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So about 3 years ago, I got my first concussion from a car accident(not my fault). Opposing taxi driver in heavy snow conditions for whatever reason lost control(oversteer) while going around a slight curve, and hit the gas instead of the brake, jumped the median and had a glancing blow to the front left of my car, totalling it. My head hit the oh-shit handle at some speed(no side airbags deployed), and that was several weeks off work and 3 months of recovery for the mental symptoms, and nearly a year before my neck didn't hurt.
Since then, the pandemic happened and my favourite group activity, ultimate frisbee, has been on hiatus. After the vaccine came out, my first games were scheduled for September last fall. It was going to be the first time I had played in a year and a half.
4th game of the season (2nd day, since we play 2 games a night), I was marking somebody who was new at the game. They didn't have cleats so I was playing fairly loose because I could burn them super hard because I had cleats. Throw went up, so I beat my mark to the disc(started behind him, and just outran him to the disc), and knocked it down. I don't know what he was thinking, or if he never saw me (because newbies tend to look at the disc rather than where they are going, especially if it was thrown high which this was), but for 2 people going in the same direction, it's something that should never happen. Next thing I know I'm pushed over and I have 1X0 pounds of human grinding my face into the turf. Friends say the guy laid out into the back of me to try and get the disc but I have no idea. So that was a second concussion, which has had far, far worse impacts on my health.
I've had constant headaches, inability to focus, memory issues, dizziness, nausea etc. My job (Satcom test engineer), requires me to be able to think, and quite frankly, I can't. I'm 4.5 months behind after 5 months with ~1.5 months back to work. I have things I need to recode because the earlier, more concussed version of me clearly didn't know what he was doing, and I can't remember why I did it that way either (I went back to work for a few weeks a month after the concussion).. So there were weeks of work with probably negative productivity. I can't retrain because I might as well have a learning disability. I can't leave my job because there are zero worthwhile companies that will hire someone who might not be able to be trained, who will forget things, and who can't work full hours.
I want to play league, and I have times where I die because I don't know what is happening any more. Think about when you stand up really quickly after sitting for a while and get light-headed. Except that happens repeatedly for minutes or hours straight. When that happens in game I might as well be bronze, because even on my main characters, I lose my mouse and roll my face on the keyboard. I don't care where my champ is, where my teammates are or where my opponents are. 1v1? perfect time to go in. 1v5? Also a perfect time to engage. I just want to get out as soon as I can.
I used to play badminton, ultimate, etc. Pretty active. I might be retiring from any sort of sport with rapid head movement because I can no longer track a moving object. I can still boulder, but beyond that it's so difficult to be motivated to be in shape for when I return to play when I have the future looks so bleak.
The saying that "A foolish man thinks he knows everything. A wise man knows he doesn’t." definitely applies, although in this case I was too brain damaged to realize just how brain damaged I was. So in a few weeks, unless my condition improves I'll probably be taking another medical leave of absence for an indefinite amount of time.
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Sounds pretty terrifying. Is visiting a neurologist an option for you, or did they alreadty check up on you?
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As somebody who has suffered multiple concussions in their life (played mid-level Rugby as a kid/teenager and then had another bad concussion playing rec. soccer), that shit is fucked and I really sympathise with ya. My last concussion had me sitting in bed for a week with bad light sensitivity and headaches. I've always wondered about the long term effects of this stuff and I guess with so much unknown it's hard to do anything.
I know getting medical care has been difficult, to say the least during the pandemic so I hope you get the necessary treatment.
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Haven't seen anybody besides my doctor, but going to start specialist treatment soon (could include neurologist).
First few weeks for the second one were rough. I couldn't do car rides, I'd be dizzy climbing up the stairs, any noise or even conversation would just trigger me. I spent most of my first weeks of the first one watching blue planet and other nature shows to pass the time, but I couldn't even handle that. If I closed my eyes standing up for any length of time I'd probably have fallen over. Also had pretty bad insomnia so I couldn't sleep either without melatonin or staying awake until like 7-8am despite being in bed at midnight, felt like my brain was on a constant wikipedia deep dive.
