Don’t Overdo It - Rob's Story
Before my injury, life was very active, social and exciting. I played rugby for school on Wednesday afternoons as well as for Prebbleton club on Saturdays, with training on Tuesday and Thursday nights. I would be in the gym after school finished at least three days a week, sometimes even right before rugby training. This was the first year I had started training in the gym, and I was already seeing the positive effects it was having on my rugby through speed and strength.
School was going well; I was maintaining solid merit to excellence level results. I was involved with school volleyball, playing to a relatively high level after making the Canterbury under 15s in year 10. I was always a very social guy with a lot of friends.
I received my first concussion whilst playing school rugby at Hagley Park on a Wednesday afternoon. This was one of the first games of the season, so the Hagley ground felt like close to concrete. I was tackled to the ground, being thrown backwards, landing on my back. Although I don’t remember my head hitting the ground, it must have whiplashed back. The next thing I do remember was having quite blurry vision and feeling very dazed and uneasy.
My next concussion was playing for Prebbleton. I was made captain of the team. I played a great game from memory, scoring three tries in total. Another teammate and I went into contact, tackling an opponent when we both wrapped around the opponent and our heads came into solid contact. I wasn’t knocked out but soon knew what it meant to be ‘seeing stars’. I had to be assisted off with pretty unstable footing, and I remember feeling quite nauseous sitting on the sideline. Dad, who was luckily a physio, asked questions for me to remember, like where we were, the date, the score and some numbers. I remember not being certain of any of the answers to those questions, which made me feel quite overwhelmed and panicked. After that, I had another concussion in the final game of that season. This one wasn’t as bad, and I had a lot of time to recover since it was the end of the season.
However, I soon suffered another, the most serious, which was again playing rugby for school out in Darfield. I was playing second five, and we had been doing well, leading by a couple of tries. I don’t remember the contact, but from teammates’ recollections, I went in to tackle the Darfield centre and my head made direct contact with their hip and I was knocked out briefly. When I soon came to, play had stopped and an ambulance was called. A policeman who was also at the game was flashing a light over my eyes and testing my grip and shoulder strength, which was apparently obviously not what it should have been. I then spent two and a half days in hospital with a neck brace on, waiting for various scans to be completed, as they were worried about a possible neck injury given the weakness in my upper limbs. My main symptoms were headaches, severe fatigue and inability to stay focused for prolonged periods of time. Becoming easily frustrated at what would have previously been little things was another, which I think was caused by fatigue and lack of concentration.
Initially, my goals after the first three concussions were to get back into physical activity, especially rugby and the gym, as well as returning to school full-time.
My rehab programme after the first few concussions wasn’t a structured programme per se, as there was no referral to anyone like Laura Fergusson Brain Injury Trust. It was mainly limiting screen time, resting a lot and taking it slow when returning to rugby training. This involved getting to a point where I didn’t get headaches from physical activity of any type and especially no headaches or symptoms after contact training at rugby.
After the fourth and most severe concussion, LFBIT became involved in my rehab. This was mainly occupational therapy input, which involved working through memory and concentration tasks and strategies to use when I couldn’t fall asleep. Returning to school was a gradual process. I started with quarter days, then half days and so on and would often go to the sickbay to have a lie down for half an hour when needed.
My fifth and final concussion was an accident at school. The boys and I were mucking around on the field with a rugby ball. There wasn’t any tackling or contact at first, but this then escalated a little. I made sure I wasn’t getting too involved, and when I thought I had made that clear, one of my schoolmates tackled me from behind with no real warning. I wasn’t expecting it and couldn’t brace or try and land safely. This then led to my head hitting the hard ground with quite a lot of force. I instantly felt quite dizzy and was seeing ‘stars’. Safe to say the guy that tackled me got a fair bit of grief from my mates. Thankfully, the symptoms of this concussion didn’t last as long as the previous ones. I think I had a day or two off school managing the headache and grogginess but made a pretty good recovery.
Rest was key to my recovery and not getting ahead of myself or pushing too much on the days I did feel good. This just set me back the next day as a result. Trying to stay patient and take everything step by step was frustrating but was also the most beneficial thing in recovering.
My advice to others is to think about your priorities. After that many concussions and the disruptions, they all caused with school and everyday life, I had to look at my priorities and sacrifice playing rugby as a result. Although at the time this was pretty challenging and made going to watch my team play hard at times, it was definitely the right decision to make.
And don’t overdo it too soon. Take your time, rest, rest and rest some more. The less you do early on, the more you’ll be able to do later down the track. Take on all the advice from your rehab team. You’ll probably hear things from them you won’t want to hear, but they’re the professionals and they have your best interests at heart, so listen and be open minded.
