13 ms·

“They Basically Reset My Brain”

424 points by aburan28 9y ago

jaequery 9y ago
I really enjoy stories like this. Are there any place with more like it?
- jccooper 9y ago
  Well, the site it's on (The Players' Tribue) basically specializes in those.
deleted 9y ago
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jcstk 9y ago
Glad to see The Players Tribune on here. If you haven't read it before, it has some amazing content - not just from pro athletes, but college athletes you've never heard of. The perspectives are often fascinating. Here's another great one from Bronson Koenig, a Native American and one hell of a basketball player, on his experience at Standing Rock: https://www.theplayerstribune.com/bronson-koenig-wisconsin-basketball-standing-rock/ https://www.theplayerstribune.com/bronson-koenig-wisconsin-b....
- adjkant 9y ago
  Have never seen the site before, but +1 to this after browsing casually. It's great to see profiles, nuance, perspectives, and discussion from players - not the league or talking heads on ESPN who won't even really touch a lot of issues with or tangential to sports with a 10-foot pole. Sports don't have to be separated from other parts of culture.
  - JohnBooty 9y ago
    Yeah! That site is a treasure. Everything there is very well-written, and would (I think) be interesting even to those uninterested in sports. FWIW, some articles are written by the athletes themselves, and others are ghostwritten in close conjunction with the athletes. (I have no problem with this at all; it's still the athletes' stories)
soneca 9y ago
I find it interesting that at the end he doesn't blame american football in itself for the negative long term effects in his health as I thought he was heading to. He ends up (spoilers alert) coaching football. I myself do not have a strong opinion on the matter of the ethics of creating a billionaire business around a game that is so dangerous to everyone that plays it seriously, from high school to pros. I am instinctively against, but as long as the issues are clear, transparent and everyone involved have all access to information needed to do their own informed choices, it seems correct. That said, a very brave and insightful tale on how these personal struggles are. Very well written too. And glad to know that there are effective treatments out there that can help this kind of health problems.
- jcstk 9y ago
  Here are some interesting perspectives from NFL players on that thought: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2705935-joe-thomas-says-hes-experiencing-memory-loss-willing-to-accept-risks-of-nfl http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2705935-joe-thomas-says-h... https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/sports/wp/2016/06/07/chris-borland-shares-his-views-on-the-nfls-nih-funding-footballs-future-and-more/?utm_term=.21513c2400be https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/sports/wp/2016/06/07/chr...
  - soneca 9y ago
    Thanks! Impressed how smart and well articulated these players are. Impressive interview from this Chris Borland. I am used to follow soccer. Soccer players in Brazil don't usually finish school properly and come from very poor background where education is awful even if you finish school. It is a sad state of basic understanding of the world and autonomous thinking.
    - jccooper 9y ago
      In the NFL they've all gone to college, and the game selects for mental ability quite strongly. They'll tell you the locker room is not unlike any other professional workplace (except perhaps more fun and with more unity), and while I've never been there, I believe it.
falcolas 9y ago
As a person who works with their mind all day long, concussions scare me. They scare me more than injuries to my hands do. I took a good hit to my head in a really slow lowside on my motorcycle (I, to this day, don't remember the incident itself, but I'm pretty sure it was a combination of loose gravel and rolling onto the throttle early). For months after that hit, I had more trouble than usual understanding complex concepts; had trouble building that mental model which lets us work. Concussions result from your brain rattling around inside your skull like Jello. It's hard to write them off as minor inconveniences when you look at it like that. I recommend watching the "beer bottle to the head" episode of Mythbusters; those slow motion shots are scary (though exaggerated).
- Cthulhu_ 9y ago
  If you're still at risk for getting a concussion and worry about your future career etc, it might be worthwhile getting an insurance just like this guy did. I mean there's more in the world than what you're currently doing, but it may not be as profitable.
  - poikniok 9y ago
    How exactly can you get insurance for a concussion as a software developer? How would you even prove that you can't do the job anymore?
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - thisone 9y ago
      As for proof, I don't know how assessment works, but there are types of income protection insurance that do cover accident, injury, illness.
    - davore 9y ago
      I am also interested in the answer to this question. I am curious about something that isn't 'life insurance', but more 'something bizarre happened to my brain so I can't function at a high-level anymore'-insurance?
bsenftner 9y ago
I am a geek, always have been. But my dad was an all state football player and a golden gloves boxer in the Army. Despite my "best efforts" I was muscular, and was (for real) forced to play football against my wishes. I played for 6 years, and finally stopped after an injury that crushed vertebra in my lower spine. Healing from that injury, I went from a weight of 210 to 135, and required therapy to learn to walk again. I took me 10 years after that before I was physically active again. Reading this article is reading symptoms I have. I think I need to go to this clinic...
- cheez 9y ago
  Good luck buddy, I'm rooting for you.
- agumonkey 9y ago
  Are you back to a more balanced weight ? By physically active you mean soft sports or just able to leave the house without worry ?
  - bsenftner 9y ago
    Thanks to my wife, I work out 5 days a week now. It was a month of walking before I could run more than a block, but within a year I was jogging beside her for two miles five days a week. I'm at 165-170 now, with a real ease at bulking, which I don't really want. I saw chiropractors and acupuncturists quite a bit for the first 5 years I was active again. As my health returned to more-or-less athlete level my back / vertebra / neck and hips issues reduced and only happen if I miss workouts for more than 3 days. It's actually amazing what happens when I can't workout: not only do multiple joints slip, but my mental state just crashes. I can't code, can barely read, irritation at the tiniest things, pretty much a tunnel vision of perception takes place. I recognize the state now, get some protein and find a way to get a cardio hit that makes me pant, hard. That will head off a crash, both mental and my joints slipping. In many ways, I'm glad to be alive now, as places like this clinic are starting to appear. Previously, an injury such as mine put people into a disability state for the rest of their lives. Today, the dynamic nature of our bodies and advances in medical technology have brought forward a strong recovery attitude for many previously hopeless situations.
brightball 9y ago
Coaching and proper equipment are important. The biggest thing is that the better the equipment gets the more comfortable players are trying to hit harder and faster. Rugby matches are very rough with near constant collisions but no pads. I'd be really interested to see a comparison study between to two.
- prodtorok 9y ago
  I played 6 years of rugby. I also played high school football. My position, lineman, in football was a pretty non-collision position and I never experienced any concussions. In rugby, every position involves collision. As a backline player most of my job was to run, but there was no way of ever avoiding multiple collisions in a game. Less impactful then football for the reasons you mention, but more frequent. I know for certain that I've had (at-least) a few concussions in rugby. For instance, getting up from a hit and having no idea where you're at for a second, and then feeling the world morph back into you as if it were knocked right out.
