Personal Narrative: How My Concussion Changed My Life

The first concussion I had was in late May of 2016. It was at a memorial soccer tournament. Our team was not good. We tied our first game and lost our second. So really, there was no chance at all to go the finals. The last game which was around noon on that Sunday. We had a goal lead from a goal I had scored earlier in the game and coach wanted me to play defense so we wouldn't give up a equalizer. It was about 5 minutes left in the game and the other team’s goalkeeper had just punted the ball. Me and a forward for the other team both went up to get a head on the ball. When I went up the back of the kid’s head collided with mine. I right after went onto the ground and covered my nose because that also had started to bleed.

Three concussions. Five months. The hardest hit to my life so far, was me being hit. The physical pain of headaches, the mental pain of slower brain process, and the emotion pain of losing the ability of playing the sport that I love so dearly, has affected life in all aspects. I was removed from sports, dance, school, and even at times I felt like I was removed from my own body.

Three concussions. Five months. The hardest hit to my life so far was me being hit. The physical pain of headaches, the mental pain of the slower brain processes, and the emotional pain of losing the ability of playing the sport that I love so dearly, have all affected life in many aspects. I was removed from sports, dance, school, and even at times I felt like I was removed from my own body.

After taking almost all of my eighth grade year battling concussions, I finally had a break at the end of my eight grade year. I felt really well the entire summer right before my ninth grade year. I made one of the most regrettable decisions of my life at the end of the summer. I decided to go with a group of friends to spend a weekend at the lake tubing. I did not realize at the time my brain was still susceptible to another y. brain injury. I went the entire weekend tubing on the lake and did not feel any symptoms; however, the next day I became very ill. I knew right away that I had re-concussed. Since this incident I have not been a 100%. I have suffered all of my high school career with post concussive syndrome. I have seen many Doctors

Over the past four years I have seen more doctors than an average person would see in their lifetime. From endocrinologists to neurosurgeons, I have tirelessly sought medical help to overcome multiple traumatic brain injuries I incurred as an early teen. Prior to these head injuries I wasn't exactly sure what I wanted to do with my life or what my future would encompass. The outlook I had on life prior to my head injuries has drastically changed through the course of my recovery. Although my road to recovery has been filled with hardships, disappointments, and pain, I have found a new direction filled with opportunity to advocate on behalf of others.

This concussion has changed me, it has changed how I learn and how I study, but all obstacles in life are there for a reason. Thankfully, I had a great support system whom was there to support me through all my hardships and even though this process was mostly individual and I had to learn how to cope with it, it made it easier with the help from my loved ones. These moments in life which someday with not be significant when I look at whole life one day, it has made me stronger, more understanding and made me realize how much you want your goals. If that’s what this concussion gave me then I feel lucky because it gave me the time to see where my life is at and where it is headed. Now I have a clearer view of how to obtain my goals and to make sure I know when to take sometime for myself. Overall, things are changing, more people are aware of concussions and the effect they have on the human body. With more research on the brain and more information, more people are more educated about the sever impact concussions have on ones

Over the summer of 2009 I was playing with my friend Carissa, at Rohner Park, while we were playing on the monkey bars after a while of jumping off and landing on our arms to many times my bone gave out and i broke it. While screaming in pain my dad tried to ask someone for a cellphone to call my mom to come pick us up and take us to the hospital. When my mom finally arrived my dad rushed me into the car so we could go to the hospital. While we were in the car i told my mom to go faster because the pain was really starting to hurt.

Well i'm still a young person but i do have a story. I was 10 i wanted to go sledding and by my house there was this really big hill. A construction company started to dig at it. When my friend and i got to the hill we sled for an hour then we got bored. When you get bored as a kid you look for something to do so we did. We played with the snow made forts out of snow drifts and we had a little fun. Then we got bored again we went down the hill and looked at the cliff. My friend and i wanted to climb it. So we did We climbed it 4 or 5 times each then i wanted to jump off it, I jumped off it first. We jumped off it twice. My third jump was my last jump and the jump that changed my life. On my final jump i landed in 2 cm of snow. That snow wasn't close enough to what we were jumping into a 2 feet of snow kinda ended and i landed on that one spot. My left ankel took most of the impact. When i hit the ground my ankle had a really sharp pain i tried to walk it off but it just got worse and at this time i had no clue what to do. I kept on yelling for my mom and no one came i was scared. I started to yell at my friend. This is when my little brother got to the hill we started to yell at him telling him to go get my mom. When my brother left it felt like hours went by as i sat there in pain. My mother finally showed up they loaded me onto one of the 2 sleds we had and started to pull me. Half way out of the field some person

