Beck,
Y'know, I've been back & forth with this. When I played (way back in the 70's & 80's) if you got "dinged" you just kinda waited until the dizzy went away then went back in and played. And it was a fairly regular occurance (football). Now the docs treat getting "dinged" (docs HATE that word!) as a potentially serious injury, which they should.

My daughter knows there are risks. Potentially BIG risks. She has been in consultation with one of the top sports-specific neurologists in the country. We are lucky to have access to him in our neck of the woods. He acknowledges that there are doctors who would NEVER clear an athlete who has had such a serious injury to play again. This doc (affiliated with UPMC, a leading authority in this type of injury) looks at each case on an individual basis. He has taken a very pragmatic approach to my daughter's injury. Baby steps, from NO activity to one class a day at school, then two, now three. He now has her doing "light" activity. At every step, if ANY symptoms come back, she is to "step back" to her previous activity level until she is again asymptomatic for two weeks. It is working, but it's a long process.

Is my daughter ever going to get back "between the pipes" again (she's a goalkeeper)? I don't know. But what I do know is that every step of recovery gets us closer to the answer to that question. It is sort of inevitable if this process works. She WILL return to her previous activity level because she will be asymptomatic.

Unfortunately, there was no pre-injury impact test to use as a base. So there's no way to know if her "now" score was affected by the injury. But she has shown great improvement since the post injury test. With time, her neurologist thinks everything will return to a normal pre-injury state.

OK, all that said. We still have quite a ways to go before she is at pre-injury activity levels. As I said, she's still at light activity. She is scheduled to go in for maxifacillory (sp?) surgery. Septum, sinus, etc. Docs say the good news is that everyone involved feels confident about even allowing her to have this surgery.

So...I asked myself the questions you asked of me. I have consulted with many doctors. I have assessed the risks based upon this individual case. Do the scenarios you pose scare me? Yes. Are they supposed to? Of course. Now, what level of risk do we assume by allowing her to play again if the docs clear her. I think that will work itself out. If she continues to be asymptomatic all thru the step recovery, at some point she is going to be at the point where full physical activity is the last step. By then, we'll know. Until then, well, we'll just take it day to day, like we have since last October.

Thank you for your candor.