- marianov 9y ago
  You don't hit opponents head with your head at rugby, so concussion is not so common. The most frecuent problem is spinal cord injuries in scrum[1], which year after year leaves some players paraplegic. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrum_(rugby_union)#Safety https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrum_(rugby_union)#Safety
- dmurray 9y ago
  Concussion is a huge huge deal in rugby these days. Something like 50% of international matches see a player having to leave the field for a precautionary "head injury assessment". At junior levels players need to be immediately substituted if there is any suspicion of a head injury.
- de_Selby 9y ago
  Concussions are a big problem in rugby too, and they have only relatively recently realised the extent of the issue. The NFL may have swept the issue under the carpet for years, but everyone was burying their head in the sand until very recently in rugby - there have been multiple cases of players clearly getting knocked out and playing on after a short head injury assessment this decade. There are many accounts of players saying they don't remember huge periods of matches. Shonatayne Hape gave a great interview which is absolutely terrifying, where he describes the effects and how it became progressively easier for him to lose consciousness to the point where he didn't even have to been hit in the head by the time he retired: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11264856 http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objecti...
whistlerbrk 9y ago
That agent is a hero for insisting on that insurance policy.
- culturestate 9y ago
  This kind of thing (a friendly intervention) seems to happen more often than you'd think - Allen Iverson is still solvent only because his friends talked him into taking $30 million or so of his last shoe deal as a trust fund that he can't access until he's 55.
rrggrr 9y ago
This appears to be similar to "Brainspotting", a technique that emerged from Dr David Grand's work with EMDR therapy. They're trying now to get funding for fMRI studies during treatments to better understand and possibly validate the treatment. The mode of operation appears to be increasing metabolic activity in certain areas of the brain for the purpose of enhancing processing/garbage collection.
mcgrath_sh 9y ago
The entire history of the NFL and concussions is incredibly damning, including the league denying the damage concussions cause and the league buying their way into medical journals to push "studies" that supported that position. If you want to know more "League of Denial" is a phenomenal book. PBS also created a two hour documentary with the authors that has the same name. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_Denial https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_Denial
WoodenChair 9y ago
Football ruins this guy's life and when he finally gets better he coaches kids' football. It sounds like he has an abusive relationship with football.
- abandonliberty 9y ago
  Multimillionaire retired at 27. I don't think you can call his life ruined. I wonder how the health damage of sitting at a desk for years compares.
  - xor1 9y ago
    >I wonder how the health damage of sitting at a desk for years compares. Not comparable, the only real risks of brain damage sustained while working a cushy software job are injuries sustained while commuting and reading really bad HN comments.
    - Kenji 9y ago
      Working with legacy C++ code at work is a serious risk for my brain. It hurts physically to read some of these lines of code.
  - dingo_bat 9y ago
    I'd rather have carpal tunnel than reduced brain function.
  - magnetic 9y ago
    Money is no substitute for health. It will just sound like a "philosophical tidbit" until you get hit by a health issue for which you'd give everything you own to get rid of. Then you'll really understand the meaning of it: no matter how rich you are, you still can't have a decent quality of life.
  - rhizome 9y ago
    Comparing apples to oranges. One happened in the past and the other might happen in the future. Plus, there are exercises for problems with sitting, so one can continue to sit for a living and not experience any of those problems.
phonon 9y ago
A friend of mine has been working on an app (based on research from Dr. David Eagleman) to help you track any cognitive declines from, among other things, participating in contact heavy sports. One use is for coaches to mandate players retake it periodically, so players can stop playing before the point of no return. https://braincheck.com/ https://braincheck.com/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/27/braincheck-raises-3-million-for-app-to-monitor-brain-health/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/27/braincheck-raises-3-millio... http://www.tmc.edu/innovation/companies/brain-check/ http://www.tmc.edu/innovation/companies/brain-check/
- kikimaru 9y ago
  Interesting, I wonder if this could also be applicable to that other article regarding sleep deprivation.
bluejekyll 9y ago
> So today, I put on football camps and work with kids in the small town of Aledo, Texas, where I live, and I work with my own boys, coaching them up, too. This is a fantastic story, and a wonderful recovery, but getting to the end of it and coming across this line... it's great that he's helping coach these kids, but it would be even better to steer them in a direction where they won't end up with the same story, or worse. Never making it, but still having the same symptoms. There are other sports, way less impact. I grew up playing soccer, and even there they, at least in the US, as I understand it from my nephews, heading the ball is illegal until high school. Concussions are problems in all sports, but American Football is just about the worst, and on top of that does so much other damage from the heavy hits. Concussions are perhaps the most prevalent and biggest problem.
- switchbak 9y ago
  I played a bunch of high school football, and had a very severe back fracture that I'll be living with forever. I'm functional, but have to keep very on top of things to not suffer chronic pain. I used to be absolutely obsessed about football, and getting used to not playing anymore was a real challenge to my identity. I look back on it now though (that was > 20 years ago now), and I wouldn't choose to play the game again. It was an amazing way to push myself, and I learned a lot about character and determination. The cost really isn't worth it though, and I've seen a bunch of people pay even higher costs than me. I also think - if I had kids, I wouldn't want them to play the game. It's just too dangerous, and that danger is built into how the game is played. People in the business often say "don't hit with your head" but watch any game, and you'll see lots of head contact on every play. The cumulative effects of that alone, not even counting the big hits - I think is quite substantial. Unfortunately I don't see the game or the protective gear actually changing much to lessen the degree to which these (predictable) injuries happen. And to a great extent, more protective equipment means people just hit that much harder - often times still injuring, but in ways that are harder to see.
- erentz 9y ago
  Right. I found this dissonance a really unexpected ending to the story.
- 9y ago
nashashmi 9y ago
Key takeaway: > They had all kinds of neuro training exercises and routines they put me through, but a lot of it was centered around meditation and intense emotional therapy sessions. The exercises and therapy were to stimulate the parts of my brain that were running slow, and the mediation was to slow down the parts of my brain that were going a mile a minute. I guess that is how they reset his brain. I need the same thing. Three years and still recovering, I have counted five bottlenecks in getting there. 1. Fear of memories, 2. Ego/arrogance, 3. Imbalanced thought pattern, 4. Mental unrest, 5. Lack of stimulating activities. Now that I think of it, the author has described the same thing. Meditation has worked wonders. I have combined it with philosophy and reasoning. I am also trying to identify and reduce areas of ego. Stimulating activities is a recent discovery but I am still working at finding stuff for it. And the results are interesting: before my mind was on infinite replay, then had a hard time remembering stuff, and now memories from when I was one years old are coming back like it happened yesterday. That never happened!
