I’m not really looking for help just reporting to my friends what has happened to me. But if you have experience with concussion or traumatic brain injury and want to post here, that’s welcome.
Those who know me may know I consider myself a better downhill skier than triathlete. I’ve certainly done it longer, although never competitively. My family has had a home in Snowmass, just outside of Aspen, since 1968. So I’m intimately familiar with the terrain and conditions there. Yesterday, my first day of a three week visit (after two weeks in Mid Dec), I started out with a simple warm up run on easier slopes, going down perfectly groomed snow non stop from top (11,808′ to bottom (8450′). At the very end there is a little hill, about ten feet high, and I thought I would do a little left hand turn off it to finish with a flourish. But out of sight, at the end of the turn was a sudden six foot drop off, and I somehow missed reconnecting with the snow. I ended up crashing my head and face (I was wearing a helmet), knocking myself unconscious for about 6-8 minutes before a ski instructor and the the ski patrol came to my aid.
I was wearing a helmet cam, so I have the entire incident on tape, and thus I know that I have no memory of the five seconds or so preceding the crash, and that I was out for at least about 6-8 minutes (I’ll post a link on Facebook to the whole video for the curious).
I ended up being transported to the local hospital, where a CT scan was done. I had no injuries to my arms, legs or torso. I did have a small (9mm) spot of bleeding in the left frontal lobe of my brain. So I was air lifted via ‘copter to Denver, where I was seen by a neurosurgeon. Follow up CT scan, MRI, and neurologic testing have all been reassuring, and I will be discharged tomorrow. I have good friends of 45 years standing in Denver, so no worries about accommodations for the next day or two.
The neurologist and I talked about recovery and how I could re-enter into triathlon training. He suggested I might be able to start up skiing “blue and green” runs (beginner and intermediate) for a couple of weeks, but I said “That’s not going to happen,” meaning I would not be able to restrain myself from skiing full bore if I were out there. So the next 2-3 weeks, planned for skiing, will be devoted to rest and recuperation, and “aerobic” swimming and trainer cycling, and maybe some “jogging” after a week. My wife, sister, and son will all be around during this time, and I did have the next two-three weeks pencilled into my season plan as simply “skiing”, anticipating no S/B/R to speak of, so I think mentally I’ll be able to handle the adjustment.
The good news – there is no orthopedic injury which might impact my triathlon season. But the bad news is, the enforced rest and recovery style training, albeit in the gorgeous setting of Aspen, will be a bit hard to take. And the fact that I have 2 or 3 small spots of “bruising” or bleeding into my cerebrum is a bit scary. The potential for longer-term issues with traumatic brain injury are real, and I need to be on the lookout for that.
No doubt as this goes on, there will be a series of entries in my blog.
Yikes- I’m glad you are (mostly) ok! Best wishes for a quick recovery Al!
Al: please, please, please see a concussion specialist. There is so much to treating a TBI now. Rest, rest, rest. Minimal to no screen time is usually a good starting point. I worked with one of the best TBI experts in Houston. I learned how improtant it is to rest your brain NOW or it will take a lot longer to recover.
Dear Al,
You’re a doctor and I trust you you know this better than I do but please be patient with yourself. Please rest and don’t get in the way of your recovery in this acute phase. I had no clear idea what happened to me last May and those first two weeks were terrible. I could talk (sorta) a combative blue streak but did not accept being told I could not walk. I thought they were telling me I wasn’t allowed to walk but what they actually meant that I was not able to walk. And all those restraints with alarms that went off in the nursing station? Those were just great. Yeah yeah yeah, all sorts of stuff that people tell me about that I cannot remember unless I review notes about it.
My point here is that I was able to communicate online and even sound coherent but I was nothing of the sort. On line, people couldn’t see me and know that I was not right and I was not self-aware enough to know any better. I was that messed up and I did not have the extent of damage that you tell us you had with those brain bleeds.
I’m now 8+ months out from the crash and I still have a lot of work to do. But in those first couple of weeks, when I was damn sure I would be racing IM Mont Tremblant that summer, I did not accept what I was being told. I was very frustrated and angry and depressed and miserable and demoralized and you name it. It was then that I should have been resting more and not hurting myself more like when I tried to jog in the hall outside my room. A complete yard sale after 2 steps. Not once, but twice. Because I couldn’t remember the first debacle and tried it again a couple days later.
Even if you’re such an amazing specimen of humankind and can bounce back right away to do all those things you wrote about wanting to do in this post, don’t. Please let this acute phase of recovery play out undisturbed by yourself.
Please do take care of yourself Al. o o o