Well, I don’t entirely know…
It’s been a little over a week since I busted my head against the floor of our church and received what the ER doctor called a TBI (traumatic brain injury). Apparently that’s what it’s called when you get a concussion with short term amnesia and have symptoms stemming from post concussion syndrom. Sounds pretty intense? Well it has been, to say the least. I can’t remember anything that happened last Wednesday night from about 3 hours leading up to the head injury until Thursday afternoon. I told you it was pretty intense. 
Wednesday night after busting my head one of our adult leaders (a medic and Army Ranger) checked me out and brought me home. Shortly after my wife took me to the ER where I received 2 staples to the back of my head and a CT scan before being sent home. I displayed emotions from complete confusion, fear, panic, and stress. Again, I have no recollection of this but it’s how it has been explained to me since.
Thursday morning everything felt like a bad dream and I woke up experiencing the same emotions and intense head ache and lots of pain. As I gained a little awareness of what was going on (still having zero recollection of the night before) my wife, Neva, brought me downstairs to watch TV for a little bit. The running joke since then is despite being COMPLETELY out of it I could still recall what channel ESPN was…13. My emotional roller coaster took an insane turn toward everything being hysterical. I laughed, uncontrollably, at anything and everything. After calling our family doctor we headed back to the ER for more tests.
This ER visit included another CT scan, an MRI, removing the staples before the MRI (that could have been crazy), x-rays of my neck and lower back, plenty of observation and cognitive tests, and even more emotions. Apparently I got a a little belligerent for a short while, but it was thankfully trumped by my vast amount of uncontrollable laughter. We were sent home after everything came back “fine” to begin the slow road to recovery.
Tuesday we went in to see a doctor for follow-up and he seemed cautiously optimistic. He was pleased by the amount of progress I had made in 5 days but let us know it would probably be 2-4 weeks before I returned to normal. Evidently he doesn’t know I’ve never been normal so if he can accomplish this he’ll make medical history. Physical therapy is in my near future to regain more balance control as well as PT for my neck and back pain. His biggest message to me, “Take it slow!” He prescribed a better pain killer than I got from the ER and some sleeping pills since insomnia is one of the many symptoms of post concussion syndrom. I’m not allowed to return to work yet it seems he will take that week-to-week for the time being.
That’s the summary to date of what’s been going on since receiving my concussion. I plan to share more insights and what I’ve learned from this experience when I am able to gather my thoughts with a little more clarity. However, I would be remiss if I at least didn’t share this…
My recovery seems to be going very well to this point, in large part (or exclusively) due to the amount of prayer our family has received from so many people: our family and friends, our church family at Grace Fellowship Church (who have also been providing meals for our family – a HUGE blessing!), our former church family of Northern Hills in Colorado, our Dare 2 Share family, and the most amazing bunch of Youth Workers I am blessed to know: the IT3 team of Group/SYMC. My wife: the care I have received from this most amazing woman of God has made my road to recovery comfortable and encouraging. She is a wonderful woman! I am 100% convinced that I wouldn’t have made the progress I have made in the past week had it not been for the prayers, the care, and the work of the Holy Spirit in my life.
THANK YOU ALL, ON BEHALF OF MY FAMILY, AND FROM THE BOTTOM OF MY HEART!