- jeremywho 9y ago
  Do you have a routine you follow? Any chance of getting a more detailed account of what activities you're doing for each?
  - Scalestein 9y ago
    I'll second this, especially the bit about bringing memories back. I haven't had much head trauma but don't really have any memories from longer than 5 years previous.
    - nashashmi 9y ago
      This is difficult to answer in a post like this, but I will try. The problem is that for every technique or idea I put here, there will be a dozen who disagree, but I won't care. Meditation: Put yourself in an uncomfortable balancing position, like tip toeing. Any trembling is a symptom of subconscious issues, so clear your mind and you will be able to balance without much effort. Add stress to the balancing act to uncover the more subtle subconscious problems. This should begin the healing process. The issues were pulling at you even when you least realize it and cause much damage and tension to the brain. Meditation reduces bottlenecks 1, 3, 4. Philosophy/Reasoning: Watching dog whisperer, I am learning calm assertive energy techniques. Reduce your hyper self. Don't take action from a fearful, frustrated, angry, or low-self estem position. Because then you are in a compromised state. Don't react, and if you do, know that nothing you do when you are reacting counts. Reaction is not bad by itself. It just causes actions that would not have happened in a calm state. In moments of a highly reactive state, remove yourself from the situation and clear your mind. Try to figure what frustrates you or makes you fearful and disassemble it into small manageable parts that you reason through one by one. Reduce your ego: Meditation is clearing your mind. Philosophy and Reasoning loosens the viscosity of the toxic liquid. Ego is the shell that protects it and keeps you in an entangled state. Although ego is normal and makes you human, too much ego puts you into a state of arrogance. Loosen the arrogance. Eliminate the arrogance. Remind yourself that nothing you do is amazing and all that you have is a priveledge and was given to you and was never yours to begin with. Then reduce your ego. Think of all your skills and abilities as something you have done a thousand times, a million times, and it lost its awe. Do you have ego in your ability to walk? So why do you have ego in everything else? Stimulating activities: I am new at this, so I am still trying to figure this one out. PH.D. research stuff and logic gets me excited. (It also brings back ego, arrogance, fear, etc.) Problem solving gets me excited. Being better than everyone else gets me excited. (THE conundrum!). If I can preserve the first three steps, or the longer I can mantain it, the more I benefit from a stimulating activity. So that is my attempt and my mind is somewhat healing. I hope you make it out alright. A few things on the side: a messy room, or a messy essay, or a messy thought process is a reflection of your state of mind. Coming to terms with your inabilities brings rest to your mind. Collapsing from a highly skilled intellectual position means you have to rebuild yourself up. If the skills and confidence you developed was scaffolded with one on top of another, then your recovery will be painful. Don't scaffold again this time. Hope all this helps.
everyone 9y ago
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_traumatic_encephalopathy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_traumatic_encephalopat... From the Mayo clinics page on CTE "CTE is a progressive, degenerative brain disease for which there is no treatment."
SkyMarshal 9y ago
Wold be nice to have a submission title that actually says what the article is about.
interfixus 9y ago
A good friend of mine died a few months ago from ALS, clearly - also by his own reckoning - a delayed consequence from a severe car crash in his youth. "I was given an extra 29 years, I can't complain" he tapped out to me the last time I saw him, speechless and immobilised in a hospital bed. There's a fairly well established correlation between head trauma and this abominable affliction. Why anyone voluntarily would throw themselves into that kind of risk is utterly beyond me. But then, so is any kind of football, be it the US or the European kind.
- djohnston 9y ago
  Because a lot of these people grow up in poverty and a culture that tells them this is their best chance out. By the time they actually have a shot to do so, football is their entire life. It's easy to sit from a presumably educated and wealthy position and scoff at these people, but it's not going to lead you to any insights as to why it happens.
- mnm1 9y ago
  "But then, so is any kind of football, be it the US or the European kind." How so?
  - interfixus 9y ago
    Beyond me. Not understood. I don't get it. I don't get the attraction, the excitement, the hype. Which is all purely subjective, of course. I see two teams of idiots chasing a ball. Haven't they got better to do?
    - mnm1 9y ago
      Can you even tell the difference between American football and association football (soccer)? Seems doubtful. You certainly have no basis to discuss the comparative risks between the two. Maybe the people that play these games don't want to sit around in front of a computer all day atrophying and getting fat and sick. Maybe they like to be healthy and have fun. That doesn't make them idiots. It just shows your intolerance to something that doesn't even affect you.
ErikAugust 9y ago
I'm 33 and played sports my whole life. This includes: - Hundreds of competitive basketball games - youth, AAU, high school, etc. - Thousands of running miles - including completing (and winning) trail/mountain ultra marathons - Dozens of soccer games at mixed levels - Training and sparring at a boxing gym for 4-5 days a week for a year And none of this has caused any major injury. The two years I played high school football? A separated shoulder, and a torn MCL. Not to mention having my bell rung many times. I could measure the amount of football games I actually played in like under an hour worth of actual time.
- agumonkey 9y ago
  And I thought the shoulder thing would protect.. now I wonder if it's not worsening things.
  - Broken_Hippo 9y ago
    "now I wonder if it's not worsening things" I wouldn't be surprised if it does. If I remember correctly, a boxer hits harder with a gloved hand than without. Weirdly, this is generally because with the glove on, a harder punch doesn't hurt the hand as much than a punch without it. I'd not be surprised if it is similar in football.
    - acjohnson55 9y ago
      It's the gloves and the wraps. They let you hit the hard parts of your opponent's body with less risk of breaking your hands.
      - agumonkey 9y ago
        I believe gloves weren't for opponent safety but for the show, it made people able to fight longer before hand fractures. The wraps clearly make your fist stronger.
- neves 9y ago
  I'm from Brazil, a soccer crazy country. All of my friends that continued to play soccer for fun started to get injuries after they were 35yo.
martamoreno 9y ago
Hmm too bad that there are literally at least a billion people on earth with much more sad stories that didn't have a 10 mio. policy coverage for "when they can't do what they love to do" anymore, and also most people can't do what they love to do in the first place. There is a name for all that, it's called "luxury problems". Like Paris Hilton telling us that her boyfriend threw her diamond thong out of the window and she can't find it anymore. Terrible.
- mobilefriendly 9y ago
  No, tens of millions of Americans are playing or played football and almost all never made any money. Many people also suffer concussive blasts in war zones. Concussions and their lingering impact are a huge issue and this was helpful and interesting, particularly that meditation may help stimulate the whole brain.
- katzgrau 9y ago
  Happiness and hardship are only relatively quantifiable. You can't draw the conclusion that he had less of a struggle simply because he has money. I'll probably get downvoted for this, but somebody needs to say it: you're an a-hole.
