Nancy,
This I will say from our perspective: the recovery will come. Most likely not nearly as soon as we'd like to think. It is such a crappy roller coaster ride. I would gladly have taken the "brain freeze" headaches from my daughter. They would last all day some days. If you remember the headaches you'd get when you drank a slurpee too fast. Holy smokes they hurt! The disorientation, the "dumb-dumb" that comes with losing cognitive abilities, the change in personality that frustrated the injured.

We were so lucky in that my daughter's soccer teams were so supportive. Obviously, she has not been able to play since the injury last fall (and may not until this fall, or beyond). That kept her out of the state qualifiers and her entire club season and Olympic Development camp. BUT, her teammates welcomed her back onto the sidelines when she could finally attend. She was issued a uniform, travelled with the teams when she felt well enough to do it.

My daughter just went through her second cognitive/memory test. It is being used as the baseline because she wasn't impact tested before her injury. The one right after they diagnosed her was a disaster. She scored in the lowest 1% of all tested. The one she took last Monday, she "aced" it! Her memory, attitude, cognitive, balance, all are so much improved. But this is after SIX MONTHS of rehab. Now she goes in for surgery on her septum and sinuses and should be as close to "normal" as she can be. If the operation goes well, the docs are really ready to clear her to move to the next level, which would mean more school and eventually the opportunity to play again, which we NEVER thought would happen.

Point here is: look for support wherever you can get it. Your son's friends, a school counselor, his buddies, his coach. That stuff went a long way with my daughter. Even though she could not attend school, she would have lunch with her teammates and friends at the school cafeteria when she felt up to it. And it's amazing how much cooperation you'll get from the school if you "invite" them to a 504 meeting. Your neuropsychologist can probably help you arrange for that.

Donna, your guidance has helped us greatly. I was so angry when I came here because the emergency room doctors did not listen to my daughter when she told them of her injury. They told us she was cleared to play the next day! Her doctors now say that was potentially more injurious than the first hit. But reading your posts gave us much to go with and led us down the roads (plural) to recovery. I wish you the best as well.

I'm probably just going to be an observer on this site for now. No one needs to hear me go on any more about my kid's "miracle" recovery. But for everyone who suffers with this crap, keep the faith, don't take NO for an answer and NEVER give up.

Spudbro

THe thing is that your daughter has been through it. And even though
she is recovering, her road to that recovery has been just as rough
as mine. And she still has a ways to go. Even with the help of her
teammates and coach and the school. And you her parents.

The thing is that she has been given a wonderful gift the gift of learning
that its okay to not be perfect. That it sometimes takes hard work,
having to want something so bad that it hurts to succeed. And that she
is just going to live it one day at a time. So now she is going to go
at it and give it her best.

What ever she was before she will now be 100% more because she has
lived through this. She will want things even more. And she will remember
that you were there for her. So whether she ever plays soccer again,
make sure she always goes to the games, and supports her friends.

There will always be a job there for her. And she can always be a coach
for the younger kids and help when the next one gets hurt, and you will
know that its not possible to get back up and play that fast next time someone is hurt.

Let us know how she is doing please. And how the surgery goes.
And don't worry about the good we want to know, it gives everyone hope.

Donna

Spudbro,
What a wonderful note and summary of your ordeal! Thanks for giving us hope. We are still fresh into it but your encouragment helps. My son is still in survival mode but just now 8 weeks out. He seems to be less uncomfortable with symptoms and paying more attention to the world around him. The sad part is, he is still talking about wrestling. He goes on about how nothing else gives him the feeling of achievement he gets from matches. He is such a competitive person. I am just trying to get him well enough to be our son again. He has gotton alot better, these past few days, sleep is better, less dizziness, headaches etc. He had a preimpact test and his post was way off and 2 weeks later, that one was even worse. They will not repeat it until his symptoms go away. Our challenge this weekend will be keeping him well and having him not relapse because he is feeling better. He wants to go to friends sweet 16 party. The parents are home and I know there is no drinking. I think it will be O.K. As you said, getting the morale up and the support of friends helps. They are having a guest speaker, a neuropschologist on sports concussion come to the school and speak to parents about concussions to educate more. The school has been trying to get on board about this thanks to the trainer at the school who is devaststated about the extent of my son's injury. I have assured her that she only did what was advised and no one blames her. He went back out to finish his match, after his injury. I was not there but this is probably why he is healing for so long. My son kept begging to finish and said he was fine. He knew the president and could stand on one leg. I do not blame anyone because, most trainers are still unclear what to do here. She has been excellent and very supportive and has been even trying to educate his teachers about it. I think alot is going to change in the future. Unfortunately, your daughter and my son are the poster children as to why it should!! I wish you and your daughter well and send thanks so much.

I wanted to add something to this for both of you. I am in Indiana and
I am a advocate for kids with special needs. But I also have been paying
attention to things that have been happening here in the sports world with
kids in schools because my older son's loved to do things like soccer and
football.

