Confessions of a Concussed Cyclist: please just put me out of my misery!

May 18, 2018

Last night…I wanted to die.  Okay, not die per se but escape…quickly and until things got better!

This past week was a busy one for me.  I knew that going into it and I knew it would result in things getting tougher for me.  I never could have anticipated just how much tougher though.

By Thursday afternoon, my brain was starting to shut down.  It was on overload. My energy was quickly fading as well. But, I still wanted to get up to Colebrook to see my niece and nephew in a musical their school was putting on.  So, I climbed into my parents car to hitch a ride north with them. Within a few minutes, my migraine amped up quickly and drastically. Then immediately the nausea rolled in.  I truly felt like I was going to pass out. I tried to shrug it off but it just kept getting worse. I finally told my Dad he needed to pull over quickly as I thought I was going to be sick.  The moment passed and he offered to turn around and bring me home; but I declined and told him he could keep heading north. I continued to fight the nausea and a ramped up migraine with a brain that was shutting down.  A while later I asked him to pull over again. Again he offered to return home but at that point we were closer to Colebrook than we were to Littleton. I declined a second time, partly because I’m stubborn and thought I could beat this and partly because I didn’t want my parents to miss the musical.  Once we arrived in Colebrook my stomach settled down (anti-nausea pills, ginger ale, and a stopped car helped with that) so now I just needed to get my migraine under control. I felt time out of the car would be the answer and that all would be right in my TBI world again in no time. Soon after leaving Colebrook and heading back home, the nausea returned with a vengeance.  The movement of the car was going to kill me! I’ve got a brain that wants to burst, a migraine that makes my skull feel like it’s splitting open, a stomach that is churning, and then my body began to ache. Ache like someone had just beaten me to a pulp. Then the dizziness started. My head was spinning out of control. We slowly made our way back home; stopping every few miles so I could get out of the car, curl up on the side of the road, throw up, feeling like I was going to throw up, or to simple try to ground myself and get enough control to travel a few more miles.  We finally arrived at my apartment and I basically crawled up to my third floor apartment. I got into bed and I laid there, awake for hours. My body hurt, my head hurt, if I moved even a muscle I thought I was going to get sick again. IT WAS AWFUL! I haven’t felt like that since the first few days after getting hit. Since the crash I’ve had nausea, I’ve had a body that aches all over, I’ve had dizzy spells (but I either lay down or I lean against a wall and it quickly passes), I’ve had a migraine, and I’ve had cognitive issues…but then add to the mix traveling in a car and it made everything one hundred times worse.  It all just spiraled out of control so quickly. I wanted to think it was like a book end…my TBI world started with all these symptoms, perhaps it would end with them too…but no such luck. I woke up to a still rattled brain.

Events like last night are why I never say “it couldn’t get any worse”…because it always can.  Events like last night are why when I’m asked to rate my pain on a scale of 1-10, I NEVER say 10.  There is always worse pain to experience. The nausea can get worse. The dizziness can get worse.

I’m thankful for a patient father that did what he could to make me more comfortable, that happily stopped whenever I asked turning a 75 minute trip home into well over 2 hours.  I’m thankful for a mother that rubbed my back as I threw up on the side of the road, as I cried over how truly awful I felt, as I just curled up on the side of the road, wanting to just spend the night there because the idea of getting back in the car was unthinkable.  

This is brain injury.  You learn to expect the unexpected.  You learn that it can always get worse.  You learn that symptoms return out of nowhere.  You try your best to cope (and you occasionally fail).  You try to fight through unimaginable pain. You pay the price when your brain says “enough” but you don’t slow down.  

**Now with this terrible story, there was a shining light in the midst of it all that I need to share.  My prince of a nephew knew I wasn’t feeling up to par (as he always asks my mom how I’m doing or he calls me himself to check in) so he wasn’t sure whether I would make it to the musical or not.  During the performance, he was unable to spot me in the audience, so he didn’t know I was there. When the show was done, and I could finally see him, his face lit up when he saw me, he said “T! You’re here!” and he ran towards me, wrapped his arms around me in a hug and said “I love you T!”