Sean W. Transcript

Hi everybody. My name is Sean Walker. I’m a current senior here at Wesleyan University. I am a Psychology major who is minoring in African American Studies, and I used to play football here at Wesleyan. This past year, I sustained my third concussion. I got into more before, when I was playing, one, when I was playing grade school football in sixth grade, and then another one my first year here at Wesleyan. And those were two pretty, relatively minor concussions, but this one that I sustained in the fall, October, September 21 was pretty serious.

 It was the third quarter. We were playing tough, and I went up for a jump ball, and I remember going up for the ball, and I remember watching the receiver catch it, and I was like, dang. And then I don’t remember much after that. So I landed. I ended up landing on my head, on the back of my head, the left side, and the receiver unfortunately landed right on top of me, and I blacked out. I was unconscious for five minutes at least, and my parents were in the stands. They were extremely scared. My mom started crying because I was out. I mean, I was out cold. My hands balled up and the trainers came rushing out, and they luckily, I did wake up, and they were standing over me. I remember our head athletic trainer was holding my head in place, and they were talking to me. They were speaking to me, and they were trying to make sure that I was all right. And I told him, I’m good, I’m good, like, I can get up, I can get up, I can speak, I can, I can move my arms. My extremities were good, but I just wanted them out the way so I could get to my feet. And I just remember, I remember it being silent. And then when I got up, when I fortunately got up to my feet, the crowd on both sides, the tough side and the Wesleyan side, there was a huge roar. So that was really good to hear. And so they walked me off the field.

 I walked off of my own power, and they took me to the tent and the doctor for our school, she asked me a couple of questions. Did I remember the score of the game? Did I remember how much time was left and I could answer all of those questions really well. I answered them correctly. And then we did a couple of preliminary tests. I balanced on one leg, I followed her finger from side to side, up and down, and I could do all those things pretty well. And I still thought that I could go back into the game somehow after being knocked unconscious, but the doctors and the trainers had other ideas, so I had to sit that game out. And they were, their advice was, was right. They wanted what was best for me in the long term. And I thank them a lot for that, but we ended up winning the game, thankfully, and I didn’t really want to go to the hospital. 

I was like I said, I got, I had a concussion my first year at Wesley, and I ended up having to go to the hospital because I was vomiting. But this time I didn’t feel the same nausea that I did, so I thought that the concussion was a lot less severe. But anyway, I get back to my dorm, and I had very great roommates who are very caring and respectful, and loving. So I try to go to sleep that night, and it has to be 12:00 – 12:30, very late at night, and my lights are off, and I just can’t go to sleep. The left side of my head where I hit, it hurts, too bad. So my one roommate who lives in the apartment with me, he said, I think we should take you to the ER. I mean, you can’t sleep. I was like, Alright, whatever. Fine, we’ll go to the ER. So we drove over to the ER, and they asked me what had happened, and I told them, and they ran some tests, they did an MRI, and thankfully, there was no internal or, yeah, no internal bleeding. And they sent me home that morning.

But. It, I still, I still had some worry, because this was my third concussion. I knew my parents were worried sick. I knew my roommates and my teammates were pretty worried, just because of how it looked. And so I the next day. So September 22 I rested the whole day in a dark room, and I was completely it was I was completely secluded, and that part was really hard. I think that’s what a lot of people it’s hard for them to understand in the concussion recovery process is that it takes a lot of time, and you and you have to prioritize your health above all else, and so I just sit in my room for A whole day without the lights on and No, no phone. That’s probably the hardest challenge for me, was not having my phone. But at the end of that day, I did call my parents, and I remember talking to them, and I had repeated something that I said earlier in the phone call. I think it was about the athletic trainers. 

And my Dad said, Oh, Sean, you already said that. I was like, wait, did I really? And I was pretty badly concussed, just from that. But they were, they were very worried for me, and so that was scary for them and for me, but I knew I had to get the rest that I needed. So I rested that day, I DoorDash food to my apartment, and the next day, so September 23 my parents told me that they had contacted a neurologist, and they told me that they were going to have the neurologist look at my MRI to see if there was any permanent damage to my head, and if the MRI, if the neurologist thought that the MRI wasn’t, was showing something bad, then they were going to tell me to stop playing completely and really hang up my my pleats and be done with my football career. And I remember I started to cry on the phone, because, you know, you even though I had those concussions before, I think, as a competitor and as an athlete, you don’t go out onto the field thinking that you’re going to get another one. If you start thinking about, well, I might get hurt, or I might get injured. 

Oh, I don’t want my head to get hit. That’s when you’re that’s when your play really diminishes and gets worse. So I didn’t think I would get a third concussion this season, but here I was with my parents saying they might pull me out if the neurologist doesn’t like what he sees. So that was that was really hard for me, but I knew that I had to just control what I could control. I had to rest as much as possible, and I had to do what the doctor said. So that’s that’s what I did. And throughout the whole time, my roommates were really supportive of me, my one roommate who I’ve known since my first year, and who actually, funny enough, gave me the first concussion. 

