Eva Bethea

The first time I got a concussion playing soccer I laughed it off. I had played eight more games that weekend after getting hit in the head, other than headaches, sensitivity to light and sound, and slight nausea, I felt nothing. The second one, a little less than a year later was the one that changed my life. I don’t remember much, just doing a drill we did every practice and next thing I know I was holding my head crying. My coach called my dad and we slept in the living room that night so he would watch me. I expected the same routine as my first one, my head would hurt for a few days, then I would be cleared, go back to school and soccer, and be fine.

That did not happen. Instead, three months later I was at the doctors once a week, I developed a stutter, repeated questions, couldn’t remember a thing, and the worst thing for me, once an avid reader, I couldn’t understand books anymore. I went from one of the highest reading comprehension levels in the school to probably one of the lowest. I flunked classes, I would have anxiety attacks on the drive to school and beg my parents to let me stay home.

My athletic director and vice principle in a meeting with my parents told them that they did not have to listen to my doctor’s notes because of lack of proper signing, when all the notes were signed and my doctor had called the nurses to discuss it. He looked my mother in the eye and told them he had never had a football player in his fifteen years of coaching football react like this to a concussion, so I must be faking.

I didn’t play high school soccer that year. Slowly, with a lot of therapy, doctors, and specialists, my brain healed. I did a semester online and then transferred schools. I went back to club soccer and played every day, working with coaches that found drills that would push my brain but also help it heal. I cried every day the first week at my new school, nervous, scared I would stutter or repeat myself when I talked, scared I wouldn’t understand what I was reading. Eventually, I made friends, I thought it would all be okay.

Then I got another concussion. I bounced back from that one, but then I was scared. Then it was summer, and another school year, and another concussion. At this point I was seriously considering playing college soccer. My coaches, athletic trainer, family, friends, even my cousin-in-law’s groomsmen kept telling me how I only had one brain. And my doctor laid down the law, if I had another, there would be no more soccer. But still I played, I played every day, multiple times a day.

Right before my senior year of high school soccer, I got my most recent concussion. They sent me to the best specialist in the area, we took recovery extremely seriously. I worked out with my athletic trainer, I worked with a cognitive therapists, and I begged everyone to let me play my senior year. They eventually agreed with my parents’ blessing, but the specialist told me she would never clear me to play at any college level.

I thought my life was over. I cried for months, i would drive past a soccer complex and sob in the car. My therapist heard me rant and cry over it more times than I can count.

It was just the one year mark since my last concussion two weeks ago. I’ve found new hobbies, I ride horses more now, I reignited my passion for dance through ballroom without soccer to distract me, I just got promoted at work, I golf, and I do pageants, spreading awareness on concussions and brain injuries. Sometimes I still get migraines, when the suns bright its hard for me to drive, loud noises sometimes hurt, readings hard, so is math, and I can’t read or focus if too many things are happening at once.

But I’m thriving, I’m majoring in neuroscience, I compete in my first Miss America Local tomorrow after a successful past few years of pageants, my family is my rock, and with some patience in myself, I navigating my new way of living pretty well.