- JohnBooty 9y ago
  1. I don't see this athlete claiming his story is comparable to the plight of refugees or anything like that. 2. Nobody is requiring anybody to read his story; he's simply making it available to anybody that is interested. 3. His story is relevant to millions of (professional, amateur, and occasional) athletes around the world... and millions more with traumatic brain injury. 4. He does have millions of dollars, but a lot of people with chronic illness would gladly trade all that money for a clean bill of health. 5. Consider that when you hear figures like "ten million dollars" that the player may receive only half of that, when taxes and agents' fees are deducted. 6. Even if he got to keep all $10mil tax-free (which he almost certainly didn't, IMO) if he lives another 50 years, that's only $120K per year. A comfortable living, well above average, but certainly not unlimited.
  - 9y ago
beautifulfreak 9y ago
No one has mentioned the movie, Concussion, with Will Smith, who portray Dr. Bennet Omalu. According to wikipedia, he "was the first to discover and publish findings of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in American football players." Seeing the injuries dramatized, the effects those injuries have on football players, really drives home how serious concussions are.
egypturnash 9y ago
tl;dr: "Football gave me multiple concussions and severely broke my brain. Now I am seducing kids into the same passion for football that lead me to that point."
EGreg 9y ago
I wonder if similar things (stimulating some parts of the brain and not others) can be done for other professions, such as coding where you are addicted to it, or maybe even the autism spectrum.
srdeveng 9y ago
Quite a few negative reactions regarding the decision to go back to coaching in retirement. I think change has to start at the coaching level, as boycotting the sport will do little to change the status quo, especially in the immediate. A few thoughts - In my own experience in playing contact sports (lacrosse, not football), it's a trained behavior to shake off injuries, avoid trainers, and otherwise ignore your body's warnings of potential harm. This is taught by the coach [or worse, parents]. The encouragement to push yourself beyond natural limits only increases as you progress to the collegiate and professional levels. The unfortunate effects of competition are that coaches skirt a dangerous line of balancing the star player[s] safety and winning the game, and this behavior is clear to the players lower in the depth chart who wish to become the next star. Some of the more disturbing things openly shared were how to pass the concussion protocol, that coach will let you take off a week of practice after a hard head hit so don't go to the trainers, and to shake off any and all injuries as you will be rewarded for being tough. I, and any number of my ex-teammates, agree we experienced what are now known as "minor concussions" constantly throughout our season. Only major concussions would go reported. Being able to walk off the field typically meant you had only a minor injury, and could go back in once getting some wind. The fact that so many are injured during practice goes to show, it's coming from the coach's inaction and not just during the heat of the game. Under this light, I think Finley is taking a proactive approach to change by inserting himself on the front lines.
- minipci1321 9y ago
  > This is taught by the coach Absolutely. Personal experience FWIW -- 30 years ago, different sport (wrestling), different country, different culture, very low amateurish level, but typically the same attitude. First time I got a moderately serious injury (torn acromial ligament, couldn't move the arm for 6 months), I basically got yelled at by the coach saying either I continue to came to training and work with the other hand, or I split off. So the next time (I landed almost vertically on the top of my head instead of flatly on the back -- now he was afraid, but I was so proud of myself, didn't even want to interrupt the exercise. Fast forward 30 years. I realise now that in some sports, people who didn't make it "to the top", are sometimes left with what seems like small stuff when you're 16 -- damaged teeth, torn ligaments, broken ribs -- but which age much, much worse than the rest of the body.
concussions 9y ago
I suffered 3 concussions in a 3 year period -- all from stupid accidents, not sports -- and the effects have persisted for years, even with various types of rehabilitation. It's very difficult to describe how a concussion changes a person. Of course, problems with balance and speech are obvious. But for me, the concussions also impacted my mind, my ability to think. I used to be able to read for an entire day, soaking up information. But now, it's like I hit a brick wall after a certain point, where it becomes impossible to proceed. I basically have a set amount that I can learn in one day -- whether it's the API for a library, the architecture of legacy code, etc. Multitasking has become extremely difficult, even though it was never a problem for me before. It's a complete killer for my mind and it will exhaust it at the expense of the previously mentioned information-acquiring capacity very quickly. When I worked as a developer, trying to switch between multiple tickets between code reviews, conducting chats in multiple channels, and jumping back and forth between various programming languages was a huge sap upon my limited mental energy. My first concussion wasn't too severe, but my second one was more so, as I probably was still healing from the first one. I had just come back from a break from work and didn't feel right in taking sick time. Compounding this, I was in the process of switching careers to become a developer and was studying very hard every night. I remember one night, about a week after my concussion, when I was writing some code. The pain in my head increased, until it became a pain of an intensity that I had never experienced before. This was probably my first experience of what would become many years of migraines... and this next part is probably unscientific, but I really felt that something "broke" at that point, as it signaled the start of many months of cognitive decline and emotional instability. I sustained my third concussion when I felt pretty well healed from the second one. Not having learned my lesson, I didn't take much time off of work. While I didn't feel something "break" like the second time, I was working on a difficult project under a short time schedule, and I was worried about losing my first programmer job and the damage that could occur to my career if that were to happen. I made it through that project, but then new problems began to develop... and to persist. Two years later I still have many of the same problems. I wonder if my dedication to that job and love for programming have resulted in irreversible damage. It wasn't worth it. Friends, we are all on this site because we are people who greatly use our minds. I want you all to remember that we each only get one brain, which is not only essential to our profession but which is the core of our personality, of who we are. The severity of impact is not associated with the severity of damage from a concussion, and experiencing one concussion makes you more prone to further concussions. My 3 dumb accidents have made the last 5 years of my life difficult in many ways, and have probably changed me for the rest of my life. As such, I cannot condone willingly embarking upon an activity such as football which so clearly places one's mind at risk. To the author of this piece and to some who read it, football may be a game, but I think that our lives are more valuable than games to be played, than entertainment to be had. For every high profile recovery like this, there are countless children who are severely and permanently damaged for the sake of sport. Treasure your mind and the minds of your loved ones. And if you ever do suffer from a concussion, take complete and absolute rest, lest you jeopardize the healing process and find yourself with lifelong injury.
ensiferum 9y ago
What he has sounds like it is most likely https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_traumatic_encephalopathy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_traumatic_encephalop...

