A concussion is one of the biggest injuries out there yet nobody seems to take seriously. Whether you have suffered from one or health care professionals. This is one injury I will keep stressing for as long as I can (so be prepared 😉)

For instance in hockey, you see a lot of players go down with a concussion and are classified as ‘upper-body injury’ and return a few days later. While others lose their career over concussions and post-concussion symptoms. But both are wrong.

Here is the trouble with concussions. Each concussion is different. Symptoms can last months even if you do not feel them anymore. Some symptoms are gone after hours of impact or weeks/months later. The more concussions you get the harder it will be to recover. But the other side to this trouble is…symptoms can also appear hours later/days/weeks later so it is hard to put time tables.

If a hockey player got a concussion they could be fine that day but two weeks later the symptoms could appear.

My Story: I never noticed how bad concussions could be until I suffered not one….not two but three of them in a 5 months span.

Concussion 1: I was jumping on the ice july 2014 and my landing I fell hitting my head (I had a hairclip which shattered in 7 pieces). Symptoms were mild and I only felt unfocused and I had no headaches. Enough that I still finished the session (even though I should have sat out) and I was able to return to the ice the day after.

Concussion 2: Was in September. I was heading to a hockey game (Montreal Canadiens vs Washington capitals preseason game…I believe). I desperately needed a coffee so I went to drive to Starbucks to grab one. I was sitting at a red light behind three cars when the woman behind me rammed into the back of my car causing 3000$ worth of damage. During that time my neck whipped forward and I hit my head on my hands that were on the steering wheel. I felt fine right after the impact, was a slightly sensitive to light. With Fibro I am already, so I did not think anything of. A couple of hours later the headaches came, I was nauseous and my vision was blurry. I managed to get home. I did stupidly skate the day after. Only symptoms that were persistent were the headaches that lasted a week and a half, left for a few days and came back for another 5 days during midterms.

Concussion 3: It happened seven weeks after number two. Again I was on the ice. I decided to start a jump going full speed. Before entry my blade got stuck in a rut and I know I landed hard but I still don’t have full memory to what happened. I know I got off the ice and sat there for ten minutes. I was unable to focus and it felt like everything was spinning. Apparently I tried to go back on to spin but with the amount of people on the ice I had no coordination and could not tell distances and had no reaction timing. I skated off the ice and my eyes were dilated and stayed like that for a few days. I have no memory until two days later when I decided to try and skate again. But this time my coach was more aware and I had to follow guidelines.

One thing about having concussions is being able to tell if an athlete has one. As well be able to give knowledge on this injury. Out of all the injuries this is one of the biggest ones I will emphasize.

If you want to gain some more knowledge click here to go to a website that will give you an online training.

Picture: This was taken after my third concussion. My eyes stayed like this for a few days (had it checked out by medical professionals).