My first concussion was in 1963 when I fell down a flight of stairs. No LOC but a good sized bump on my forehead. In 1965, at 10 years old, I had a serious bicycle accident. 30 minutes LOC. Three days slurred speech in the hospital. No follow up treatment.

Ever since then, I have been very sensitive to any head impacts. I have a history of 14 notable head impacts. One serious, four moderate and the rest mild to very mild. In 1996, I stood up under a low beam and had to lay down for 10 minutes before I could get back on my feet. In June, 2000, I was assaulted and slugged in the back of the head. January 2001, I took a bad step off a curb and jarred my back from pelvis to head. Everything changed after that simple jarring.

I can track academic struggles after each head impact by looking at the report cards my mom kept. I had to drop out of Pre-dental college due to my inability to tolerate the stresses of college life. I suffered two concussion like events my freshman year. One was a 105 degree fever and the other was a vertical jarring from jumping feet first into water that was shallower than I expected that resulted in a back injury.

I realized that I did not tolerate stress well so I tried to keep job stress to a minimum, eventually operating a solo business after the stress of having employees got to be too much.

I developed a seizure disorder in high school from heading the ball playing soccer. My grades plummeted a full grade point for a full year before recovering to straight A's. I had a similar grade point drop my second semester in college.

At present, I can give myself a concussion shaking my head "no." I have to be careful when riding in the car on a rough road.

I have followed concussion issues since college (1974). My serious research into concussion began after my injury on January 16, 2001. It was a work injury while temporarily employed by someone else. I unsuccessfully tried to get Work Comp benefits as this injury caused me to go on permanent disability due to my memory dysfunctions and other limitations.

I can still be very high functioning if I have time to pace my activities. If the pace of my activities are controlled by someone else, I will struggle under the hurry up time constraints. It will often take me twice as long as expected to get a task done.

It was not until about 2003 that my family and I began to understand my personality difficulties such as outbursts. My mother told my wife that my personality changed in 1965 after the bike accident, no longer her 'sweet little boy.' I now understand why I lost almost all of my school friends that year. I struggled with depression and suicide ideation for almost two decades before getting help with my nutritional regimen in 1982. My wife tells me I had a serious personality change after the assault in 2000.

I have no problem talking about my life. It helps people understand concussion and TBI/mTBI. They often will apply this knowledge to a friend or family member who has suffered an mTBI or TBI. Knowledge can drastically change how we look at each other and life.