Are concussions that bad?

My health took a turn soon after I had advanced in the sport that had taken over my life, gymnastics. Like a lot of active girls my age, I remember being sprawled out in front of the television watching the 1996 Olympics with my eyes focused on the USA women’s gymnastics team known as “The Magnificent Seven”. It was then that I decided I wanted to be a gymnast! I lived and breathed gymnastics. I couldn’t wait to be on the team at my local gym and participate in competitions. I eagerly trained at my gym for the four hours required of us each day, in addition to the hours I trained on my own at home. We lived on a farm at this time, and having no brothers, my sister and I became pretty good with hay bales and other muscle-toning chores. My dad even had a chin-up bar for me in the garage as well as a trampoline in the barn. I was even happier when summer hit and we could basically be at the gym from morning until night.

Even though I was an extremely hard-worker and a perfectionist at fine-tuning my skills, my 5’9” frame simply was not cut out to be gymnast material. Skills are more difficult to execute when you are twice the average gymnasts size, both because the apparatuses are made one size and because tall people seem to be less flexible in my experience. Because of this, injury seemed to come more regularly. Making sure that you are being coached at a gym with proper training is also very important to prevent injuries. If you have ever been in sports or have kids in sports, you may think it’s okay to have the occasional wipeout injury, or even a concussion. We thought it was okay. Yea it was scary when it happened, but we thought it was something all athletes experience. When in actuality, it is not okay. It is especially not okay to have repetitive concussions. In all sports, avoiding head contact is key for your health, especially for later in life. A kid hitting their head with a soccer ball makes me cringe now that I know all the effects it has on the body. These are very dangerous not only to the neck, but also to the function of your brain and alignment of your skull.

 I couldn’t tell you how many concussions I have had over the years. Between multiple falls at gymnastics, horse-riding injuries, crashing into a concrete ceiling multiple times, and launching through a window in the middle of my sleep, it’s safe to say I have received more than my fair share of head injuries along with other, seemingly minor injuries, like muscle pulls and broken bones. Some of those concussion descriptions may have sparked your curiosity for more detail, so I will provide more of an explanation. The gymnastics and horse-riding injuries I assume are self-explanatory. The concrete ceiling and window descriptions probably are not so easy to imagine.

The farmhouse we owned was a very odd house. The guy who built it apparently had an obsession with concrete because not only was nearly the entire house made of concrete, but there was also an underground concrete tunnel, which led from the house to the detached garage. Well, with all of my pent-up energy, it was difficult for me to simply walk up the stairs like a normal person. I would instead go from a running start and leap up the stairs to exit the tunnel and forget there was a low concrete ceiling above me. I would jump up and then the next thing I would consciously know of was seeing the floor underneath me. If you ever went through huge growth spurts, I’m sure you remember forgetting either how tall you had all of a sudden become, which caused a lot of head bumps or knocked a lot of drink glasses off the table because your arms were all of a sudden a foot longer. Took more than once to learn my lesson on this one.

Now on to explaining the crashing through the window scenario; so I shared a room with my sister at the time, and I slept on the trundle part of a day bed. My poor sister was woken up many times in the middle of the night, being alarmed that I was often flailing around in my sleep, only to realize that I was apparently doing gymnastics in my dreams. It was all pretty harmless though, as I would normally keep to myself…well, I guess except for the bruises she often received from me kicking her. On one particular night, however, I woke my sister up, yet again, moving around in bed a significant amount. She said that I all of a sudden scooted down to the bottom of the bed and then all at once sprung backwards crashing through the window that was behind the head of my bed. My mom came running in the room and they both tried to wake me, but they did not succeed. I would not have believed this crazy story they told me if it weren’t for the evidence of the broken window the next morning and the glass I found in my hair.