424 points by aburan28 9y ago

jaequery 9y ago

I really enjoy stories like this. Are there any place with more like it?

jccooper 9y ago
Well, the site it's on (The Players' Tribue) basically specializes in those.

deleted 9y ago

[deleted]

jcstk 9y ago

Glad to see The Players Tribune on here. If you haven't read it before, it has some amazing content - not just from pro athletes, but college athletes you've never heard of. The perspectives are often fascinating. Here's another great one from Bronson Koenig, a Native American and one hell of a basketball player, on his experience at Standing Rock: https://www.theplayerstribune.com/bronson-koenig-wisconsin-basketball-standing-rock/ https://www.theplayerstribune.com/bronson-koenig-wisconsin-b....

adjkant 9y ago
Have never seen the site before, but +1 to this after browsing casually. It's great to see profiles, nuance, perspectives, and discussion from players - not the league or talking heads on ESPN who won't even really touch a lot of issues with or tangential to sports with a 10-foot pole. Sports don't have to be separated from other parts of culture.
- JohnBooty 9y ago
  Yeah! That site is a treasure. Everything there is very well-written, and would (I think) be interesting even to those uninterested in sports. FWIW, some articles are written by the athletes themselves, and others are ghostwritten in close conjunction with the athletes. (I have no problem with this at all; it's still the athletes' stories)

soneca 9y ago

I find it interesting that at the end he doesn't blame american football in itself for the negative long term effects in his health as I thought he was heading to. He ends up (spoilers alert) coaching football. I myself do not have a strong opinion on the matter of the ethics of creating a billionaire business around a game that is so dangerous to everyone that plays it seriously, from high school to pros. I am instinctively against, but as long as the issues are clear, transparent and everyone involved have all access to information needed to do their own informed choices, it seems correct. That said, a very brave and insightful tale on how these personal struggles are. Very well written too. And glad to know that there are effective treatments out there that can help this kind of health problems.

jcstk 9y ago
Here are some interesting perspectives from NFL players on that thought: http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2705935-joe-thomas-says-hes-experiencing-memory-loss-willing-to-accept-risks-of-nfl http://bleacherreport.com/articles/2705935-joe-thomas-says-h... https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/sports/wp/2016/06/07/chris-borland-shares-his-views-on-the-nfls-nih-funding-footballs-future-and-more/?utm_term=.21513c2400be https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/sports/wp/2016/06/07/chr...
- soneca 9y ago
  Thanks! Impressed how smart and well articulated these players are. Impressive interview from this Chris Borland. I am used to follow soccer. Soccer players in Brazil don't usually finish school properly and come from very poor background where education is awful even if you finish school. It is a sad state of basic understanding of the world and autonomous thinking.
  - jccooper 9y ago
    In the NFL they've all gone to college, and the game selects for mental ability quite strongly. They'll tell you the locker room is not unlike any other professional workplace (except perhaps more fun and with more unity), and while I've never been there, I believe it.

falcolas 9y ago

As a person who works with their mind all day long, concussions scare me. They scare me more than injuries to my hands do. I took a good hit to my head in a really slow lowside on my motorcycle (I, to this day, don't remember the incident itself, but I'm pretty sure it was a combination of loose gravel and rolling onto the throttle early). For months after that hit, I had more trouble than usual understanding complex concepts; had trouble building that mental model which lets us work. Concussions result from your brain rattling around inside your skull like Jello. It's hard to write them off as minor inconveniences when you look at it like that. I recommend watching the "beer bottle to the head" episode of Mythbusters; those slow motion shots are scary (though exaggerated).

Cthulhu_ 9y ago
If you're still at risk for getting a concussion and worry about your future career etc, it might be worthwhile getting an insurance just like this guy did. I mean there's more in the world than what you're currently doing, but it may not be as profitable.
- poikniok 9y ago
  How exactly can you get insurance for a concussion as a software developer? How would you even prove that you can't do the job anymore?
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - thisone 9y ago
    As for proof, I don't know how assessment works, but there are types of income protection insurance that do cover accident, injury, illness.
  - davore 9y ago
    I am also interested in the answer to this question. I am curious about something that isn't 'life insurance', but more 'something bizarre happened to my brain so I can't function at a high-level anymore'-insurance?

bsenftner 9y ago

I am a geek, always have been. But my dad was an all state football player and a golden gloves boxer in the Army. Despite my "best efforts" I was muscular, and was (for real) forced to play football against my wishes. I played for 6 years, and finally stopped after an injury that crushed vertebra in my lower spine. Healing from that injury, I went from a weight of 210 to 135, and required therapy to learn to walk again. I took me 10 years after that before I was physically active again. Reading this article is reading symptoms I have. I think I need to go to this clinic...

cheez 9y ago
Good luck buddy, I'm rooting for you.
agumonkey 9y ago
Are you back to a more balanced weight ? By physically active you mean soft sports or just able to leave the house without worry ?
- bsenftner 9y ago
  Thanks to my wife, I work out 5 days a week now. It was a month of walking before I could run more than a block, but within a year I was jogging beside her for two miles five days a week. I'm at 165-170 now, with a real ease at bulking, which I don't really want. I saw chiropractors and acupuncturists quite a bit for the first 5 years I was active again. As my health returned to more-or-less athlete level my back / vertebra / neck and hips issues reduced and only happen if I miss workouts for more than 3 days. It's actually amazing what happens when I can't workout: not only do multiple joints slip, but my mental state just crashes. I can't code, can barely read, irritation at the tiniest things, pretty much a tunnel vision of perception takes place. I recognize the state now, get some protein and find a way to get a cardio hit that makes me pant, hard. That will head off a crash, both mental and my joints slipping. In many ways, I'm glad to be alive now, as places like this clinic are starting to appear. Previously, an injury such as mine put people into a disability state for the rest of their lives. Today, the dynamic nature of our bodies and advances in medical technology have brought forward a strong recovery attitude for many previously hopeless situations.

brightball 9y ago

Coaching and proper equipment are important. The biggest thing is that the better the equipment gets the more comfortable players are trying to hit harder and faster. Rugby matches are very rough with near constant collisions but no pads. I'd be really interested to see a comparison study between to two.

