handle the workload or even my symptoms. 

This is where my success story starts. I am now a junior at Marywood University studying Health and Physical Education. I am on track to graduate in May of 2015 and have been doing all of this while holding three jobs. It feels pretty amazing to prove people wrong.

Nothing about my life is easy, but I will not let people tell me I cannot do something because of my head (as long as it doesn’t threaten my health). Instead, I’ve learned ways to cope. My room is full of post-it notes which help me to remember everyday things like brushing my teeth, using deodorant, taking medications, and what I should bring to class. Sometimes I still forget, but for the most part I’m doing pretty well. The symptoms that I have at this point in my life are probably the symptoms that I will have for the rest of my life. These include a headache everyday, which I’ve had for the past four years, hallucinations, memory problems, poor concentration, light and noise sensitivity, and a few others. Sometimes my symptoms get unbearable, but I now know how to deal with them. In fact, most people that I know in my college town don’t even know about my head injury, which I think is a pretty big accomplishment in itself.

I wish that I had known how much this head injury would have affected me, but I didn’t. However, that doesn’t mean I can’t help others. My goal is to help young athletes to understand just how serious head injuries are. One game is not worth the rest of your life. My life is changed forever, but it might not be too late for someone else. It would be wonderful if one day I could wake up without a headache, but that probably isn’t realistic. So for now I’m just getting everything out of life that I can and enjoying every second. My injury might prevent me from doing some things, but it will never define who I am.

-Shannon Lyons