For most students, the worst part of the day is hearing their morning alarm. But not for me, or at least not in the past. Up until last fall, mornings were for serenity. They were for sitting on the couch with my cat curled up in my lap as I played New York Times games, enjoying my peace before my roommates woke up. The only stimulant I needed to transition from my quiet time to the bustling Michigan campus was caffeine.
But now, pulling myself out of bed every morning is a chore in and of itself, often spurred by my cat pawing at my face to remind me she needs to be fed. To eliminate the brain fog, I take my stimulants and prepare for class. After a few hours of struggling through lectures and discussions, I am burnt out by early afternoon and need more caffeine before I can think about homework. When bedtime rolls around, I swallow my Zoloft and stare at the ceiling until I fade into the much-needed relief of sleep.
An undefeated season capped by hoisting a national championship trophy proved nothing could make my long-term pain worthwhile.
If someone asked what brings me joy during 2023, I’d talk about being a part of the Michigan women’s rugby team. I’d brag about being a member of a team that had not lost a 15s match since 2022, a team seeking a second consecutive national championship. Yet, during this past winter break, still coming down from the high of being on the top-ranked women’s rugby team in the nation, I made the difficult decision to hang up my cleats. With the thrill of success beginning to subside, the harsh reality of long-term consequences emerged. But I should have never been left with the choice to medically retire, I should have been forced. I should have been told “no.”
When I reflect back on why I didn’t leave rugby sooner, I think maybe it was because I wanted to prove that I was still an athlete. Or perhaps I wasn’t ready to surrender the sisterhood that my entire sense of belonging at Michigan revolved around. Who was I, if not a part of something more substantial than myself?
Six weeks into my first season I returned to practice prematurely, to say the least, after suffering a concussion — unrelated to rugby — that landed me in the hospital. The beaming light from the 7 p.m. sunset and how it tortured me with headaches, dizziness and nausea during my first practice back is still clear in my mind. The systemic failure to prioritize player safety was underscored by a quick “take it easy” from the athletic trainer. A brief scan of my pupils was good enough for the clearance of a bright-eyed and bushy-tailed rookie. I construed those three words as clearance to participate fully.
The alarming symptoms were exacerbated the following day, and I confessed to my trainer that I was severely fatigued and incapable of sitting through class. The pain was seeping into my life beyond rugby, affecting the way I interacted with the world; he mandated me to sit out and watch the practice.
Another day passed and it was deemed that I looked fine. With a chance to play in an upcoming tournament on the line, I again took the go-ahead to participate in practice as permission to go full-throttle, contending for a roster spot — a grave oversight.
Maybe I was just a stupid 19-year-old. Or maybe the pressure to compete with national champions was too much for me. Or maybe I was making a big deal out of nothing. There was no excuse to sit out when I felt unwell because I was told by medical professionals that there was nothing wrong — my injury was not visible.
My first time taking the pitch was during a tournament in West Lafayette, Ind., where I’d come up short of my first career try. An Iowa defender took me down from behind and I was trounced in the battle between my head and the ground. I could hear commotion surrounding me, but the glaring sunlight kept my eyes glued shut. Laying on the pitch, my body limp as if momentarily paralyzed, the dull ache weighed my head down. By the time I managed to open my eyes, jaw still clenched on my mouthguard, two teammates were carrying me to the trainers.
I’ll admit it: I’m stubborn, competitive and hate being told “no.”
Yet, not a single adult bluntly told me “no.” If there was any room for interpretation in the vague responses I received from coaches and trainers, I would take it as clearance. A trainer told me to “play it by ear” about returning to the pitch that day as if dozens of people hadn’t witnessed my on-field blackout five minutes prior. The team erupted in outrage when they heard that I was once again rostered no more than two hours after the match against Iowa. We weren’t desperate for players, and I wasn’t some stellar athlete. To be perfectly honest, I was a petrified rookie doing more harm than good on the pitch. Thankfully, I avoided some unknowable pain when Ohio State forfeited the match.
After a few more practices and matches in which I took numerous light hits to my head, I concluded my sophomore year experiencing decreased focus and slipping grades. Despite my symptoms affecting my daily life, I used summer break to improve myself for the fall season. I exercised for at least two hours a day, but sprints made my brain feel like it was bouncing around my skull and running in the summer sun strained my eyes as it still seemed far too bright.
Before I knew it, it was preseason and my commitment to improving my skills over the summer proved beneficial. Naturally, with my track record, I knocked heads with a girl during a preseason match. That night I insisted I was okay to my friends and teammates and not (once again) concussed. Yet, when my concerned girlfriend asked me what day it was, I answered two days off. Of course, that was not enough to stop me from playing after spending summer working toward this season.
My heart was set on earning the distinction of Scholastic All-American and because no trainer forced me to see a doctor and no coach benched me, I kept going. A common critique from my coaches throughout the season was that I was reaching for tackles instead of stepping into them. I don’t think I ever played with full confidence as I was more concerned with protecting my head from further pain. The final regular season match, half a year after my first-ever match, was against Purdue, coincidentally back in West Lafayette. Jokes about my vengeance on this field ran rampant amongst my teammates, but the joke would be on me.