prodtorok 9y ago
I played 6 years of rugby. I also played high school football. My position, lineman, in football was a pretty non-collision position and I never experienced any concussions. In rugby, every position involves collision. As a backline player most of my job was to run, but there was no way of ever avoiding multiple collisions in a game. Less impactful then football for the reasons you mention, but more frequent. I know for certain that I've had (at-least) a few concussions in rugby. For instance, getting up from a hit and having no idea where you're at for a second, and then feeling the world morph back into you as if it were knocked right out.
marianov 9y ago
You don't hit opponents head with your head at rugby, so concussion is not so common. The most frecuent problem is spinal cord injuries in scrum[1], which year after year leaves some players paraplegic. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrum_(rugby_union)#Safety https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrum_(rugby_union)#Safety
dmurray 9y ago
Concussion is a huge huge deal in rugby these days. Something like 50% of international matches see a player having to leave the field for a precautionary "head injury assessment". At junior levels players need to be immediately substituted if there is any suspicion of a head injury.
de_Selby 9y ago
Concussions are a big problem in rugby too, and they have only relatively recently realised the extent of the issue. The NFL may have swept the issue under the carpet for years, but everyone was burying their head in the sand until very recently in rugby - there have been multiple cases of players clearly getting knocked out and playing on after a short head injury assessment this decade. There are many accounts of players saying they don't remember huge periods of matches. Shonatayne Hape gave a great interview which is absolutely terrifying, where he describes the effects and how it became progressively easier for him to lose consciousness to the point where he didn't even have to been hit in the head by the time he retired: http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11264856 http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objecti...

whistlerbrk 9y ago

That agent is a hero for insisting on that insurance policy.

culturestate 9y ago
This kind of thing (a friendly intervention) seems to happen more often than you'd think - Allen Iverson is still solvent only because his friends talked him into taking $30 million or so of his last shoe deal as a trust fund that he can't access until he's 55.

rrggrr 9y ago

This appears to be similar to "Brainspotting", a technique that emerged from Dr David Grand's work with EMDR therapy. They're trying now to get funding for fMRI studies during treatments to better understand and possibly validate the treatment. The mode of operation appears to be increasing metabolic activity in certain areas of the brain for the purpose of enhancing processing/garbage collection.

mcgrath_sh 9y ago

The entire history of the NFL and concussions is incredibly damning, including the league denying the damage concussions cause and the league buying their way into medical journals to push "studies" that supported that position. If you want to know more "League of Denial" is a phenomenal book. PBS also created a two hour documentary with the authors that has the same name. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_Denial https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/League_of_Denial

WoodenChair 9y ago

Football ruins this guy's life and when he finally gets better he coaches kids' football. It sounds like he has an abusive relationship with football.

abandonliberty 9y ago
Multimillionaire retired at 27. I don't think you can call his life ruined. I wonder how the health damage of sitting at a desk for years compares.
- xor1 9y ago
  >I wonder how the health damage of sitting at a desk for years compares. Not comparable, the only real risks of brain damage sustained while working a cushy software job are injuries sustained while commuting and reading really bad HN comments.
  - Kenji 9y ago
    Working with legacy C++ code at work is a serious risk for my brain. It hurts physically to read some of these lines of code.
- dingo_bat 9y ago
  I'd rather have carpal tunnel than reduced brain function.
- magnetic 9y ago
  Money is no substitute for health. It will just sound like a "philosophical tidbit" until you get hit by a health issue for which you'd give everything you own to get rid of. Then you'll really understand the meaning of it: no matter how rich you are, you still can't have a decent quality of life.
- rhizome 9y ago
  Comparing apples to oranges. One happened in the past and the other might happen in the future. Plus, there are exercises for problems with sitting, so one can continue to sit for a living and not experience any of those problems.

phonon 9y ago

A friend of mine has been working on an app (based on research from Dr. David Eagleman) to help you track any cognitive declines from, among other things, participating in contact heavy sports. One use is for coaches to mandate players retake it periodically, so players can stop playing before the point of no return. https://braincheck.com/ https://braincheck.com/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/27/braincheck-raises-3-million-for-app-to-monitor-brain-health/ https://techcrunch.com/2016/10/27/braincheck-raises-3-millio... http://www.tmc.edu/innovation/companies/brain-check/ http://www.tmc.edu/innovation/companies/brain-check/

kikimaru 9y ago
Interesting, I wonder if this could also be applicable to that other article regarding sleep deprivation.

bluejekyll 9y ago

> So today, I put on football camps and work with kids in the small town of Aledo, Texas, where I live, and I work with my own boys, coaching them up, too. This is a fantastic story, and a wonderful recovery, but getting to the end of it and coming across this line... it's great that he's helping coach these kids, but it would be even better to steer them in a direction where they won't end up with the same story, or worse. Never making it, but still having the same symptoms. There are other sports, way less impact. I grew up playing soccer, and even there they, at least in the US, as I understand it from my nephews, heading the ball is illegal until high school. Concussions are problems in all sports, but American Football is just about the worst, and on top of that does so much other damage from the heavy hits. Concussions are perhaps the most prevalent and biggest problem.

switchbak 9y ago
I played a bunch of high school football, and had a very severe back fracture that I'll be living with forever. I'm functional, but have to keep very on top of things to not suffer chronic pain. I used to be absolutely obsessed about football, and getting used to not playing anymore was a real challenge to my identity. I look back on it now though (that was > 20 years ago now), and I wouldn't choose to play the game again. It was an amazing way to push myself, and I learned a lot about character and determination. The cost really isn't worth it though, and I've seen a bunch of people pay even higher costs than me. I also think - if I had kids, I wouldn't want them to play the game. It's just too dangerous, and that danger is built into how the game is played. People in the business often say "don't hit with your head" but watch any game, and you'll see lots of head contact on every play. The cumulative effects of that alone, not even counting the big hits - I think is quite substantial. Unfortunately I don't see the game or the protective gear actually changing much to lessen the degree to which these (predictable) injuries happen. And to a great extent, more protective equipment means people just hit that much harder - often times still injuring, but in ways that are harder to see.
erentz 9y ago
Right. I found this dissonance a really unexpected ending to the story.
9y ago

nashashmi 9y ago

Key takeaway: > They had all kinds of neuro training exercises and routines they put me through, but a lot of it was centered around meditation and intense emotional therapy sessions. The exercises and therapy were to stimulate the parts of my brain that were running slow, and the mediation was to slow down the parts of my brain that were going a mile a minute. I guess that is how they reset his brain. I need the same thing. Three years and still recovering, I have counted five bottlenecks in getting there. 1. Fear of memories, 2. Ego/arrogance, 3. Imbalanced thought pattern, 4. Mental unrest, 5. Lack of stimulating activities. Now that I think of it, the author has described the same thing. Meditation has worked wonders. I have combined it with philosophy and reasoning. I am also trying to identify and reduce areas of ego. Stimulating activities is a recent discovery but I am still working at finding stuff for it. And the results are interesting: before my mind was on infinite replay, then had a hard time remembering stuff, and now memories from when I was one years old are coming back like it happened yesterday. That never happened!

