Two Years and a Day

 

Two years and one day ago was when my life changed forever. To those of you who have suffered from a chronic illness or injury for longer than that, maybe much longer, my two years may seem like the blink of an eye. To those of you who have never suffered from such a long term injury, that may seem like ages. To me, it’s kind of both. On the one hand it seems like a lifetime ago that I was preparing to enjoy my senior year of high school and packing my schedule to the brim with volleyball, AP classes, choir, youth group, church, praise band, girls’ ensemble, Mu Alpha Theta club, French Honor Society, National Honor Society, etc, etc. On the other hand, I can’t remember enough of the last two years to fill that much time logically in my head!! Whichever way you look at it, it’s still 2 years. That’s 730.5 days or 17,532 hours that I have had a continuous headache. With the exception of an hour or two sometime last winter when my doctor tried a nerve block that nearly made the pain vanish, even if only for a couple of hours. After giving me the nerve block and allowing it the time to kick in, he asked my pain level- a question I had been asked more times since the start of all of this than I could even attempt to count. And I thought about it, and then started laughing, just chortling slightly, which over the next few seconds turned to hilarious uncontrollable laughter. My brain still being a bit slow at times, I couldn’t figure out why I was laughing, I simply knew that I was. For some reason my body was reacting with uncontrollable outbursts of laughter so intense by this point that I couldn’t even attempt to answer his question. He laughed a bit along with me, but he didn’t seem surprised. He explained it very simply, only saying, “Some people laugh, some people cry, some are too shocked to respond. It’s completely normal.” He smiled kindly and said he would come back in a minute, once I’d calmed back down. The laughing began to subside once he left the room and at that point is when I finally started realizing what he had been saying. “Some people laugh, some people cry, some are too shocked to respond”. It was only then that my brain fully comprehended. There was no pain. Well, there was so LITTLE pain. I couldn’t believe it! My body had already reacted to what my brain couldn’t yet believe to be real. Once this realization came the tears from uncontrollable laughter gradually turned to tears of a desperately joyful cry. I was so dumbfounded. He came back in of course just as I’d started shaking with tears, but, eventually, I was able to process what was going on enough to answer, saying for the first time since that September day any number below 5 on a 0-10 scale, and I was able to tell him it was a one on the left side and a zero on the right. A ZERO! Because of those results and some other factors it seemed like the related surgery would be a highly probable success. It had an 80-90% success rate and yet I found a way to be in that 10-20%. Not entirely shocking if you know my history of luck, or lack thereof. Since that day we tried the nerve block-just as the time spent before- I haven’t had a second free of headache pain, and I haven’t had a headache lower than a 6 out of 10.

For many reasons- all of which I couldn’t put into words until talking to my mother yesterday afternoon- I was very emotional on the second anniversary of my injury. First of the many reasons being that I realized, and had to face the truth (again) of how completely blindsided I was and have continued to be by this injury. Two years ago today, is when I found out that I had indeed gotten a concussion from the collision with my teammate the night before. I sobbed when my trainer told me there was no way I could play volleyball for at least the next couple of weeks and again when I had to relay that information to my coaches just minutes later. I had myself so deep in denial over my symptoms; I was genuinely surprised when she told me I had failed 17 of 22 tests to verify a concussion. I had thought I was fooling her! She asked me to do these simple tasks and I was so oblivious to processing real truths that I couldn’t even realize how truly terribly I was performing! I laugh at this now, how smug I had felt before the truth came crashing down around me; but I also can’t seem to forget the flood of anguish that I felt in that moment and then again and again as the dates predicted for my full recovery continued to go by and by and by. Finally, I had to ask my doctor, though still hopeful as he was, to stop predicting my recovery. I couldn’t handle the disappointment as the date came and went without any improvement over and over again. I feel that pain, that emotional pain, still very real and very aching in my chest every time I realize how long it’s been. Even then, when I told my neurologist to stop guessing dates, I didn’t dare imagine that I would still be talking about the injury as a current event this far into the future. I could have never guessed that this would be the way things turned out.

