Rachel W. Transcript

Hi. My name is Rachel Wood. I’m a student at Wesleyan University. I am 19, and I had my first concussion when I was four. And funnily enough, that first concussion turned out to be the worst concussion I have ever sustained, but it kind of set the stage for the next four concussions. So I have a total of five concussions under my belt, hopefully no more in the future. 

My first concussion when I was four happened because me and my parents and my brother were going sledding, and the sledding hill that’s closest to our house is right next to one of the schools, and so it’s a hill that’s kind of intersecting with the side of the building, but like, at a weird angle. So you’re not sledding right towards the wall, but the wall is, like, very close to the side of it. And my mother was safe. She brought helmets for me and my brother, but I was sitting on the sled backwards at the top of the hill, and I started sliding down before, right before she was about to put on the helmet, so it was no fault to her. She was being safe, but I

was just, you know, I guess, a little bit careless as a four-year-old. 

And I slid, and I hit the back left side of my head against the brick wall, and my mom said I didn’t lose consciousness, but my other mother says I did. So we’re really kind of unsure about that, but what was certain was that I wasn’t responsive for like, 30 minutes, and so they had my brother go stay with one of their friends, and then they took me to the emergency room, and the only thing I remember is, like, not regaining consciousness, but I remember like, like snapping into it in the CAT scan, which was kind of freaky, because my first thought was like, oh, maybe alien abduction. Like, I can still remember that, like vision, even though I was four, so obviously it wasn’t, like, very crystal clear. But, um, yeah,  all I remember was being really–my mom describes me as being very tired and sluggish and not responsive, which was very unusual. And so she kind of guessed that I had hit my head pretty hard. And yeah, it turns out I got a pretty severe concussion. I don’t really know, like, if there was any treatment in the hospital, but when we left, I was, like, told not to look at any screens, read any books, Stay a dark room, and like, rest and drink a lot of water. But I’m pretty sure I didn’t do that, because I think I went back to school, like, three days after my concussion, which I don’t know if that was like, recommended at the time, or maybe like they didn’t know that much about concussions, but to me, looking back, it feels like I maybe should have had more time to heal, because that kind of set me on the path of, like, when I was younger, I was super unbalanced, uncoordinated, and I had a lot of light sensitivities, which I’m assuming now came from that original concussion. And I had a lot of issues with, like my vestibular location in space, which I had to go to occupational, not occupational therapy, yeah, yeah, some sort of therapy for the vestibular processing issue. 

But after I was four years old, I went a pretty sizable chunk without getting another concussion until I was 11. And when I was 11, I was running down a hill next to my house, and it was icy, and I slipped, and I hit the back of my head on a rock that was covered in ice. So pretty, pretty, pretty much a really good recipe for a concussion, because my mother, she took me, I don’t think she took me to the emergency room that time. Maybe she just took me to the doctor, because I, like, you know, could get up and I could walk, and I was responsive. So it definitely wasn’t as major as slamming into a brick wall on a sled, but it still shook my brain enough, I think I got whiplash, and so we had to do the same recovery process of just being in a dark room, no lights, and no screens. And that was actually really hard, because at 11 years old, that was really all I wanted to do was read books and watch movies and be with my friends, which I couldn’t do, because you just have to limit sensory input so your brain can focus on healing and so, um, I also don’t think I said I stuck that much to the guidelines that time. But that time my mom, she was, she thought, actually it might have been for the first time, but she put me into like, she put me into therapy because she thought I sustained like, severe, severe trauma from like, just like emotional trauma, because when you’re younger, like, anything really intense happening, health wise, can be traumatic for kids. And so she put me into this therapy that I think traumatized me further, because she explained it in a way in which she was like, these are the two halves of your brain, the connection, that was severed, that was severed in the concussion. So you’re never going to be able to connect your creative side and your logical side, which I don’t think, I’m very sure, that that is not what happened – Wasn’t really the best message in the most positive outlook to recovery. 

So I think, I think I only had two sessions with that therapist, but it definitely did more harm than good. So yeah, that was, that was kind of a rough patch. But then after that concussion, I had another one pretty shortly after, I think I was 12, we had a zip line in my backyard, and I was zip lining on it, and I fell. I think when I was grabbing onto it, I slipped, because it was from a, we had a little tree house platform, and it went down to a tree you stepped off the tree house platform onto the supply. I think I just missed, or my finger slipped and I hit a stump that was on the ground. So another concussion that time, they, my mom was so, you know, well-versed with the signs of a concussion that she didn’t even take me into the doctor to get checked out. She just did it, did like an at-home assessment. And was like, okay, we know what to do. And so I went through the entire process again, but this time, every single time that I got another concussion, it felt like I could feel the effects for longer, like I would be more sensitive to light, and I would be more sensitive to loud noises, and I would be more off balance, like, for a longer period of time than I had recognized before, and it was definitely starting to freak me out, like I was getting really, like, conscious about like, I wouldn’t, I would try not to play like basketball, or I would try not to, like, be in any situation in which I could hit my head. So it was kind of manifesting with, like, a lot of health anxiety as a 12-year-old, because I already had three concussions and, like, I kept feeling it. There was, like, a period in eighth grade or seventh grade. 

I think it was seventh grade where I had to wear, I didn’t have to but I wore these orange lens glasses because the lights in the classrooms were bothering me so, so much because of my light sensitivity and so, yeah, so I was pretty anxious after that third concussion, but I think that didn’t stop me from getting the fourth one. Because, yeah, my fourth concussion, me and my brother were like, we were like, play fighting, I’m pretty sure, or maybe real fighting, I don’t really remember, and I think he pushed me off the bed.