jeremywho 9y ago
Do you have a routine you follow? Any chance of getting a more detailed account of what activities you're doing for each?
- Scalestein 9y ago
  I'll second this, especially the bit about bringing memories back. I haven't had much head trauma but don't really have any memories from longer than 5 years previous.
  - nashashmi 9y ago
    This is difficult to answer in a post like this, but I will try. The problem is that for every technique or idea I put here, there will be a dozen who disagree, but I won't care. Meditation: Put yourself in an uncomfortable balancing position, like tip toeing. Any trembling is a symptom of subconscious issues, so clear your mind and you will be able to balance without much effort. Add stress to the balancing act to uncover the more subtle subconscious problems. This should begin the healing process. The issues were pulling at you even when you least realize it and cause much damage and tension to the brain. Meditation reduces bottlenecks 1, 3, 4. Philosophy/Reasoning: Watching dog whisperer, I am learning calm assertive energy techniques. Reduce your hyper self. Don't take action from a fearful, frustrated, angry, or low-self estem position. Because then you are in a compromised state. Don't react, and if you do, know that nothing you do when you are reacting counts. Reaction is not bad by itself. It just causes actions that would not have happened in a calm state. In moments of a highly reactive state, remove yourself from the situation and clear your mind. Try to figure what frustrates you or makes you fearful and disassemble it into small manageable parts that you reason through one by one. Reduce your ego: Meditation is clearing your mind. Philosophy and Reasoning loosens the viscosity of the toxic liquid. Ego is the shell that protects it and keeps you in an entangled state. Although ego is normal and makes you human, too much ego puts you into a state of arrogance. Loosen the arrogance. Eliminate the arrogance. Remind yourself that nothing you do is amazing and all that you have is a priveledge and was given to you and was never yours to begin with. Then reduce your ego. Think of all your skills and abilities as something you have done a thousand times, a million times, and it lost its awe. Do you have ego in your ability to walk? So why do you have ego in everything else? Stimulating activities: I am new at this, so I am still trying to figure this one out. PH.D. research stuff and logic gets me excited. (It also brings back ego, arrogance, fear, etc.) Problem solving gets me excited. Being better than everyone else gets me excited. (THE conundrum!). If I can preserve the first three steps, or the longer I can mantain it, the more I benefit from a stimulating activity. So that is my attempt and my mind is somewhat healing. I hope you make it out alright. A few things on the side: a messy room, or a messy essay, or a messy thought process is a reflection of your state of mind. Coming to terms with your inabilities brings rest to your mind. Collapsing from a highly skilled intellectual position means you have to rebuild yourself up. If the skills and confidence you developed was scaffolded with one on top of another, then your recovery will be painful. Don't scaffold again this time. Hope all this helps.

everyone 9y ago

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_traumatic_encephalopathy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_traumatic_encephalopat... From the Mayo clinics page on CTE "CTE is a progressive, degenerative brain disease for which there is no treatment."

SkyMarshal 9y ago

Wold be nice to have a submission title that actually says what the article is about.

interfixus 9y ago

A good friend of mine died a few months ago from ALS, clearly - also by his own reckoning - a delayed consequence from a severe car crash in his youth. "I was given an extra 29 years, I can't complain" he tapped out to me the last time I saw him, speechless and immobilised in a hospital bed. There's a fairly well established correlation between head trauma and this abominable affliction. Why anyone voluntarily would throw themselves into that kind of risk is utterly beyond me. But then, so is any kind of football, be it the US or the European kind.

djohnston 9y ago
Because a lot of these people grow up in poverty and a culture that tells them this is their best chance out. By the time they actually have a shot to do so, football is their entire life. It's easy to sit from a presumably educated and wealthy position and scoff at these people, but it's not going to lead you to any insights as to why it happens.
mnm1 9y ago
"But then, so is any kind of football, be it the US or the European kind." How so?
- interfixus 9y ago
  Beyond me. Not understood. I don't get it. I don't get the attraction, the excitement, the hype. Which is all purely subjective, of course. I see two teams of idiots chasing a ball. Haven't they got better to do?
  - mnm1 9y ago
    Can you even tell the difference between American football and association football (soccer)? Seems doubtful. You certainly have no basis to discuss the comparative risks between the two. Maybe the people that play these games don't want to sit around in front of a computer all day atrophying and getting fat and sick. Maybe they like to be healthy and have fun. That doesn't make them idiots. It just shows your intolerance to something that doesn't even affect you.

ErikAugust 9y ago

I'm 33 and played sports my whole life. This includes: - Hundreds of competitive basketball games - youth, AAU, high school, etc. - Thousands of running miles - including completing (and winning) trail/mountain ultra marathons - Dozens of soccer games at mixed levels - Training and sparring at a boxing gym for 4-5 days a week for a year And none of this has caused any major injury. The two years I played high school football? A separated shoulder, and a torn MCL. Not to mention having my bell rung many times. I could measure the amount of football games I actually played in like under an hour worth of actual time.

agumonkey 9y ago
And I thought the shoulder thing would protect.. now I wonder if it's not worsening things.
- Broken_Hippo 9y ago
  "now I wonder if it's not worsening things" I wouldn't be surprised if it does. If I remember correctly, a boxer hits harder with a gloved hand than without. Weirdly, this is generally because with the glove on, a harder punch doesn't hurt the hand as much than a punch without it. I'd not be surprised if it is similar in football.
  - acjohnson55 9y ago
    It's the gloves and the wraps. They let you hit the hard parts of your opponent's body with less risk of breaking your hands.
    - agumonkey 9y ago
      I believe gloves weren't for opponent safety but for the show, it made people able to fight longer before hand fractures. The wraps clearly make your fist stronger.
neves 9y ago
I'm from Brazil, a soccer crazy country. All of my friends that continued to play soccer for fun started to get injuries after they were 35yo.

martamoreno 9y ago

Hmm too bad that there are literally at least a billion people on earth with much more sad stories that didn't have a 10 mio. policy coverage for "when they can't do what they love to do" anymore, and also most people can't do what they love to do in the first place. There is a name for all that, it's called "luxury problems". Like Paris Hilton telling us that her boyfriend threw her diamond thong out of the window and she can't find it anymore. Terrible.

