[Caged Great]

Personal story here that I don't think I've ever actually shared.

When I was 23, I was playing soccer. I was the goalie and went for the ball. Did not see the opposing player, who was at least 6'5" - 230, coming my way. I basically got Phaneuf'ed on the play.

Didn't black out or anything and actually finished the game as I didn't feel too weird or anything. Just figured it wasn't a big deal as I was fine, or at least that's what my mind was telling me. I was messed up. After about 2 hours, I was having a hard time walking at a normalish pace. Just felt like my head was reverberating when I was walking normally. Didn't have a headache or anything, everything just felt off. Went home, watched the baseball game and just took it easy. The next day, I went to play a softball game figuring that everything was A-OK as I felt more or less fine.

I went to run down a fly ball half way through the game (thankfully I did not have anything hit to me for a few innings). Once I got my heart rate up I felt extremely dizzy and like I needed to hit the dirt. Thankfully I managed to catch the ball and that was the end of the inning. I pulled myself from the game and that was the last serious exercise I had for the next 6 years.

Any time my heart rate was elevated or I moved my head too quickly, I would get dizzy and have all the hall marks of post concussion syndrome. For the following 6 months after the concussion, lights were insanely irritating. When I returned to school 3-4 months after the concussion, I was dismayed to find my class was on the 5th floor. I couldn't take the elevator as it was hell (I would get so dizzy I'd feel like I was going to faint) and I could only walk about 4 stairs at a time up 5 flights without getting dizzy. I spent almost the entire time that I was at home in my room with the lights off except for my laptop on low light, which I'd use to watch movies. I couldn't exercise or really do much of anything. I had a hard time getting to know anyone at my school beyond just classroom interactions because I could not trust being able to socialize and being okay. It was a horrible experience. I tried my best to make lemonade out of the situation by learning as much as I could about as much as I could. I must have watched 2-300 movies in those 6 months along with a number of tv shows. Basically all I could do was that, post on here, and go to Flames games and that's about it.

Eventually, in 2012, things started to finally ease up and I could start doing light work and exercise. By that I mean I could paint a door while standing in the same place or moving light things from one location to another. Which was good timing as I had to help my father do a complete tear down renovation and he was not physically as able to do tasks. Things slowly started getting better over time. If I'd over do something though I would get dizzy again and would have to stop for a little while but on the whole I was starting to feel normalish again.

Flash forward to 2015 and I am able to actually jog a bit and be normal again. Just in time for my father to get cancer. I had the great time of simultaneously trying to get physically normal, while taking care of him in his battle. It was a tough trying to deal with all my bs, while going through that. I had to learn how to do so many different things that I was simply physically unable to do previously in that time as he was struggling. He lost his battle early in 2017 and I have been struggling with everything frankly since then. That is one of the main reasons why my posting on CP has been dwindling and only an occasional thing instead of a near daily thing. Just having too many things to catch up on.

Concussions are a real pain to deal with and no joke.