That was not anywhere near the severity of the other three concussions, no, yeah, other three concussions that I had before that. But I was already so freaked out about my brain health that I was like, Mom, I have a concussion. Like, I know I have a concussion, and so, like, I basically put myself into the recovery program, because the more concussions I had, the more I realized, like, oh, like, it’s actually really impacting my recovery time for future concussions, and also impacting, like, my daily life. And I’m, you know, kind of concerned about that, and so I really just put myself into the self-imposed isolation, and not isolation, but I didn’t do any screens in a dark room, quiet resting. And I think I took that recovery the most serious,, and then I waited, I think there was, like a two-year gap, and I had my other, no, yeah, yeah. Well, I had my other, my most recent concussion when I was 14 and I was, we were me and my brother had a tire swing at a park, and I was pushing him around the tire swing, and I was holding on to the chains, and I, like, let go and like, ran head first into a pole, so it was completely my fault. But yeah, and so that was my other concussion. And with that concussion, I think we did go to a doctor’s office, because my mom was like, now she has five concussions. That’s a little bit.Yeah, that’s a little much. 

And the doctor was like, yeah, you might, you really, you really have to be more careful. And like, you know, you can’t do any, like, intense sports. I think I was trying to do softball at that point in my life, and so we were advised against that, because that could, like, pave the way for another concussion. And so that was really scary, because the doctor was like, you really have to, like, it’s it’s gonna start really, or it is already impacting you. And it might be like, really, you might have some severe brain trauma if you keep getting concussions. Because along with every concussion, like most of them, I also got whiplash, which, you know, is also bad, but yeah. 

So after that, it was like, every single time I would, like, even, like, like, faintly, hit my head against a wall or something, or like nothing that, like, jostled my brain too much, but I would start, like, freaking out that, like, oh, maybe I got a concussion because my head is so sensitive and my brain is so sensitive and so like, that was really a very anxious time for me. It was, like the summer after that concussion. I think, I think I wouldn’t even go, oh yeah, my friends were trying to go ice skating without helmets, and I think I chastised them into all wearing helmets, which good on me, but it was definitely from my own health anxiety and not wanting to be the odd one out, which everyone should be wearing a helmet anyway. 

But yeah, so then after that, when I was 14, I think also that summer, I went to a, there was like a traveling concussion. I think it was like a, what’s it called? It’s like a convention, yeah, it was like, a a concussion convention that would go to each town in Alaska, and it would, it had like, neurologists, and you could just go around to different tables and, like, get tested for things, and they would do like therapies on you. So you could figure out, like, if you needed any more, if you had like, they would like, prescribe you like exercises to strengthen your eyes, or like your balance. And so it’s just trying to, like, kind of reverse the effects of the concussion, or, like, stop them from worsening. And we realized that I had a pretty big disparity on my eye movements. And like, one of my eyes was, like, lagging behind. So they had me do a little string, a title string on a doorknob, and follow it with my eyes. I didn’t really do that, and then they realized I had a lot of balance issues, and so I had to do exercises for that, I think. But it was definitely just a lot of like things I was not prepared to hear, because I was like, oh, you know, I already have anxiety about getting more concussions, but like, thank you so much for telling me, like, oh, this actually really did mess you up in, like, in a lot of ways. 

But I think, I think the only thing that I am experiencing now, like five years after my last concussion, is having light sensitivities, like I can’t even go outside on an overcast day without my sunglasses. But that’s really the only thing that has stuck with me because I’ve really worked on my balance, and I went through the therapies for vestibular, which is like feeling your way through space. 

So one thing I would recommend for people who just got their first concussion or are really starting to get worried about having successive concussions, is take your recovery seriously, and if you take your recovery seriously and give your brain enough time to heal, you are a lot less likely to get another concussion from something that wouldn’t give, like someone without like a concussion history, they wouldn’t get a concussion if that happened, because that’s what I think a lot of my concussions were, is like, oh, when you’re looking back on it, it might not seem like that big of a deal to someone without a history of concussions, but to my brain, it was already, you know, had that history, and so it kept worsening my symptoms. 

So definitely do take concussions seriously, and really, if you’re in a sport, like, make sure you take the recommended amount of time away from the sport. Or if you’re in like, don’t, don’t overstimulate your brain when it’s trying to heal and give it the. Proper amount of time. Because even if you think that, like, Oh, you’re, I’m okay, like, it’ll be fine, it might come back in the form of being prone to concussions further along, or there being further issues. But it definitely isn’t like the end of the world.  The brain is pretty, pretty, you know, strong. 

It all comes down to it and yeah, it’s really just, that one period of my life where I got four successive concussions in under two years was definitely not a great experience, but it also kind of taught me how to, like, look out for my own safety, even if other people aren’t looking out for theirs, and it gave me like an awareness of how important head health and brain health is, just for everyday life. Like a lot of my friends are skiers, and they’re like, no, like, it’s kind of weird to wear a helmet. And I’m like, oh, you know what’s kind of weird is a traumatic brain injury. 

So one piece of advice from me, just keep up with your concussion care. Use the concussion box resources. Shout out. And make sure to just take care of yourself and kind of just relax on the idea that it’s not gonna ruin your life, because it really doesn’t ruin anything. It just gives you more of an awareness of like and a more of a grateful outlook on when you aren’t in concussion recovery and like, you really have like, I have an appreciation for like, being able to talk to my friends, being able to listen to music, being able to, like, be in a fully lit room, because I had to go through so many stretches in which that wasn’t an option for me. So yep, you’re gonna get through it. It just is gonna be hard. But don’t make it harder for yourself by not doing it.

Thanks for listening. Bye.