Tim Thomas reveals his battles with concussion issues

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Former Bruins goaltender Tim Thomas made his first public appearance since walking away from hockey in 2014, and he fought back tears as he described the brain damage he has endured after sustaining a concussion in his final NHL season.

"I couldn't communicate with anybody for a few years," Thomas told reporters on Thursday, ahead of his induction into the U.S. Hockey Hall of Fame. "I didn't call my dad. I didn't talk to anybody. There was a time period, yeah, where I hated the game, so to speak. I didn't sit there and [say] 'I hate it.' My rebound effect was like, this wasn't worth it."

Thomas said that in a December 2013 game with the Panthers, he sustained a concussion "that changed my life."

"I woke up the next morning after it and I couldn't decide what I wanted to eat, where I wanted to go," Thomas said. "I couldn't plan a schedule. I survived following the team schedule the rest of the year and just made it through that season."

"On the ice, I was able to be like 97 percent maybe, 95 percent of what I was before, but off the ice, like I said, I still can't choose," Thomas said. "I'm so much better, but I wake up every day and basically I have to reorder everything in my mind for the first couple hours of the day and then make a list and try to make some choices to get some stuff done."

"I didn't want to talk about this," he said. "I didn't want to talk. I didn't want to tell the world this stuff. Not till I felt ready, and I didn't feel ready yet. But here I am."

Thomas dropped the puck for the Bruins-Capitals game on Wednesday night and said it was the first NHL game he had attended since retiring.

"I couldn't follow the game anymore," Thomas said. "My brain wasn't functioning well enough to be able to keep up with the game, so I sat out in the woods for a few years. I didn't watch much hockey. There's not much TV out there."

https://www.espn.com/nhl/story/_/id/...age-concussion

[JohnnyB]

Damn, that is painful and familiar. I have experienced the same. I find no joy in watching activities or sports where people take blows to the head anymore because of how awfully I know it can mess up your life. Your brain is essentially what you are and needs to be taken care of.

Edit: I do still enjoy hockey, but I don't enjoy watching hockey fights at all anymore and really cringe when I see heads getting banged into the boards. Sports like boxing or MMA, I don't even want to watch for a moment.

It is amazing how powerfully a concussion can change your day to day life. Having your brain stop working the way you have been used to can make you into a different person, both in functional abilities and personality.

[Claes]

Man, that's horrible to read. These concussions can really mess with one's head. It's good that players step up and tells about their problems so future players can get the right treatment.

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[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.

[CaptainCrunch]

I blame my concussion history for a lot of issues I have.

I learned that once you start getting them, it just gets easier and easier and easier. My last one was playing for a CP flag flootball team. That one was truly awful, and it freaked me out completely,

I get headache's easily, I have crushing migraines, my attention to detail is literally gone. Now when I look back on things that I've written, its a mess and a lot of times makes no sense.

Don't ask me to remember phone numbers, or passwords, or even peoples names and faces even a short time after I met them.

I go through long term spells of complete insomnia that my doctor says could be attributed to my double digits concussion history.

I'll have these weird moments where my emotions just run out of control, and they're unpredictable.

When I played sports, there wasn't a concussion protocol or back to play protocol, you got your bell rung, the coach gave you a few minutes, forgot about it and sent you out. And you as a player didn't want to show any weakness no matter how terrible you were feeling in the days, or weeks or months afterwards.

I'll be honest, I as a kid hadn't even heard of the term concussion until I took a serious head blow in a hit, and the room wouldn't stop spinning, and I was throwing up all over the place and had blinding flashes of light, and my parents drove me to emergency at 2 in the morning. That was really the first time I heard the term concussion. But the explanation and treatment was so different from today, and you felt optimistic that it was a bruise that would heal like any other bruise and I should be back on the ice in a week or two.

After that it seemed like every time I took a hit in hockey or football, I would have symptoms. Then when I got out of competitive sports and concussions were more commonly explained, I was getting concussions in slo pitch during what I would deem minor collisions, I would get symptoms after road hockey games or pick up hockey games and it cumulated with that last major one during an innocent looking attempt to block in a flag football game where I don't remember anything after the hit for a few days, and after that my doctor said, that's it you're not playing anything.

It terrifies me to think of the damage done, and what's to come.

[Scroopy Noopers]

Boneheaded play by someone in my beer league last night (blindly cut me off as I was looping around our net and stood his ground) left me woozy and I immediately left the game solely due to knowing about “dark room protocol” from watching the NHL. No screens, no lights, no sound, got home quickly and went to bed.

I’m freaking out a bit this morning though... when I first moved to Ontario I ended up getting beat down in an altercation in Toronto, ending with a broken jaw. Battled post concussion syndrome for 2 years, and thought it was never going to end. I wouldn’t wish that on my worst enemy.

I’m happy to see people discuss it more, as spreading knowledge about concussions can at least help those recover better than people historically would have. Obviously prevention is huge, but it isn’t a completely avoidable issue.

I share Johnny B’s opinion that I even struggle to watch contact sports now. My life dream has always been to coach youth hockey. I love the game and want to be a part of it for the rest of my life. But I feel sick to my stomach every time someone takes a hard hit now. It all comes rushing back, and I almost get sympathy concussion pains... I know for a fact I couldn’t stomach coaching midget hockey now, I’ll have to stick with the tykes.