Background

On 10/23/13 around 8pm my gf and I bumped heads pretty hard while in bed. I pulled the blanket from under her, but pulled her along with it and the left back part of her head hit the left front part of my head. We were less than a feet apart. I am an RN and I work nights, so she complained of a headache, but hid the severity of the headache from me and she was mostly normal conversationally with me. After waking up I had to rush off to work, so I didn't notice much more. The next morning I came back tired from work and she seemed to be a bit strange to me and in my tired self, I ate and went to sleep. When I woke up she was about the same as the previous morning. I decided we had to take her to the ER. Went to a Stroger ER (Chicago) due to a lack of health insurance. Short story, terrible experience and came out with a diagnosis of headaches secondary to head injury, with possible concussion. At stroger they did a head CT and gave her benadryl and reglan (migraine coctail) and it helped slightly. I brought her back home exhaused from the near 6 hours of waiting at the ER.

She seemed to have gotten worse by the next day and when her mother came to see her she was shocked. I used this time to get in touch with my friend's friend, who happens to be a neurosurgeon and after my description of her symptoms he immedietly diagnosed it as post concussion syndrome. He recommended I get her to an ER and get a cervical spine CT and an MRI. This time I went to the best hospital in chicago (Northwestern) and they immedietly diagnosed her correctly. They gave her IV compazine, toradol, and decadron. They also did the c-spine CT and MRI like the neurosurgeon recommended. We spend about 9 hours here. During both visits she was telling me she wanted to go home.

A little about her
She is a 32 year old teacher that has taught in Korea for 3 years and speaks korean fairly well, speaks some spanish, but she is fluent in english. Very smart, very caring (almost altruistic), and a perfectionist. She recently started an online business for organic, made to order baked goods and body products. She makes scrubs, body butters, lip balms, cookies, granola....she is very creative and highly talented. She has had one know concussion at age 6 and then at age 13 or 14. She returned to the US in the first week of August to be with me and was done teaching in Korea.

Symptoms by days
Day 1 - Headache (only on left side, which went from back to front and tender to touch on the outside)(pain of 10/10) but almost conversationally normal, with photophobia and sensitivity to sound

Day 2 - Headache (pain 8/10), neck hurting on the injured side, same symptoms as above, but nausea, and not at all normal conversationallly. She would give simple delayed responses and very rarely start any conversation. She would tell me she needs to go to the washroon and wait for me to tell her lets go. She needed to be reminded to keep eating bite after bite. When she gets in bed she would complain of being cold, but won't pull the comforter up until I tell her. She had some long term memory losses. Also started crying because I jokingly said I won't get her boots from high up in the closet. She was also sleepy for most of the day.

Day 3 - Headache (pain 5/10) Same, but after the toradol, decadron, and compazine IV push she was a little less foggy, but still speaking very slowly and rarely starting conversations. At the ER at northwestern I saw her go from shivering to being really hot. (Vitals were stable during all visits)

Day 4 - Headache (mostly 1-3/10 with instances of 5-7/10)She made a sentence with her normal tone. All other symptoms exist. New symptom were numbness of legs and noticing being hot and cold more frequently. Around the afternoon time, she was conversing normally. Able to conversate for about 30 minutes before headaches became worse. She was beginning to make more decisions herself. Still very tired and sleepy, has dizziness at times, nauseous sometimes, photophobia (wearing sunglasses since day 3 to help), sensitivity to sound. We went for a 20 minute walk in the afternoon with sunglasses on. She did ok, but judgment and decision making was slightly delayed. She complained of having too many thoughts on her mind and started pacing around 8 or 9pm. Took benadryl and reglan around 11pm and has been asleep since.

Today is day 5 (10/28/13), so hopefully I see more progress in her. I been depressed for the first 3 days, but did my best to put on a strong appearance for her. Day 4 was better and I will keep you all updated on the upcoming days. Writing this really is helping me and is also a way for her and I look back at this period in time. One thing I know for sure from this experience so far is that she is the only one for me and she is everything for me. Please share your experience or make suggestions. I do plan on taking her to a neurologist and hopefully get her some concussion rehab. Due to her not having insurance this is going to be difficult.

Currently I am allowing her brain to rest as much as possible and I hope to fully get my girl back soon. I hate to see her in any type of pain. If you pray, your prayers are much appreciated.