In the game film, you can hear the crack of my head, presumably against another girl’s head or maybe her shoulder. She was unfazed, but I went on to miss tackles and commit infractions, overall doing more harm than good, for the rest of the game. When I found out the following week at practice that my role for playoffs was as an injury reserve instead of a player, it was like watching all of my work from the summer fly out the window. It was not for my safety, but rather as a result of my sloppy play in the Purdue match. In my defense, I wouldn’t have played as poorly if I was removed from the match when the contact occurred.
Why was I not taken out of the game? Why was I not told “no”? How had it gotten to this point?
From the sideline in St. Louis, wearing sunglasses to shield my once again concussed head from the sun, I watched my teammates conquer opponents in the quarterfinals and semifinals. Standing at a perfect 9-0, I had the privilege to travel with the team to Houston for the national championship. I was suited up in my uniform and while my Instagram posts may imply that I played, in reality, I wasn’t even rostered. Admittedly, winning the title wasn’t very fun from the sideline. After every blow to the head in the past year and so many restless nights, I’ll sum up a collegiate athlete’s supposed pinnacle of achievement in three words: not worth it.
Even my teammates breathed a sigh of relief upon my announcement to walk away from the sport because they were genuinely concerned that I was still eligible to play after multiple concussions.
A common sentiment I’ve heard is that a concussion heals in seven to 10 days. That’s utter bullshit. Sure, that’s about how long it takes until you stop feeling like you’re being stabbed in the brain, can handle looking at a screen, are no longer vomiting and regain your appetite. But feeling physical improvements is not an indication of being healed.
Concussions are invisible. They’re tricky to diagnose and damn near impossible to know the severity of. But I feel that it would be better for the professionals in charge of your safety to err on the side of caution rather than downplay the injury.
The short term symptoms do fade in a few weeks, but no one mentions that it takes the brain up to 18 months to heal. As early as 1952, the New England Journal of Medicine established the “Three and Out” rule which states athletes should retire from their sport after sustaining their third concussion. I had at least three within six months.
Dr. Vanessa Raymont, an associate professor at the University of Oxford researching traumatic brain injuries offered some insight on TBIs, emphasizing the need for caution.
“We know multiple concussions seem to increase your risk of a range of problems, I would say it’s better to be cautious until we know more,” Raymont said in an email to The Michigan Daily.
Not only is each subsequent concussion easier to sustain with symptoms that are more severe, but also there are agonizing long-term consequences. Despite the scary and painful physical effects I’ve experienced, the mental effects have been far worse. My focus never fully recovered and I was prescribed medication that I take first thing every morning just to get through class. Before bed, I take a different medication to keep the onset of anxious and depressive thoughts at bay. The healing process and mood swings seem to present as perpetual premenstrual syndrome.
Traumatic brain injury is a blanket term for any blow or jolt to one’s head leading to a disruption of typical brain function. In the United States alone, the CDC reports approximately 190 deaths related to TBI every day. The CDC also estimates TBI causes approximately 586 hospitalizations each day in the U.S. Beyond the window considered to be the recovery time for a concussion, ongoing symptoms are frequently reported. Not only is TBI a major cause of death, it also causes life-long effects including impacts on brain function and development.
“We need to be mindful that even mild TBIs can cause problems for some people, some of which people won’t be aware of, such as depression,” Raymont wrote. “Any decision to do activities that could increase your risk of having a TBI should be an informed decision.”
An article published in the Journal of Neurotrauma shares the elevated risks associated with multiple concussions. A person who has suffered TBI will have up to triple the risk of developing dementia compared to someone who has not, meaning TBI contributes to up to 15% of the cases of dementia.
The general rate of adults with depression in the United States is less than 10%. Just one-year post-injury, an individual who suffered TBI has a 50% chance of becoming depressed. This correlation between TBI and depression steadily increases to nearly two out of three individuals after seven years post-injury. A majority of those suffering from depression following TBI also develop severe anxiety.
One concussion is too many and TBI is not to be taken lightly. My brain is what makes me me. Beyond the mere capacity to read and write, my brain is responsible for cherishing memories, focusing on passions, thinking mindfully and feeling love. Regardless of the desire to have a community on campus, no sport is ever worth risking my only brain.
Maybe the takeaway is that I should have listened to my body, a terrible, but important, lesson to learn. The damage due to my own naivety is irreversible, and I will need pills to maintain some semblance of normalcy for the rest of my life. But isn’t that what coaches and trainers are for? Doesn’t their job description include noticing when one of their athletes is faltering and benching them until they’ve recovered?
Maybe the true takeaway is that coaches and trainers don’t care about protecting their athletes if the injury cannot be taped. The lack of attention paid to quality of life in athletics is a glaring lapse, but this neglect warrants collective accountability from every single adult who failed to tell me “no.”
Statement Contributor Mikaela Lewis can be reached at mikaelal@umich.edu.
The post ‘If I can’t see it, you’re not injured’ appeared first on The Michigan Daily.
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