Matt Transcript

All right, cool. So it was my junior year of college, I just returned from studying abroad in my fall semester and got back to campus in the spring. It was a few days before school was starting. And like any college student, I wanted to have some fun and play some extracurricular activities with friends. So, I was playing some basketball, just on campus. And a big football player was dribbling the ball right at me, and just ran me over, I fell and hit my head on the ground. And then I rolled over on my head. I got up and something felt off, but I’d never had a concussion before. So it was difficult for me to understand what I was going through. But right away, symptoms started showing up. light sensitivity, noise sensitivity, having some brain fogginess, being a little unbalanced, and so took the rest of the basketball game off, which I should have.

And from there, I just went home rested, wasn’t really sure that I had a concussion or not, but tried going to school the next day for the first day of classes. And that’s where I knew something was off. I couldn’t concentrate. There was just a lot of stimuli that was bothering me. And I knew I had to get checked out. So I went to the doctor told them what happened. And they said, “You’ve probably had a concussion.” And since this was my first time, I said, “Okay, how long will it take for me to recover?” And for me, it was a little difficult to hear that the answer was: “We don’t know.” Which was something that was different for me, because anytime I’ve had a sports injury, I’ve always been very clear on the timetable. But concussions are an invisible injury, that you can’t tell, by just looking at someone, and doctors can’t actually see a concussion. It’s really based off of symptoms. So that was something very difficult for me to grasp with.

And so from there, I took a couple of weeks off of school, just rested, stayed in the dark room. And right when I was feeling better, I went to go to our school formal. And at the formal, it was a winter day, very snowy, very icey, very slippery in the house that we were at. And I slipped right when I got into the party and hit the back of my head on the corner of a coffee table. And at this point, this was where something– where it got a little fuzzy. I just remember getting up everyone was looking at me, wasn’t really sure what happened. But there was definitely a couple of seconds where I blacked out. I didn’t know what happened. Some of my friends brought me back to my apartment, I went to sleep. And the next morning, my parents were surprising me visiting on campus, and I woke up wearing my suit and tie, just in my bed. And at this point, I knew that I was having a concussion again, that I could feel the symptoms, and I felt like I was having deja vu. So, at this point, this went on for about three or four weeks, I felt like I was getting better, still would get headaches every once in a while, but I was able to finish off the rest of my semester. Now, fast forward about four months later, with all the knowledge I had about concussions, I felt fully recovered, had no issues.

And so I was playing soccer with some friends. And after the game, there wasn’t a certain incident, but I just wasn’t feeling well and the lights were bothering me. And so thinking that, you know, concussions also can really affect you mentally, and that sometimes any sort of bump on the head can make you think that you are actually having a concussion again. And it’s very difficult to understand what symptoms are true, which symptoms are not, and it’s very easy to your body to replicate the symptoms of a concussion, even if you don’t have one. But unfortunately in this case, I realized I did have another concussion. And this was going into my senior fall semester of college. And at this point, I knew a good amount about what concussions were after having two. But I felt like, you know, it’s my senior year, I can try to push through and try to finish off.

But it started just getting a lot worse, I really couldn’t focus, couldn’t read, couldn’t write, couldn’t do anything socially. And it got to a point where I was going to school two days a week. And then I was taking a bus, an hour and a half to go back home, rest with my family on the weekend, and then go to a concussion clinic that was nearby my house. And so I was going there two days a week, I was going to school two days a week, and then I was resting at home about three days. So I was doing this for the entire semester. And I realized it was just emotionally draining. I wasn’t getting better, I wasn’t seeing the results I was looking for. And I realized I had to make a tough decision for me at that time, which was taking off my senior spring semester.