I could still hear the ringing in my ear as I got up from the bicycle flipping 10 feet in front of me. I checked to see if I had any injuries. I was going around 20mph. I was with my friend named Logan, going down a hill on the street. I had multiple things going on at on time. I was dazed, and I got a minor concussion from the amount of force with which I hit the ground. What I did not notice until it was too late for me to fix it was that my shoelace was untied

Looking back to the kickoff of my freshman year made me feel frangible. At this point, I had been a little more than halfway through my freshman and everything had transmuted once again. This time in a good way. I had just gotten out of my nerves cast about a month ago. It had been a fortnight since getting out of my cast for my broken ankle and but now I had just been able to commence utilizing my ambulating boot. The visual perception of my leg after being in a cast for 4 and half months Frightening. An aberrantly minuscule leg, can it even work where my poetic conceptions. My peregrination commenced at that moment. Two months until the commencement of club soccer season. For about a month my job in the school was to study and steadily start ambulating around the school.

Even though I was smart at school, outside of that I was clumsy, messy, and always getting hurt. When I was about 6, I dropped a ball behind a large floor TV, and while trying to retrieve it, got stuck between it and the wall. I was stuck for almost an hour and still bare an indention on my forehead to this day. In the summer of the next year, I was playing outside on a mini race car and lost control of it, and ended up being dragged up the driveway until I finally let go. I don’t have much feeling left in my knees still

At the time I could take positive notes from being dropped even though they traumatized me for the rest of my life. Fast-forward about 9 years, somewhere in Indiana I had gone snowboarding for the first time in my life with my brother and some of his friends. As we walked out of the building going toward the mountain I asked if I would be able to go to the bunny slop. His response was a no I had to learn fast on my feet, so he told me how to turn and stop and I said I understood but I didn’t really. We went on the family slop a couple times before we had to go on the

This most recent visit we had, my mother decided to take fall pictures after our visit, and one of them involved me climbing a tree so I and my sister could be in a tree for a great picture. The picture was great as seen below, but where things really fall part is when I was getting down and the metal recycling bin gave way from beneath me, I fell face down into the bottom of the bin and split my chin. I was not knocked out, but was in fact stunned lying on the ground. My

I nearly severed an artery when I was in elementary school. I don’t remember how old I was when this happened. But I do know it was early elementary school, because I was stupid. Stupid enough to think wearing pink fuzzy sweatpants and a white and blue shirt looked nice together. Not to mention I wasn’t bright enough to realize that hanging upside down on the jungle gym in that type of pants would cause me to slip. It was during afternoon recess, and I was playing with a friend. I don’t remember the girl’s name because she moved away, and after all I was really young. We got this idea to climb on the jungle gym, and so we ran across the playground and started climbing on it.

It was at the moment that I felt pain in my right shoulder. I considered myself lucky to have never experienced a significant injury until one event changed everything. I was in ninth grade at Spanish Fork Junior High. It was lunch time. When you attend junior high you don’t get recess like you do in elementary where you can go play on the playground with all of your friends. Instead you can go run and play on all the huge soccer fields. That’s exactly what my friends Tori, Chris, and Daniela and I decided to do. After we ate our lunch we headed out to the grassy fields to play flag football. When we got to the fields Chris noticed a couple of girls who were known to be popular. They were on the Spanish Fork High School Drill Team. They were doing tricks on each others shoulders. He got the idea that I should get on his shoulders after he saw the girls getting on each others. He thought it was outstanding. Chris considered himself to be strong and athletic. I hesitated a little with no self control I listened to Chris. Thinking if girls can hold each other up on their shoulders, then why can’t Chris without getting hurt?