It has improved somewhat. I'm able to drive around 30 minutes one way, do something that doesn't take too much focus for a couple hours, and then drive home during the day. Longer than that and I can feel myself becoming a hazard as my ability to focus drops. At night that drops to about 15 minutes one way because lights at night can still be a bit much, but at least I can get around the city by myself, which is helpful when sunset is at like 5pm.
Hoping that it'll help and get myself healthy again over the next 6 months or so, but I suspect this is going to have impacts for the rest of my life unfortunately.
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On February 05 2022 05:35 Amui wrote:
Haven't seen anybody besides my doctor, but going to start specialist treatment soon (could include neurologist).
First few weeks for the second one were rough. I couldn't do car rides, I'd be dizzy climbing up the stairs, any noise or even conversation would just trigger me. I spent most of my first weeks of the first one watching blue planet and other nature shows to pass the time, but I couldn't even handle that. If I closed my eyes standing up for any length of time I'd probably have fallen over. Also had pretty bad insomnia so I couldn't sleep either without melatonin or staying awake until like 7-8am despite being in bed at midnight, felt like my brain was on a constant wikipedia deep dive.
It has improved somewhat. I'm able to drive around 30 minutes one way, do something that doesn't take too much focus for a couple hours, and then drive home during the day. Longer than that and I can feel myself becoming a hazard as my ability to focus drops. At night that drops to about 15 minutes one way because lights at night can still be a bit much, but at least I can get around the city by myself, which is helpful when sunset is at like 5pm.
Hoping that it'll help and get myself healthy again over the next 6 months or so, but I suspect this is going to have impacts for the rest of my life unfortunately.
Not for the brain, but I required specialists and it was a long wait (even longer for the surgeries because of covid) the silver lining is I know have his personal cell and his Nurse will always squeeze me in. I think they take a lot of shit because of the waits but if you are super nice about it my experience was it was appreciated. What finally got me in was my family doc pressing hard. While she was on vacation to South Africa (for 8 weeks) I got no traction as the replacement doc was not forceful enough. Make sure you family doc is using absolutes in their request (not rude just big time advocate) and that helped me.
My doctor is good, but the specialist was so on a different level. Don't lose hope until you talk to them they likely have treatments and solutions your family doc is unaware of and might let you continue the sports you enjoy, or at the very least back to normal life
Good luck!
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Had some formal assessments done. It's mostly focused on conditioning my body so it can tolerate it better. Going to be on long term disability in a couple weeks, and then just going to focus on getting better. No more of the part-timing work stuff.
Exercise - Heartrate above ~130-135ish begins to trigger bad symptoms (dizziness/headache). Not going to be running marathons any time soon. Just need to spend like 30 minutes a day trying to keep heartrate around the 120 range. Not going to have super big impacts to my fitness, but I can't push it without putting myself in a really bad spot for a day or two.
Balance - I boulder, so I've managed to train my body to compensate really hard visually, and with proprioception. Once you take away both (firm foam pad under feet+eyes closed), I almost have no idea which way is up any more. Can't stay up for more than like 5s on both feet if they are together, and I basically just tip over instantly if I'm standing on one.
Motor Visual - Nothing super wrong here. I can still catch moving objects and play badminton(with low intensity and like 20-30 minutes between games). I guess playing what ARAM's I can has helped keep this part reasonably trained, even if I'm like bronze for reaction time now.
Short term memory - I'm now in approximately the 10th percentile for memory. For someone who is supposed to be an engineer, that's fucking awful. I was probably somewhere in the 90s before. Probably why it's so hard to work. I go into each day with one goal, and if that gets disrupted I just push it to the next day. Kinda confirms my feelings that I have what amounts to a minor learning disability, so retraining for another job just isn't going to happen.
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