Aida Transcript

Concussions. We really still don’t know a lot about them. What I’ve learned is sometimes we have to find our own answers to what will work for healing your individual concussion.

I want to share my story about my son.

He was a senior in college, captain of the baseball team, smart, handsome, outgoing, on top of the world… until he wasn’t. He had three consecutive concussions in a short period of time– three months. That paused his world, halted his education, and changed his life forever. We brought him home from school thinking he would return in a few weeks. It was just something that was just gonna take a month or so. We organized medical team, got into an amazing clinic, Robert Cantu’s Concussion Clinic. They fix NFL players. They know everything about concussions. They send players back on the field. And that’s what we needed Matthew to get back into his education and back into his world.

The team consisted of Dr. Cantu running it, and some amazing doctors and therapists. The therapy consisted of neck strength therapy, eye therapy, coordination therapy, physical mental therapy, you name it. There was a therapy for three to four days a week, two to three, sometimes four hours a day. We did it was close to a year later working and doing all of these sessions. And there was no change.

At that time, how I would have described my son exhausted, no motivation. Spent most of his time in the dark cellar, didn’t really want to communicate with anybody. His physical appearance was crazy. It looked like he was homeless, like a different person. And the most scariest part of that was the depression and how a parent it was getting worse and worse. We had to change something we had to what we were doing was not working for him. He knew it as well as we did. I had discussed many different alternatives as I did research with the clinic, clinicians, and the doctors and they would just say. “They don’t work. Eastern medicine, there’s no background to it. There’s no statistics. They just don’t work.” And I realized what we were doing wasn’t working. So I went to Plan B, not knowing any idea what was going to happen.

We changed his diet. He started with cranial sacral therapy, acupuncture, Reiki, massages. And I think the biggest change was bringing on a doctor of Kinesiology. He put Matt in the forefront of things. He made him responsible for doing charts, explaining what was successful, what was not successful, really put him on the team– discussing things with everyone, being responsible for his own health, and returning to the place he needed to be. Things got better slowly, but they got better. And I want to share this because that’s the point. That there is no right way to treat an individual that has a concussion, but there can be a wrong way. And that wrong way is not bringing any results. And I really want people to realize that. Be their advocate. Don’t listen to the people that are saying this is all you can do. There’s other ways there’s other avenues. And if it’s not working, try something else. Try something else.

One of the one things that we stayed extremely consistent was with how we dealt with the time him having the concussion, we made it clear that he wasn’t going by this himself. We were also going through it. We spent time with him in the dark, many, many hours, I would spend time with him. And sometimes we’d listen to pop. Sometimes we would listen to light music, or just stay quiet. But I just needed him to know that he was not alone.

And my family, his family, they were so supportive. And I’m grateful for that. His friends were amazing. And I have two stories I really want to share, he had a friend CJ, that they used to go out to dinner all the time, to a restaurant and as he was getting better, he wasn’t really ready to get out into the world. And CJ said to him, “Look, you have to eat. I’m staying outside of your parents driveway until you come out.” And it was almost an hour later. And Matthew came out and said, “CJ, I just can’t do it. I can’t listen to the radio,” and CJ responded with, “We don’t have to listen to the radio.” And then Matt looked down and goes, “I can’t do it because I can’t go into a restaurant at nighttime with sunglasses.” And he goes, “Why? I’m gonna go in with sunglasses.”

So I guess the value of that story was he just wasn’t willing to accept ‘no.’ And because he didn’t accept no, Matthew had the strength and the courage to take those steps and go out and try to into jet himself back into the world.

Another story that I want to share is in his darkest times, he had a friend that would write him letters every week. And they were five, six page letters. And at the beginning, I would read to him and read the letters and he really didn’t want to respond to them. And I would respond to them, and thank her for all that she was doing. And eventually, he looked forward to the letters, he read the letters and responded and wrote her back.

So, it’s the little things that are going to create the big things. And as long as it’s happening, you’re on the right journey. You’re right on the right road. I wanted to share this, not to scare you. But I know I was scared during this time. I wanted to share this with you because if you’re going through it, if you’ve been through it, you know how difficult it is and stay strong. Between the medical community, the love that you’re giving, the support…You’ll get through this. A prayer to ensure help didn’t hurt either.

But what I’m saying is: you’ll get through this.

Matthew is 30 years old, he’s doing fine.

And at some point, you too will be able to share a story like this.