Lights Out
I was weightless, flying through the air and then severe pain and a blinding light made me shut my eyes. Darkness slowly absorbed the light, and the severe pain faded. Suspended in total darkness bathed in a timeless fog, suddenly a bright light called me toward consciousness .A voice told me to keep my eyes open, but the fog beckoned me once again.
Slipping in and out of reality, a man guided me somewhere. He sat me down in front of a woman with a troublesome-looking face. The lady gave me a slight smile and started asking me simple questions, “How old are you? What year is it?” Clueless, I scrambled scanning around her office with my eyes trying to find any information on anything. I finally focused on a yellow sheet that read Wednesday, the 19th. The next question she fired off at me was, “What day is it?” Having obtained that vital piece of information, I confidently, but still dazed said, “Today is Thursday.” The lady looked concerned and wrote something on a piece of paper. Once again the fog enveloped me.
I looked down. My hands, something I had all my life, didn’t seem familiar. A random image floated into my head. I saw a little kid playing in the sand looking down at his hands. He turned to his parents sitting in blue and white beach chairs. The child heard his mom call out…“Josh, are you paying attention?” I looked up to see the lady in the office looking down at me. I was that little kid—I was Josh. At that moment, my head started to pound like I had been thrown into a concrete wall.
Overhearing my coach say that I resembled a human wrecking ball did not settle well with me. That day, I learned firsthand about concussions and the effect they have on the brain. The trainer called my mom, and she flew to the school. When she arrived to get me, I didn’t understand why she was there. My mom asked how I felt, but I still had no memory of the accident. The trainer instructed us to go to the emergency room to get a complete evaluation.
While in the car, the fog started to creep out of the corner of my eyes. I again woke up to a blinding light. A young doctor stood over me. I thought the bed I lied upon was from the Stone Age, it turned out to be one of those uncomfortable hospital beds. He directed me down a sterile white hallway that smelled of bleach and ammonia.
When I finally traversed the long, long corridor, I arrived at a room with another physician, who looked nothing like the way television says a doctor looks. Peering at me through coke-bottle lenses, he ordered a scan of my head, blood work, and a complete neurological exam. I was having trouble focusing out of my right eye, so he slowly blurred and focused in my vision the way a camera’s aperture struggles to auto-focus. When I was asked to stand with my eyes closed, I kept falling backwards and teetering forward, like a human rocking chair. His diagnosis indicated that I had a moderate to severe concussion, something that, at the time, meant nothing to me except the vague notion that I wasn’t allowed to sleep for a while.
The emergency room doctor referred me to a neurologist who specializes in concussions, and I quickly learned much more about the condition. Somehow, with my amazing balance, I’d managed to bruise my own brain. To remedy this, I was basically put on restriction, as if I’d back-talked my parents or received a bad grade—I couldn’t watch television, play on the computer, or even read. I was told to lay still with my eyes closed.
Shipwrecked without any of the technology I am accustomed to using to view my world, I again felt like I was in a fog, a ship being buoyed without any real direction. This one, however, came with less of a splitting headache and more of an unending boredom. With time, the fog dissipated, my concussion healed, and I made a full recovery to my semi-normal self.
Slipping in and out of reality, a man guided me somewhere. He sat me down in front of a woman with a troublesome-looking face. The lady gave me a slight smile and started asking me simple questions, “How old are you? What year is it?” Clueless, I scrambled scanning around her office with my eyes trying to find any information on anything. I finally focused on a yellow sheet that read Wednesday, the 19th. The next question she fired off at me was, “What day is it?” Having obtained that vital piece of information, I confidently, but still dazed said, “Today is Thursday.” The lady looked concerned and wrote something on a piece of paper. Once again the fog enveloped me.
I looked down. My hands, something I had all my life, didn’t seem familiar. A random image floated into my head. I saw a little kid playing in the sand looking down at his hands. He turned to his parents sitting in blue and white beach chairs. The child heard his mom call out…“Josh, are you paying attention?” I looked up to see the lady in the office looking down at me. I was that little kid—I was Josh. At that moment, my head started to pound like I had been thrown into a concrete wall.
Overhearing my coach say that I resembled a human wrecking ball did not settle well with me. That day, I learned firsthand about concussions and the effect they have on the brain. The trainer called my mom, and she flew to the school. When she arrived to get me, I didn’t understand why she was there. My mom asked how I felt, but I still had no memory of the accident. The trainer instructed us to go to the emergency room to get a complete evaluation.
While in the car, the fog started to creep out of the corner of my eyes. I again woke up to a blinding light. A young doctor stood over me. I thought the bed I lied upon was from the Stone Age, it turned out to be one of those uncomfortable hospital beds. He directed me down a sterile white hallway that smelled of bleach and ammonia.
When I finally traversed the long, long corridor, I arrived at a room with another physician, who looked nothing like the way television says a doctor looks. Peering at me through coke-bottle lenses, he ordered a scan of my head, blood work, and a complete neurological exam. I was having trouble focusing out of my right eye, so he slowly blurred and focused in my vision the way a camera’s aperture struggles to auto-focus. When I was asked to stand with my eyes closed, I kept falling backwards and teetering forward, like a human rocking chair. His diagnosis indicated that I had a moderate to severe concussion, something that, at the time, meant nothing to me except the vague notion that I wasn’t allowed to sleep for a while.
The emergency room doctor referred me to a neurologist who specializes in concussions, and I quickly learned much more about the condition. Somehow, with my amazing balance, I’d managed to bruise my own brain. To remedy this, I was basically put on restriction, as if I’d back-talked my parents or received a bad grade—I couldn’t watch television, play on the computer, or even read. I was told to lay still with my eyes closed.
Shipwrecked without any of the technology I am accustomed to using to view my world, I again felt like I was in a fog, a ship being buoyed without any real direction. This one, however, came with less of a splitting headache and more of an unending boredom. With time, the fog dissipated, my concussion healed, and I made a full recovery to my semi-normal self.