mobilefriendly 9y ago
No, tens of millions of Americans are playing or played football and almost all never made any money. Many people also suffer concussive blasts in war zones. Concussions and their lingering impact are a huge issue and this was helpful and interesting, particularly that meditation may help stimulate the whole brain.
katzgrau 9y ago
Happiness and hardship are only relatively quantifiable. You can't draw the conclusion that he had less of a struggle simply because he has money. I'll probably get downvoted for this, but somebody needs to say it: you're an a-hole.
JohnBooty 9y ago
1. I don't see this athlete claiming his story is comparable to the plight of refugees or anything like that. 2. Nobody is requiring anybody to read his story; he's simply making it available to anybody that is interested. 3. His story is relevant to millions of (professional, amateur, and occasional) athletes around the world... and millions more with traumatic brain injury. 4. He does have millions of dollars, but a lot of people with chronic illness would gladly trade all that money for a clean bill of health. 5. Consider that when you hear figures like "ten million dollars" that the player may receive only half of that, when taxes and agents' fees are deducted. 6. Even if he got to keep all $10mil tax-free (which he almost certainly didn't, IMO) if he lives another 50 years, that's only $120K per year. A comfortable living, well above average, but certainly not unlimited.
- 9y ago

beautifulfreak 9y ago

No one has mentioned the movie, Concussion, with Will Smith, who portray Dr. Bennet Omalu. According to wikipedia, he "was the first to discover and publish findings of chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE) in American football players." Seeing the injuries dramatized, the effects those injuries have on football players, really drives home how serious concussions are.

egypturnash 9y ago

tl;dr: "Football gave me multiple concussions and severely broke my brain. Now I am seducing kids into the same passion for football that lead me to that point."

EGreg 9y ago

I wonder if similar things (stimulating some parts of the brain and not others) can be done for other professions, such as coding where you are addicted to it, or maybe even the autism spectrum.

srdeveng 9y ago

Quite a few negative reactions regarding the decision to go back to coaching in retirement. I think change has to start at the coaching level, as boycotting the sport will do little to change the status quo, especially in the immediate. A few thoughts - In my own experience in playing contact sports (lacrosse, not football), it's a trained behavior to shake off injuries, avoid trainers, and otherwise ignore your body's warnings of potential harm. This is taught by the coach [or worse, parents]. The encouragement to push yourself beyond natural limits only increases as you progress to the collegiate and professional levels. The unfortunate effects of competition are that coaches skirt a dangerous line of balancing the star player[s] safety and winning the game, and this behavior is clear to the players lower in the depth chart who wish to become the next star. Some of the more disturbing things openly shared were how to pass the concussion protocol, that coach will let you take off a week of practice after a hard head hit so don't go to the trainers, and to shake off any and all injuries as you will be rewarded for being tough. I, and any number of my ex-teammates, agree we experienced what are now known as "minor concussions" constantly throughout our season. Only major concussions would go reported. Being able to walk off the field typically meant you had only a minor injury, and could go back in once getting some wind. The fact that so many are injured during practice goes to show, it's coming from the coach's inaction and not just during the heat of the game. Under this light, I think Finley is taking a proactive approach to change by inserting himself on the front lines.

minipci1321 9y ago
> This is taught by the coach Absolutely. Personal experience FWIW -- 30 years ago, different sport (wrestling), different country, different culture, very low amateurish level, but typically the same attitude. First time I got a moderately serious injury (torn acromial ligament, couldn't move the arm for 6 months), I basically got yelled at by the coach saying either I continue to came to training and work with the other hand, or I split off. So the next time (I landed almost vertically on the top of my head instead of flatly on the back -- now he was afraid, but I was so proud of myself, didn't even want to interrupt the exercise. Fast forward 30 years. I realise now that in some sports, people who didn't make it "to the top", are sometimes left with what seems like small stuff when you're 16 -- damaged teeth, torn ligaments, broken ribs -- but which age much, much worse than the rest of the body.

concussions 9y ago

I suffered 3 concussions in a 3 year period -- all from stupid accidents, not sports -- and the effects have persisted for years, even with various types of rehabilitation. It's very difficult to describe how a concussion changes a person. Of course, problems with balance and speech are obvious. But for me, the concussions also impacted my mind, my ability to think. I used to be able to read for an entire day, soaking up information. But now, it's like I hit a brick wall after a certain point, where it becomes impossible to proceed. I basically have a set amount that I can learn in one day -- whether it's the API for a library, the architecture of legacy code, etc. Multitasking has become extremely difficult, even though it was never a problem for me before. It's a complete killer for my mind and it will exhaust it at the expense of the previously mentioned information-acquiring capacity very quickly. When I worked as a developer, trying to switch between multiple tickets between code reviews, conducting chats in multiple channels, and jumping back and forth between various programming languages was a huge sap upon my limited mental energy. My first concussion wasn't too severe, but my second one was more so, as I probably was still healing from the first one. I had just come back from a break from work and didn't feel right in taking sick time. Compounding this, I was in the process of switching careers to become a developer and was studying very hard every night. I remember one night, about a week after my concussion, when I was writing some code. The pain in my head increased, until it became a pain of an intensity that I had never experienced before. This was probably my first experience of what would become many years of migraines... and this next part is probably unscientific, but I really felt that something "broke" at that point, as it signaled the start of many months of cognitive decline and emotional instability. I sustained my third concussion when I felt pretty well healed from the second one. Not having learned my lesson, I didn't take much time off of work. While I didn't feel something "break" like the second time, I was working on a difficult project under a short time schedule, and I was worried about losing my first programmer job and the damage that could occur to my career if that were to happen. I made it through that project, but then new problems began to develop... and to persist. Two years later I still have many of the same problems. I wonder if my dedication to that job and love for programming have resulted in irreversible damage. It wasn't worth it. Friends, we are all on this site because we are people who greatly use our minds. I want you all to remember that we each only get one brain, which is not only essential to our profession but which is the core of our personality, of who we are. The severity of impact is not associated with the severity of damage from a concussion, and experiencing one concussion makes you more prone to further concussions. My 3 dumb accidents have made the last 5 years of my life difficult in many ways, and have probably changed me for the rest of my life. As such, I cannot condone willingly embarking upon an activity such as football which so clearly places one's mind at risk. To the author of this piece and to some who read it, football may be a game, but I think that our lives are more valuable than games to be played, than entertainment to be had. For every high profile recovery like this, there are countless children who are severely and permanently damaged for the sake of sport. Treasure your mind and the minds of your loved ones. And if you ever do suffer from a concussion, take complete and absolute rest, lest you jeopardize the healing process and find yourself with lifelong injury.

ensiferum 9y ago

What he has sounds like it is most likely https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_traumatic_encephalopathy https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chronic_traumatic_encephalop...