I'm now 57 and have worked as a clergy person and psychotherapist and hospice chaplain. Now I'm taking care of my wife who has multiple issues.

I'm trying to figure out how much of my present issues are from concussions and how many are from my pituitary, which is now ceased functioning in any sensible way.

Here's my concussion history: At 11 months old, I went out of my crib onto my head and permanently bent my skull (it was probably fractured) and lost consciousness for 90 minutes. My mother carried me around until I woke up. This was untreated.

At 3 years old I was sitting on the front seat of the car, facing backwards. They didn't have seat belts or car seats in 1955. We were stopped at a light and someone plowed into the back of our car, sending me into the instrument panel hitting the back of my head. Not treated.

At 5, I was riding a two-wheeler with another older kid and found myself going straight at this car. The woman slammed on the brakes and stopped, but I kept going (poor reaction time) and went over the handlebars into the grille. As I had to have stitches, this one was looked at--as a laceration, not a concussion. It took me two years before I could ride a two-wheeler again.

At 8, I was playing with some kids swinging on the branches of a pepper tree with some friends. My branch gave way and I went down on the back of my head. I remember being rather amazed at all the colored lights and at the fact that I couldn't move. Eventually I moved.

At 10, I was delivering newspapers on my bike and another cyclist came around the same turn I was in (the turning had a high brick wall) and we collided head on. We both flew over the handlebars and knocked our heads full on. I felt very dizzy and strange for that evening. Not treated.

At 15, I was walking across the street on the way to school in a dangerous intersection. It was early, before the crossing warden was on duty. I was almost hit by a small red sports car but I was hit hard by the large gardeners' truck following him. It caught me at the knee and my right skull was propelled into the front of the truck at which point I lost consciousness. I was bounced off and thrown about 15 feet onto my face wherein I slid for awhile. I awoke fitfully in the street and in the ambulance. I felt and my right forehead was swollen out many inches. I was in hospital for nine days because they found a subdural hematoma and wouldn't let me out of bed. They also did an EEG, which was an interesting experience in 1968. After I was discharged, there was no followup for any concussion related symptoms. I guess they just didn't know in those days.

After being hit by the car, I started to lose my sense of smell, and am now about 90% anosmic. I also started to have very strange sleep apnea incidents: I would wake up aware that I could not breathe and hallucinating wildly. I would try to breathe but I couldn't. Finally, I would see this blue circle getting smaller and smaller, which felt very sinister. Finally, something would kick-start my breathing again.

By my forties, I had severe central sleep apnea, which differs from obstructive apnea in that the brain just "forgets" to tell the body to breathe. It turns out that I was desaturating during these episodes down to about 80%, and my heart rate would go down to about 10. As I was taking care of my late wife as she was fighting terminal cancer, I didn't focus on getting help because I thought this was just the way things were. The apnea did figure in the loss of my job as a psychotherapist. I didn't find out about the severe apnea until 2000. I was put on a BIPAP, and then on a CPAP when they figured this out better.

Meanwhile, I had strings of migraines which I tended to downplay, for family background reasons I won't go through here. Also, deep periods of paralyzing and intractable depression, which had other "explanations" so nobody looked at the concussion history. Also, arthritis, Sjogren's syndrome, and constant fatigue and difficulty "focusing." I've learned over a lifetime to get a lot done in short "bursts" where everything briefly comes together. I finally found a sleep doc who said that daytime sleepiness is common among concussion survivors, and prescribed provigil. My present HMO doesn't have that in their formulary, so I was put on ritalin. Right now, I can't ignite myself to function without ritalin. I'm struggling with insomnia, and was referred recently to an endocrinologist who found evidence of either injury or a tumor in my pituitary gland. I'm making almost twice of something called IGF-1 as the body needs. Also recently converted to diabetes II, and have hypertension.

At any rate, after 2000 I started having trouble finding employment, partly because two professional fields for which I got full training suddenly collapsed (the human services field has been in a Depression for fifteen years) and partly because people were probably picking up on the brain fog. Now, at least when I need to look "dynamic and exciting" I can take ritalin. Ritalin, however, is a bumpy ride. It magnifies the irritability that folks say goes with TBI.

I met another widow in 2004, who had also been married for 25 years. We were married in 2006. But it turns out she has some neuropsychological issues that are not yet diagnosed, but which my years as a clinician make me unable to ignore. She also has physical disabilities, and hasn't worked in ten years. Until a few weeks ago, I was working as a hospice chaplain, but the institution had real problems of some kind and laid a whole bunch of us off, including me.

I guess I'm pouring all this out because TBI, or whatever, causes intense loneliness. I've gone to neurologists and given them the above history, and they shrugged as if it was no big deal. Wrong neurologist, I suppose--but in America, aside from being a culture without bidets, there is the belief that if the doc can't find something "obvious," you are just some kind of malingerer. It's like they expect you to wear a coat with a big LMF on the back. At this point, I'm looking for connection with some kind of support group, someone who can help with what all these symptoms mean, and someone who can suggest ways of staying sane. Also, do multiple concussions cause anosmia?

Thanks for listening

A rather stressed-out gershonb.