A few months into my original concussion my mother happened across an article about a girl near my age that had also had a severe concussion from a sports injury that had lead to PCS or Post Concussion Syndrome (having all of the symptoms of a concussion without the actual swelling of the brain), which is what I was declared to have at this point. She had dealt with those symptoms for almost two years before they finally went away. At first my typical path of denial led me to react by thinking, “There’s no way that will be me. I’m gonna be done with this in far less time than that. I have to be!” But, after that initial reaction, I considered that truth. What if, after two whole years, I still have these headaches to deal with? How am I going to handle this kind of pain for that long? How will I survive it without going insane? Well folks, if nothing else, I now know it is indeed possible.

Yesterday I was also hit with the truth of my loss; something my mother mentioned to me often while watching me cope with everything I’d been through in the first year especially. Having experienced terrible loss herself she recognized it in me. The way I reacted to having to quit volleyball, and eventually that turned into quitting it forever, to dropping out of all of my favorite classes (the hardest ones of course), and eventually that turned into dropping out of college for what is quite possibly forever, to losing people I considered friends, to feeling stripped of my whole identity. She recognized the signs of loss. Though, I wasn’t mourning the loss of someone else, but rather the loss of myself-my old self, my previous self. I was in mourning over who I used to be and my inability to be that anymore. In general, I have come to accept that my life has changed drastically since my brain injury and I trust that God has done this for the better for my life even if I can’t see it now. However, I can’t help, on days like yesterday, but look back and think of my priorities that morning, that afternoon, the moment before my teammate’s knee hit the back of my head, and just how truly, extremely different they were from what they are now. I’m no longer allowed to play volleyball or able to attend classes. Because I can’t attend classes, I very definitely can’t pursue my goal of becoming a wildlife vet. Because I can’t pursue that goal or any other goal that requires college I’m finding myself looking around at my life and wondering what in the world I’m going to do with it. And I’m finding that I really have no idea. There are so many things I could do, but I don’t want to have to settle for something for my life. I want my life to be just as vibrant and enjoyable as I had always planned for it to be, even if it looks a bit different in the end than I had planned. I’ve had to face, again, the loss of everything I used to be, as if saying goodbye again to an old friend.

However, I’ve also spent a good part of today reveling in who I am now, and how odd it seems that I came to be here. My priorities have changed so dramatically along with my interests and even in some cases who I consider my true friends. I won’t say I’m not at least partially bitter about having to realize how different of a person I am. But, I won’t say it’s all for the worst either. Partially, on the principle that I fully trust that God wants only the best for me and to be able to further His kingdom and if this is necessary for him to do so, than I will not argue. But, it’s also partially because I can see and feel with evidence of my own emotions that I do enjoy this new life that I live. I have been able to embrace my love of writing and finally work to find something to do with it. I have had more than enough free time to reevaluate my priorities and to find new ones. I have been able to find new loves such as playing guitar and watching hockey (Let’s Go Blues!!). And I have been able to nurture old loves and spend my ample time truly enjoying them, such as reading and watching more shows and movies than any average person with an average American schedule would have time for. I have come to appreciate time spent sleeping as well as the time I’ve managed to stay awake. I’ve come to be more proud of myself for accomplishing small tasks instead of waving them off as unimpressive feats even if they were still difficult for me. I’ve come to find true joy in the little things, like a scented candle and coloring books and bubbles and the indescribable beauty that nature holds if you actually pay attention. And most of all, through this whole experience, I have come so much closer to and so much more dependent on my Savior and Lord and I could not be more thankful for that opportunity to love and know Him more. So no, I will not count it all as loss because it isn’t. There is so much I have gained from this, too, that though on days like yesterday the emotions of sadness and even some depression lick at my edges like flames, I can’t be consumed by them because I know all too well of God’s glorious grace and love and hope.

So, in conclusion, I may not have the slightest idea of where my life is headed or what God has in store for me, but I know that I will survive because God provides. I have parents that have never given up on me and friends that have never forgotten me. I have a job that reminds me I’m useful and I have money in the bank that reminds me I’m able. I have time to invest in others and I have others investing in me. So, whether you see these past two years as little of consequence or as a tremendous feat, I can assure you that I have felt enough pain to appreciate joy, enough loneliness to appreciate company, and enough loss to appreciate life’s gifts. So, I commemorate this anniversary by saying I have already survived much more sorrow and physical pain than I thought I could and I now know that I can survive even more. Whether this shocks us all and disappears shortly or sticks around for the rest of my life, I am a fighter and I will continue to do so as long as is required of me.

With love,

Sydney