Which looking back now, it was definitely the right decision. But when you’re going through that moment, as a college student, it feels like the end of the world. It feels like you know, my life is always like moving on to the next step. And I was going to have to pause on that next step while my other friends were were moving forward.
And so that was a dark, about seven to eight months, where I was going to a concussion clinic about three days a week, where I was doing a series of activities, some was eye tracking activities to help with my eyes. Some of it was physical therapy to strength in my back, and my shoulder and all the body parts that hold up my neck and help that be secure. It was also in a concussion trial where they were doing all these different types of tests to see what could happen with recovery. And so I was doing all these activities, along with the one that was the most difficult for me was just learning how to like, read and write again, and trying to work on my memory. Because I was going to find a way to kind of get back to my normal self, if I felt like I could. And while I wasn’t doing that, I was home. And it was definitely a dark time. I was sitting. I would wake up, go downstairs in the basement, and essentially just lay there the whole day. And I would come up for meals, I would take a lot of long baths. Because that was something that was relaxing. And it felt like I was doing something different.

I was very fortunate where a lot of friends would call me and they created a schedule where one person would call me every single day. Just because having that contact with the outside world was just very important to me. And I couldn’t be on my cell phone because the screen time was definitely affecting my concussion. So being able to hear and talk to friends and have some normalcy was something that was very beneficial. I would try to go on walks as much as I could, without trying to hurt my symptoms too much. And this included just walking to the end of the driveway. And every day I would try to do one extra lap between my house and the end of the driveway and back. And I would track my progress and over time, I would get better and better.

And so this was a very, very difficult time where I wasn’t seeing results for seven to eight months. Doctors didn’t really have an answer. I could definitely see it was taking emotional toll on my parents, especially my mother who was my main caregiver, taking me to and from appointments, cooking me meals, making sure that everything I was going through was something that I knew I would not be alone. And over time I had to be patient, but I got better. And from there on I really haven’t had any concussions. But I’ve had a lot of scares, were times where I’ve bumped my head in the house, or tripped and hit my, my body on the floor. And the things I have to constantly keep telling myself is people can get headaches, and they’re not concussions. And that’s something that I would always lose track of post concussions because I thought anytime I wasn’t feeling well, it was concussion related. And so something I just had to constantly work on is disassociating just normal everyday injuries and concussions. And it was something that caused a lot of stress and a lot of anxiety. And I wanted to avoid large groups like concerts or sporting events, because I was always scared that someone might elbow me in the head.
But one thing for me was I learned that it just takes time. And the more and the longer and longer you get away from your concussions, the better you’re going to be. And you will get back to normal. That was something that I was always worried about was, am I going to be not my full self the rest of my life? Or am I going to have issues 30, 40 years down the line with my memory? And I know I’m not going to.

I know that one thing for me was helpful was the people who you see through TV shows or movies, or articles about who have serious concussion issues. Those are people are having constant head hits every single day. And it was important for me to realize that’s not me, I’ve had a couple of concussions. And I know that’s not great. But I’m going to get back to myself. And I don’t have to continue thinking of myself as pre-concussion and post-concussion, I am the same person. So going through this, this couple year journey.

One of the things that I learned was it just a moment that take time to appreciate a lot of the simple parts in life. We’re often so busy running around on our phones, trying to figure out what to do next. And this is probably the only time in your life where you’re supposed to relax, you’re supposed to do nothing. And that can be very difficult. And that can be very frustrating. But it’s something that in a weird way, you’ll miss every once in a while. Once you’ve recovered. A lot of time when I would wake up, I would just go outside when I was feeling better, put sunglasses on, I would just stare at the clouds for hours. And to me of just telling myself stories and looking for different shapes and objects and trying to put together something to keep my brain occupied. And these are moments that I appreciated. Probably not as much in that moment as I should. But it’s something that I realized got me through the day.

And concussions, as crazy and ambiguous as they are, you have to treat them as each individual day is a new journey. It’s not a linear path where you’re going to get better every single day, gradually, you’re going to have good days you’re going to have bad days. But if you stay the course and you continue finding ways to just lift your mood, you will find a way to recover and you will get back to normal.