He gave me a pair of glasses, sunglasses that I could wear throughout the apartment and when I had to go and get food. So I’m grateful for him, definitely. But yeah, so my By day three, so this is around September 24 my symptoms started to get a lot better. My head wasn’t hurting as much, and I had, I had no nausea, and so I started to do small, mundane tasks around the apartment. I would full close. I would go on, like, super light, five minute walks from place to place, because that’s what the doctors told me. They said that blood flow is good and it’s going to be a slow progression. So eventually I went to one class that or one class that day on September 24 Forth. It was my South Indian boys class, and there wasn’t a whole lot of rigor in that class. It was singing, and my head felt good. There wasn’t a lot of sustained focus that was needed. So I felt good off that, and then I talked with the doctors and trainers a little more, and they said that I could start biking September 25 for 10 minutes. And I was, I was really happy with that. And I think throughout this whole process, it was important that that the doctors emphasized that I had to progress to school first and then athletics, because school is what I’m here, what I am here at Wesleyan for.

So, yeah, I bike, I went to that South Indian boys class, and then I started biking on September 25 and I felt good. And that’s, I think, also a huge part of the recovery process is that you have to be very honest with yourself, because if you aren’t, then you are only going to face larger setbacks, and if you can’t play, you’re going to be a huge detriment to your team, and it’s going to look selfish on your part if you’re lying about how you’re feeling. So I think honesty is also just a huge part of recovering from concussions and dealing with them, because they are not fun, but honesty is the best policy.

So then on Thursday, September 26 I went to another class, my cognitive psychology class, and that, honestly, that class did kind of bother me. It was hard for me to maintain attention for periods of times, and I tried doing a small amount of homework for that class, I got some blue light glasses, and they actually helped, because they reduced my eye strain. But I knew that sitting in that psychology class that I still had some days to go, and I still was in the process of recovering, it might take some more time, and I couldn’t speed it up, so I had to be patient.

But then I also started listening to with the okay of the doctors.

 Of course, I started listening to music, and there’s an NFL player. His name’s Alan Ross st Brown, and I started listening to his podcast, and I found a lot of hope in listening to him, because I see a lot of a lot of similarities between me and him, as far as his toughness, his love for his teammates is ultra focused on practice and work. So I enjoy listening to that, still not using my phone except to call my parents or to put that podcast on. And then I listened to music, like I said before, I listened to 50 cents. 50 Cent had a song. Has a song called God gave me style, and it’s all about this song is all about 50 cent in his his journey to to start them and becoming a known rapper, and he’s essentially giving praise to God for it. 

And I connected a lot with that, because I was really grateful to have lived through my injury. I mean, I talk to people now, and they still talk about that tough game, and they say, Sean, I thought you were dead. And it’s a it’s hard for for me to hear, but it also helps me to put in their perspective. And I am really grateful to be here and to be talking really on this, on this recording. So, so that was Thursday, Friday. The results for the MRI that the neurologist looked at, they came back negative. So I was very much relieved and grateful. Um, and I talked with my trainers here at Wesleyan, and they said that I couldn’t play on Saturday, September 28 um, against Bates, but I could try and start practicing the week after and so I was, I was happy with that. And my dad, he has always been, he’s been, he himself played football, and he told me that he made one last call for my football career, and he ordered me a new helmet. Thankfully, it’s called the Riddell axiom. It’s their most innovative and latest helmet yet, and it offered more protection. So I got fitted for that on September 28 in New Haven, and I wore that for the rest of the season, and it kept me protected, so I didn’t play that Saturday, but I was able, thankfully, to progress the next week and play the rest of the Season with that axiom.

 So it was definitely a wild week, as I said before, it took a lot of patience. It took a lot of trust in what the doctors had planned for me, and also being honest with myself and how I felt, because that was the last thing that I wanted to do was to have a setback and hurt my team

and put them in a worse position than they were for a longer period of time without me being out there. 

So the most important part of the recovery process, I would say, is trusting the doctors, because they have gone through years of medical school. They have researched. They have met hundreds of other patients just like you, and I know that it is hard to be away from the game or the activity that you love, but I hate to say it, they know more than you, and they want what’s best for you. So trust your doctors, they will put you on the right path, because

one day, your sport is going to be done, as much as you love it and as much as you love competing and being with your teammates, one day your sport is going to be done, and you at the end of the day, you have to prioritize your health, and especially your mental health and your mind and your brain, because just as you put your mind, you can put your mind to anything that you put your mind to, you can accomplish. 

And if you don’t have that capacity to think because you were not doing what the doctors were saying to do, then it can be a dangerous thing. So your mind and your brain, they’re, they’re the most, I think, one of the most important parts of your body, so you have to prioritize your long term. Sure I have definitely grown and being patient that first year, the first time, this my second concussion. So my first time getting a concussion here at Wesleyan. I was trying to get back on the field as soon as possible as well, similar to this time, but you have, you have to be patient with it. You have to control what you can control. And I think when it comes to concussions, that is following the doctor’s orders and, you know, being away from light, being away from noise,

and, know that if you take the right steps in the present moment, wherever you are, that it’ll turn out for the good in the long term, in the long run. So I think being patient and. Trusting the, trust, trust the process of what the doctors have laid out for you is, is what I’ve learned.