Caro crushes the concussion

Hard blows blow hard, but slow recoveries are bittersweet.

This blog contains posts (possibly later podcast episodes of 5 minutes) about my personal experience and knowledge gained about, no shit, concussions and the struggle of recovery. Firstly for myself to vent, but secondly – definitely – also for people with concussions who needs someone to relate to.

Three months ago, the 11th of March, I got a concussion and the struggle has been fecking real ever since. I wasn’t knocked out long, I even finished the game (although I might’ve been caught out of bounds asking for the ball), so supposedly it shouldn’t last that’s long. HAHA, sucks to be me. Now, the 16th of June, I’m almost 4 months in and still far away from my normal life and capacities.

Ever since it happened and I was able to look at screens again (screens are the devil) I have been looking all over for information on concussions or experience and have never felt so alone in a process. There is so little and it’s so difficult to figure out. Long ass articles and theories and interviews or thick books of 500 pages.. I couldn’t even read for more then 10 minutes in the first week and I had no idea what was going on. The GP just told me to “take it easy” and sent me away, but never explained what the hell was going on in my brain why I was feeling so weird. and fuzzy.

And that was only the beginning, after two weeks of ''taking it easy'' a dinner with some friends, a walk with a mate and watching a basketball game tipped me over the edge. It brought me down deep into a very nasty cave of symptoms, I couldn't even take care of myself. Pounding headaches to the maximum, tiredness, weakness, general overal complete bodily malaise, not being able to bear any sound or light, not being able to speak without my head proper bursting. And it took weeks and weeks for that to die down and me to be able to get up without clapping my hands over my head because of the sick headaches.

In all that period I felt alone, I did not understand a thing and I was afraid too. Because there was very little to find on headaches, and mostly I was looking for people who went through the same thing I did. Because by then I knew any (solid) medical explanation was hard to find.

This should change. The moment another one of my basketbal teammates got a concussion whilst I was and am still recovering she told me how nice it was for her to listen to advice and experience. Unfortunately for me I don’t feel like I can open up as much as it might make her fecking depressed to hear my own agony.

Nonetheless, I think this information with this digital age should be way more available. We have so many means to inform and share, why was it so difficult for me to find information and fellow concussioned ones?

Well, there is a lot unknown, and even more so, a lot of stuff that’s written is written in loooooong ass literature that that concussed brain cannot cope with at all. Also, as I said before, screens are the devil, as I’ve been saying for three months now, so doing rigorous research is out of the question.

That could be done differently. So why not do it myself? Even if I have only one person following my posts that would already be one extra concussioned one that doesn’t feel alone, but supported and ignited to go for recovery. And maybe, in the best of cases, if there’s more attention towards concussions, someone will throw some money at research finally because we should be fucking able by now to figure out what’s wrong with concussed people I mean come on, we can cure anything..

The struggle is not as much the pain and the symptoms, but the not knowing how severe, how long, what you can or can’t do, when it’ll get better, what you need to do to get better, and no one, not even neurologists, giving you any proper directed advice. “Everyone is different.”

While that’s true, I can share my story, and hope it helps others. I’ll make them short, 5 minutes reading or listening time, relaxed, in a slow voice, in a quiet environment, so it’s doable to listen or read for new concushioned people. Tips tricks and information is more than welcome.

Let’s crush this.