But I have noticed the last few years that the dangers are getting worse.

And I have to say, that even if your daughter and son, don't get to play
their prospective sports again next year or ever they may still be some
of the luckiest ones there are now days. There have been some deaths
here in Indiana after injuries this last year or two. And their have been
some students with paralyazing injuries and other things.

So we can at least know that your daughter and son, to the extent it
would look like might be a couple of the luckier cases.

Donna

Spudbro...

I did a quick scan through on your 2 threads.

Brief background then a couple of thoughts for your consideration.

I have a now 6 yo that suffered brain damage from the vaccines. He didn't have to. We received poor advice from a Neuro that didn't believe it was the vaccine that caused the prolonged seizures and told us to continue. We did, he was hurt, we sued the government and won. 4 treating Docs and 1 judge later, we all are now in agreement that it was the vaccine.

YOU ONLY GET ONE CHANCE WITH YOUR CHILD!

Next up, my hubby fell on the ice on our driveway and had a concussion. He wasn't unconcious. He didn't break anything. He didn't require therapies of any kind.

He DID have a prolonged migraine that lasted 8 months. He said it was on continual migraine for the first 6 months then started to tapper. With activity, the migraine got worse.

He was very happy when the migraines started to diminish. They were still there but not as frequent and not as severe.

Then, 8 months after the 1st concussion, he was loading things int he trunk of a rental car when the trunk fell on his head and hit him. It didn't seem like that bad of a hit. I was there. It would have given me a headache. But, it gave him ANOTHER concussion. ?????

We had him seen as he was dizzy, nauseated, and just generally not acting right.

I asked the ER Doc about it as the hit wasn't even close to the fall on the drive.

Doc said that the brain takes an incredibly long time to heal. Each time the head gets hit it takes less to reinjure the brain than the previous time.

ER Doc said with each reinjury, you run the risk of permanent brain damage, coma, or death.

I have seen enough and talked to enough Docs and people with neuro damage from injury that I completely trust what that Doc said.

It has been 6 and a half years since that second concussion. DH STILL gets migraines. He had one today. He gets them about once a month now. That first concussion the migraines started waning after 8 months. With the second concussion, they didn't start to let up for TWO years!!!!

I know your daughter wants to play soccer. I know it is important to her. But how important is it REALLY for her to play?

Is it worth her life? Is it worth permanent damage? I am taking coma, death, vegatative state as the worst case scenario. Best case could be permanent migraines, permanent loss of some of her body functions.

You are SUPPOSED to use your head to bounce balls in soccer.

I am missing the entire point here. Be mad if you want. I likely won't come back over here to see what you said in response.

Donna, you can tell me if I need to come back for any further conversation.

I see my wonderful, beautiful son that almost died because I didn't STOP doing something that hurt him (aka vaccinating him). I don't want to see someone else hurt from continuing an activity that has such a high risk for further injury.

You only get one chance with your daughter.

A question for you to ponder.

Let's say you allow her to talk the docs into clearing her for soccer.

She gets another hit on the head and

Dies - Can you live with yourself?

Coma - Can you live with yourself?

Vegetative state - Can you live with yourself?

Permanent speech disability - Can you live with yourself?

Permanent cognitive disability - Can you live with yourself?

How important is it for her to play soccer? Can you live with the consequences?

Be mad at me if you want but I am not the one that will have to look in the mirror or live between your ears when you try to sleep at night with my words burning in your brain.

What can you live with? Your daughter may be mad at you but she will be alive and improving. She will get over it and may even one day thank you and understand.

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.

My 10 year old slid into the boards during a hockey game and has now been diagnosed with PCS. We've gone from a regional ER to a neurologist at Children's Hospital in Boston, consulting with our pediatrician in between. Everything I'm reading is quite scary. We've been assured he'll make a 100% recovery both cognitively and physically, but now I'm wondering how they can know that. Nancy, you mentioned a great physician out of Concord, MA. We have been quite dissatisfied with the lack of support offered, even upon repeated requests, for help with integrating back to school (which is the #1 recommendation) as well as managing the daily headaches. The phone number to the Children's Hospital Neurologist on-call is really only helpful in a crisis situation. We've been told that our son is not a candidate for the Neuro-clinic at CH. I'm thinking now that I need to get on the phone tomorrow and find a neurologist who specializes in concussions. I wonder what your experience has been. Both my husband and I are starting to feel desperate. Today was just day 2 back at school, which ended with the worst headache thus far. We too have talked with the teachers and he's basically doing "what he can" for now. Best of luck to your son.

If Nancy doesn't locate this thread here we have a newer room
called the post concussion syndrome and Traumatic Brain Injury room
that she comes into some. Here job keeps here very busy.

So you could post this there too.

I would copy and paste but don't know how.

Donna

i copied it donna.

Thank you both, I'll check out that other room too.