Tag Archives: injury

My TBI Story

March is Brain Injury Awareness Month. In honor of a cause that holds a very special place in my heart, I have decided to share my own TBI (traumatic brain injury) story:

I skated up to the lift on shaky legs, sitting down harder than I intended as the seat hit the back of my knees before I could react. My heart beat fast, as if in anticipation of something. Rays flickered down on my face, filtering through the pine needles as we climbed. I put my goggles down. I put them up again, winced, and put them back down. I knew. I didn’t need a doctor to tell me or anyone else to confirm my fears. I just knew. 

Three years prior in October of 2016, I was warming up for the last soccer game of my eighth grade season when I took a shot to the right temple. I was only thirteen years old. Little did I know that my life had just changed. It was diagnosed as a minor concussion, my first. But as time moved forward, my progress did not. 

I distinctly remember one moment early on in my recovery when I emerged from my hobbit hole of a dark room. My brother had brought me something and tossed it to me from a foot away. In that split moment between his “head’s up” and his toss, I panicked. Startling, my hand closed on empty air. I was a lacrosse player. I was a coordinated athlete. I could catch things — one-handed — lefty — in my sleep. Who was this person that had taken over my body?

“I was a coordinated athlete…Who was this person that had taken over my body?”

Photograph of a teen girl play lacrosse. "I was a coordinated athlete...Who was this person that had taken over my body?"
Photograph of a teen girl ski racing GS. "I was a coordinated athlete...Who was this person that had taken over my body?"

I struggled with a constant headache, spikes of migraines, light sensitivity, sound sensitivity, and countless more symptoms on a daily basis. I was in and out of specialist’s offices from sports medicine to neurology, on and off of medications that gave me every side effect from depression to tremors, all while juggling high school. Sports were my sanctuary, and even my participation there fluctuated day by day, season by season. I spent years barely scraping by, talking myself through life, hour by hour. 

Which brings us to my opening moment. My biggest fear after my first injury was hitting my head. I truly believed that I wasn’t strong enough to do it all again. Then, on February 12th, 2020, just over three years after my original brain injury, I crashed ski racing in Maine, shooting into the ground at 40 mph, sliding headfirst through the next gate. I do not remember much of what happened, nor much of the weeks that followed. I feel blessed to have walked away on my own. 

So there I was, riding up that chairlift, skating to my team, keeping a hand firmly planted on my teammate’s shoulder to keep my balance, mixing up the location of the accident. Looking back, it feels like a dream. I was sleepwalking. 

But the sharp stab behind my eyes tells me otherwise. I have additional vision issues now. When I am tired my right eye droops, not tracking with my left. I struggle with screens and reading. I run into doorways. Every minute of every day, I have a headache. 

After the second accident, it took me a month to let myself fully grieve. I was petrified that if I let myself feel, if I let the walls crumble and I fell apart, that I would never be able to pick up the shattered pieces. But I did, painfully, piece by piece. 

Pencil drawing of a girl's face made of a puzzle, one piece left to be places, representing the struggle of piecing yourself back together after a brain injury. "But I did, painfully, piece by piece."

“But I did, painfully, piece by piece.”

For a while, I lost a part of myself. I was forced to give up things that were parts of my identity, some of which I haven’t gotten back. I struggled in school with simple problems, I couldn’t follow a conversation, I missed the jokes. I had to reconcile the fact that I am not the same as I was before, and I can’t go back to that person. All of this – twice. After my first injury, I found my new normal. I got back up off the ground for the world to lay me flat again. I have to once again make peace between who I was and who I am. 

It is in this that I found LoveYourBrain and Concussed. For so many years, I told myself that post-concussive syndrome and traumatic brain injury were two very different things. I cut myself off from the TBI community because I didn’t believe that I deserved to be there with my “minor concussion.” But it wasn’t a minor situation. And slowly, I began to open myself up. Thanks in part to both LoveYourBrain and Concussed., I continue to do so. 

Sometimes I wish that I could have insignificant teenage problems, like figuring out what to wear or who my friends are, but that isn’t the hand I was dealt. My injury happened at such a young age, when one is discovering so much about themself, that I truly don’t believe I would be the same person if not for my injury.

And I love the person that I have become. My injury taught me patience and self-love and resiliency. It taught me that life is not fair and that I won’t always have control over the important things and that bad things happen to good people without it being punishment for something. I learned that the athlete, buckle-down mentality I’ve always had is not to be at the expense of my health and wellbeing. (Read more about this here.)

“I love the person that I have become.”

Photograph of a girl looking out over trees on a hike in a baseball cap, laughing and smiling comfortably. "I love the person that I have become."

Now, over five years later, I am grappling with my future. As I apply to college, I ask myself whether my brain will be able to handle the science- and math-heavy paths I am interested in. I struggle every day with the idea that I have so much of my life ahead of me, and yet that many decisions I make will most likely be impacted by this injury. But not all of them will be.

I have recently started journaling. In the morning I write down three things that I have control over, three little things that I will choose to do that day. At night I write down three tiny moments that brought me joy. I am working to focus on the aspects that I can control. (You can read more about my journaling here.)

People say that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. But what if it isn’t a tunnel? What if it’s a deep, dense forest, but you don’t need to make it to the other side? What if all you need to do is find the glints of sun through the trees? Listen to the birds chirp and find the little bits of light in your life. It is a process, but you don’t need to make it to the end of the tunnel to find happiness. 

Photograph of light shining through tree branches as a metaphor for finding the light through the darkness. "Listen to the birds chirp and find the little bits of light in your life."

“Listen to the birds chirp and find the little bits of light in your life.”

