Member-only story
Never in a million years did I ever expect to deal with a concussion, and never did I understand the seriousness of such an injury. Before I had my concussions, I had thought that it was merely something that would require a few days of rest in the dark to heal, and all would be okay afterwards.
I was quite wrong.
I unfortunately suffered 2 accidents in the past year, causing 2 TBIs. My first one, I barely took seriously. My symptoms didn’t appear until a few days after my injury, and because I didn’t take concussions too seriously, I brushed them off.
Looking back, the symptoms I had were concerning — I didn’t sleep for days and had really bad ringing in my ears, but I just attributed it to a night out. Suddenly, a few days after my injury — I became severely nauseous out of nowhere, more so than I’ve ever felt in my life, then proceeded to start experiencing full-body tremors, and fell unconscious. I woke up, dragged myself to bed, and the next day felt incredibly out of it, like my brain was located somewhere outside of my skull. That feeling lasted 4–5 weeks, and along the way I had shaky hands, some fever, and was quite light and sound sensitive for a while.
During that whole ordeal, I didn’t take my health seriously. I returned to work immediately, even though I felt completely out of it, and resumed my normal social activities. A little bit after that, I started having periods of anxiety, where my mind would spiral. I started apologizing for things…
