As the age of 9 I had a severe concussion (smashed my head on the ground from a volleybal net). I lost my identity for 24 hours, I didn't remember my name, my family. Lucky for me my brother was with me when it all happened. So the only thing I could do was screaming and then faint out, only to wake up in hospital. I had an amnesia of a time period of about 3 weeks.

Doctors told me that this was called a very sever concussion.

I had to lay in the hospital for about a week. Following short term results =

- learn to walk again, after 3 days I was able to walk small distances,
- I had attacks of headaches for about 3 months, but they vanished quite fast in relation what my family was warned on,
- I had for many years - up to 5 years some kind of small seizures when I was working on computers (epileptic from the computers). The frequency was not that high and I never lost total consciousness, but I could go in some kind of trance. This side effect also disappeared,
- I had a mind reset, I could not think intuitive anymore. So when I wanted to draw pictures, which I liked very much, my brain couldn't animate the things I would love to draw. So a very specific example I remember was when I wanted to draw my home when I was still recovering in the hospital. I couldn't remember how my home looked. After thinking very deep I came to the conclusion that the road was of some type, the garden was of some type and the amount of windows must be that

So I was able to reconstruct the images but the whole picture was not real, it was merely an add up of all subelements. So it was virtually impossible for me to draw my home. As a yound child, I was so unhappy and cried about that event. Then when I finaly had made a list of all characteristics of my house, I had to learn once again what a house is, there are walls, the walls are square, the window is at a certain hight, the door is in the front of the house. I remember it took me quite some time to figure out how a door in a house is opened.
- the years after my concussion I noticed that I had become very very good at mathematics, but my languages were not that good. In the past I had been a somewhat mediocre mathematics student. After the accident, I became primus in mathematics in my school. After that I followed the science course in my school and was primus of mathematics in the entire school and went sucssefully for civil engineering studies.


- when I was looking for a job, I had to take some kind of intelligence tests. The abstract intelligence test revealed that I was with the 1% highest on abstract intelligence. My verbal and textual logic test revealed that I was with the 5% worst on verbal logic. To my deep regret I can not understand some sentences were double negations or some contexts are explained. The interrogator told me it's a common thing they saw with scientific educated people. Little did he realise that I had to gamble virtually every question on verbal logic sentences.
- when growing older I seem to have big issues with my memory and I wonder if this is related to my old severe concussion.

Today I'm 37 years old.

A few years ago I figured out that at my birth I was an Encephaloceles baby were A minor brain protrusion had to be corrected. I was very lucky to have the most part of my brain still in my skull. The protrusion was not that big. But the problem still remains that my skull is quite open.

I wonder if some other Encephaloceles patients are on this forum that experienced severe concussions.

Hi Spruce
you had posted on another thread where members may not have seen your post to respond, so I have moved it to your own thread.

Thanks to Mark for noticing this.

Spruce,

Your memory and verbal struggles sound familiar to concussions. I am tired tonight and will try to respond to your issues tomorrow. Your age may be part of your current struggles.

Tell us more about your current struggles so we can try to address just those.