Confessions of a Concussed Cyclist: 10 years

August 19, 2024

How has it been ten years?  One part of me feels like that bike ride was just a few days ago.  Another part of me feels like I’ve been living in this hell for a lot longer than a decade.  3,650 days of living with a traumatic brain injury.  

I don’t have anything profound to write this time around.  Each “crash-iversary” gets a tiny-itty-bitty-bit easy to deal with.  The first handful of years, I was sick to my stomach for a few months leading up to this date.  Then a couple of years ago, I was only sick to my stomach starting August 1st.  This year, I’ve only been sick to my stomach for the past week.  Small victories. I was asked recently what I do on this day. I still prefer to be alone.  I still won’t get on my bike on this day…I won’t even consider it. I allow my thoughts and emotions to flow how they need to. This is the one day a year that I allow pity, thoughts of what if, thoughts of what could’ve been, anger, sadness, to truly consume me. “Why don’t you allow yourself to have these emotions more often?” my therapist recently asked me. “Because I’m afraid I’d drown in them if I did. I’m afraid I’d never come back from it” I answered honestly. But today, when those thoughts and feelings come, I allow them to stay, only for 24 hours. 

10 years!  3,650 days! One decade! 

“How come you didn’t stop?  How come you didn’t give up?” I was asked recently.  “Because that was never an option for me”, I responded.  “It never occurred to me that I could.”

“You’re really bad ass!  You know that, don’t you?” they said with a grin.

“You’ve made it this far because you never gave up.  You never just laid down and quit.  You’ve shown us what is possible!” my neurologist told me a few years ago.

My nephew once told me, “whenever I want to quit because something is hard, I think of you and I keep going.”

“I admire your strength.” I’ve been told by family and friends over the years.

Despite many, many, many days where I felt I couldn’t keep going (and I still have these days, truth be told) I made it.  I made it 10 years living with a traumatic brain injury.  On the days where I think “I can’t do this another day” or I think “I don’t want to do this another day.” I think of the quotes I wrote above and I dig in a little deeper. 

August 19, 2014 a female driver, driving a SUV, hit me while I was on a group bike ride.  She saw me.  She didn’t feel like sharing the road.  Her time was more important than my life.  The impact left me with damage to all areas of my brain.  I had to stop being a special education teacher and I had to start working part-part-time at my local bike shop.  I had to let go of many, many dreams.  I’ve had to adjust my life with accommodations for my many, many challenges that come with a brain injury.  I walked away from something that by all accounts, should have killed me.  I walked away and I’ve survived 10 years.