There are two traumatic brain injury organizations that are very close to my heart. In honor of Brain Injury Awareness Month, please consider donating to LoveYourBrain or Concussed. foundations. I am not affiliated with either, but they both mean a lot to me. Donations go to supporting TBI survivors and caregivers in acquiring resources, continuing research, and sponsoring individuals to go on TBI retreats. As someone who has attending such a retreat, I can tell you firsthand that it is a life-changing experience. Thank you for considering, and Happy Brain Injury Awareness Month!

disclaimer: partially adapted for a college essay.

Coping With Good News

I am finally getting the one thing I’ve been wanting.

For the last five and a half years, I have lost myself trying to find answers. I have put every fiber of my being into continuing to move forward. When I could, I truly lived, and when I couldn’t, I turned robotic.

Everyone who has faced severe illness or injury knows the switch. It is a magical button developed as a defense mechanism to protect us. It is archaic, intrinsic, instinctual. When we deal with truly scary things, we develop this ability to turn off what isn’t necessary for survival. We shut down things like emotions, reflection, and thinking. Our bodies says we cannot deal with that right now and survive. So we don’t deal with it, and we fight like hell to survive. 

I found a doctor who can help me. I found two, actually. I am getting the answers I have been searching for so desperately, and I feel like I’m slipping. 

No one talks about the grief that can come with good news. There is grief in meeting yourself where you are at. There is grief in the realization of how sick or hurt or tired you truly are. There is grief in the reflection of how far you’ve come, how hard you’ve fought, how much you’ve lost along the way. 

When we have to fight for ourselves for so long, releasing that fight can be so much harder than sounds.

“Releasing that fight can be so much harder than it sounds.”

"Releasing that fight can be so much harder than it sounds." Photograph of a girl standing before the Pacific Ocean, wind blowing a blanket back behind her like a cape.

It’s like I’ve been running a marathon. And it’s entirely uphill. So I have tuned out the pain in order to make it through and I have fallen into a rhythm. The rhythm is all that there is. It is what’s keeping me alive. All I know is that I need to keep moving forward. And then someone offers me a ride. And I am so grateful, because the ride appears to be my only path in the right direction. But as soon as I sit down, I realize how much pain my body is in. I feel sick and nauseous and my muscles all seize. I am no longer in the zone, merely trying to survive, and now I feel it all. 

It is important to note that this ride will not carry me through to the pain-free zone. There is hard work ahead of me, some of the hardest I have yet to do. Without this ride I may not have hope of making it to the end, but I will have to finish the race myself. I am just lucky enough to have a team cheering me on, handing me water bottles and power bars along the way. 

"And now, I feel it all." Pencil-drawn typograph face of a girl, emotions lining her features.

“And now, I feel it all.”

My body has been fighting for so long that as a hand extends to help me clear the brush and forge a path forward, I have begun to crash. My pain is at an all-time high. My tolerance is at an all-time low. I get overwhelmed instantly, sick and dizzy before I even step foot outside. My body is trying to catch its breath, but I am not yet to the part where it can recover it’s breath. 

I know that I am predisposed to this “feeling it all” feeling. I have always been a very sensitive person. I am deeply in tune with my body, which comes as a blessing and a curse. I trust my body above all, but I also feel everything. 

For example, I’ve dealt with joint pain for awhile. But joint pain is so obscure. Pain in general is so obscure. Is it coming from my brain and manifesting in my body? Is there actual damage? With my switch turned off, I didn’t — couldn’t — think about what this meant. But now, after seeing ultrasounds of the damage in joints that cause me the least pain, I can’t help but think about the destruction done to the joints in my body that are really crying out. 

Now that my reservoir has the tiniest trickle of energy to visualize, I am feeling everything so much more acutely. I feel the inflammation in my veins. I feel the cysts in my thyroid. I feel the swelling of my salivary glands. The imagination is a powerful tool, even when it works against you. 

“The imagination is a powerful tool, even when it works against you.”

Pencil drawing of a thermal scan of a female depicting inflammation in her vascular system representative of bartonella.
A recreation of a thermal scan showing the inflammation in my vascular system.

So much information is being thrown at me right now. I went from no answers for so long to all the possible answers, and it is extremely overwhelming. I have such little energy to process. For me, it has felt like a near-tipping point. I feel like saying to my doctors, my body is at max capacity, falling into your capable hands, and I can’t take any more information. But that is not quite how the process works.

And the guilt. I am so grateful, but I am not happy. Everyone is so happy for me, and I feel ungrateful by expressing that I am just not there yet. In fact, I haven’t been able to express the feeling openly. But the reality is that I am depressed and anxious as my loved ones cheer in relief.

But that is okay. My body is finally allowed to take a break, and it is crashing. There will come a time when I can close my eyes, think about it all, and a feeling of warmth will flood my body. But right now, all I get is a wave of nausea. I am so grateful, but I am not happy…yet. 

Photograph of a girl silhouetted sitting on rocks in front of the Pacific Ocean in the fading light of sunset.

“I am so grateful, but I am not happy…yet.”

No matter who you are, the human body can only take so much. So if you are at that point in your journey, the point where you are being given answers and just feel worse, it is okay. It is okay to be sad. It is okay to be overjoyed. It is okay to be anxious and depressed and elated and afraid all at the same time. It is okay to feel however you need to feel. It is nothing to be guilty about.

There will come a time when you and I will feel relief and joy and excitement as we see the faint glow of light at the end of the tunnel. We can be grateful, and still not be thrilled. And someday, in the not too distant future, as treatments come together and we settle in to this new routine with all of this new information, we will be able to feel the joy we deserve.