What I Wish I Knew During My Concussion

By Ryann Bloom

I made just about every wrong decision when it came to my head injuries. I didn’t want to take time off of sports or school in order to get the rest I needed and as a result, my symptoms worsened, and the recovery lasted longer than it had to. 

 When I reflect on the time that I spent injured, I realize there are things I wish I had known throughout the process that could go back and tell myself. Unfortunately, I can’t go back and redo my recovery; however, I can pass along what I learned from my mistakes.

You have to be honest with yourself

I constantly would downplay my symptoms. I would tell myself that I was tired, I needed to drink more water, or I was having an off day. I didn’t want to accept the severity of my symptoms. One of the hardest things to do during this time is to be honest with yourself. If I could convince myself I was fine, it would be easy to convince others as well. Lying to myself and pretending I was okay was the worst thing I could do for my recovery.

You can’t keep it to yourself

I made the decision not to express how I was feeling with other people, because I was convinced that they either wouldn’t understand, or they’d try to force me to take time off. It would have helped me to have someone around that could tell me I wasn’t crazy for feeling the way I did. Maybe if I hadn’t been so scared to tell people what I was struggling with, I could have found the help I needed.

 You’re not as tough as you think

I think this is something most athletes struggle to accept after concussions. In sports culture, there seems to be this sense of pride when you push through an injury. You wrap as much tape as you can around the injury and you tough it out for the practice, for the game, or for the competition. That becomes the standard for smaller injuries. However when it comes to your brain, you can’t throw some tape around your head and hope for the best. Brain injuries are not something you can just play through. They will only get worse if you keep trying.  

 Taking time off is not the end of the world

After my first concussion, time off didn’t seem like an option. I was either taking a break from school to go to cheerleading or taking a break from cheerleading to do schoolwork, there was never time off from both. I was worried that if I tried to take a break from cheerleading, I would jeopardize my spot on the team. I didn’t know what to do about school, so I tried to keep up and my grades suffered. Taking a few weeks off could have made a huge difference. Practices can be missed, and exams can be rescheduled, you don’t have to suffer trying to keep up, rest needs to be priority.

 There is more to life than sports

When you’re involved in a sport, and play at a competitive level, it’s hard to imagine life without it. So much of my life revolved around cheerleading. My mom used to joke that I was at school for cheerleading and taking some courses on the side — which was more accurate than I like to admit. In my life, cheerleading had come before everything, even before my own health. I wish I had been able to see, back then, that the sport was not everything. Cheerleading would eventually end, but I would be with my brain forever.

 If I could go back to when I suffered my concussions, I would do things very differently. I regret not giving my injuries the time they needed to heal. Concussions should be treated with the same severity as broken bones. Your brain is too important to neglect.