Not a Concussion?

There's been so much talk of concussion and TBIs in the news lately, between sports and war injuries. Most times they list symptoms, and sometimes I say, "But that was me!" Yet they said it wasn't at the time.

It was second grade. I was attending Nevis school, nearly an hour bus ride each way since we lived on a resort down at the far end of the route. The school then - I haven't gone past for easily 50 years - boasted a sidewalk all along its front, with a small rise of ground and several steps into the front door. (This was so long ago that postcards cost two cents, and letters 3 cents to mail. I recall tagging along to pick up stamps in the Nevis post office.)

Winters were truly cold then, that far north in Minnesota. There was no global warming, and -30 was fairly common. We dressed for it better than kids do today, and were in better position to take what advantage of the cold that we could. The huge hollow in back for the athletic field made great winter sledding. You couldn't bring sleds on the school bus however, so somebody left large pieces of cardboard for us to cling to however we could while sliding down the hill and then trudging up again for the next one to ride. In fact, the cardboard was so popular that it was used on plain grass as well, though it wasn't as slick.

But during lunch breaks, there wasn't enough time to go all the way back behind the school to enjoy sledding. Kids adapt. Somebody turned the slight rise in front of school into a short ramp by piling snow to shape, then pouring water over it. On the frequent sub-zero days - or more likely nights, since I never saw such activity during school hours - the water would freeze nearly as soon as it was poured, reinforcing the snow shape rather than melting through it. Behold: we had an ice ramp! Instant slide, which all but the "babies" stood in their boots to slide on. Only about two feet long, it seemed safe enough, and all those using it were certainly having fun. In fact, it was such fun that using it conveyed status, and/or only those with status got to use it. Some of us just stood around and stared, enviously. So when I was offered the chance to use it, of course I stepped up.

Now, I need to explain something. I was pretty naive for a whole lot of years. My parents were busy people, running a resort, and finding winter jobs to keep the family going. I was a good kid by staying out of their way and staying out of trouble. Assumptions were made about how I was growing up. One of them was that their common sense was also my common sense. Even when there was no background experience or conversation to warrant such assumptions. So I got myself into trouble. A lot. I was into exploring my world, and if I couldn't see a good reason not to do something, especially with a bunch of my peers egging me on, I went ahead and tried it. It had the expected consequences.

One early bus ride, some of the older kids - boys of course - challenged me, declaring me to be too stupid to know the difference between boys and girls. Well, I did so, and told them so. They demanded proof: what is it that boys have that girls don't? I have no clue where, but I had learned that word, even though I doubt it was ever spoken in our house. We, and the culture, were pretty repressed back then. Since I couldn't allow those boys to think I was stupid, I answered their question: "a penis." Of course my folks heard about it almost as soon as I was off the school bus (How could that be, eh, big brother Steve?) and I was in trouble. I learned not to say that word ever again. Well, until much later anyway.

Remember the movie "A Christmas Story"? The one where the kid gets dared to stick his tongue to the flagpole in sub-zero weather and it sticks? Well, I was that kid too. It didn't stick long, because I jerked it off right away, but I did accept the dare. It really, really does happen. Both the tongue sticking part and the naive kid trying to fit in accepting the dare.

Along the side of the school and going way back the width of the athletic field, there was a grove of pines, planted no doubt for privacy, conservation, and windbreak purposes. During recess, however, it was our playground. It was also a good walk back to the school if you had to go potty, thus spoiling recess time. Not only would you miss whatever was going on now, you might not get back at all before recess ended. I had a dilemma: I needed to go but didn't want to leave.

Well, my classmates had a solution for me: go right there. I kinda thought I shouldn't, but they insisted it was all right. After all, they wouldn't tell. Well, why not? After all, on the resort, both my brother and my dad did it, turning their backs to us and using trees to go on. Mom had shown me how to squat down out in the woods when the occasion arose. And these were woods, right? So I did.

And of course the kids told - barely waiting until I was finished. The whole school knew and never let me forget it. My teacher knew and had a private chat with me. My parents knew and had something more than a chat with me. I was totally disgraced. Moving to a new town late in third grade was something of a relief.

Any wonder I still have some trust issues with the herd of fellow humans?

But that naive kid is still who I was when faced with the ice slide. Everybody else was doing it and having a great time, and now I could too. I never gave a thought to balancing or center of gravity or anything else, like whether standing on a slippery ice ramp was actually a good idea. So I put both feet on the top...

And next thing I know I'm lying on the concrete sidewalk, face up, kids gathered around me. I have no idea whether I lost consciousness or just memory. But, hey, I had to get up and get out of there so they could have their ramp back, and hey, just how stupid and clumsy was I, anyway?

Enough, apparently.

I wandered back into the classroom and put my head down on my desk. I felt terrible, and closing my eyes helped. Mrs. Christianson had written the afternoon's lesson on the board, and I tried to read it, but the letters made absolutely no sense. I wasn't even alarmed by suddenly being rendered unable to read. It just made me feel sicker trying, so I stopped trying. Nobody was around, so the peace and quiet was exactly what I thought I needed.

When an adult did wander in, asking if I was OK, I tried to explain that I couldn't read. It couldn't have made much sense, because she left again with no impulse to do something about what I'd just said. Eventually the class returned, and the combination of my head still on my desk and my renewed statement that I couldn't read, got me an escort to the nurse's office to lay down.

I recall hearing later that I'd been one of those kids who use show-and-tell time to spin the most outrageous tales to get attention, so when this seemed a little weird, it was at first ignored. Why hadn't anybody said something? As soon as I heard that comment, I quit spinning tales grounded in my need for attention and started looking for real things to talk about. Being branded a liar was a horrible thing, and not getting attention when it was really needed was nearly as bad. (Such were my priorities at the time.)

Next thing I remember was being in the hospital, nurses bending over me, waking me up and telling me not to fall asleep. Of course, that was exactly what I did the second they left. Mom was there, having had to take time off work for me, so I knew I was really in trouble this time! She kept waking me up too, with the same results the nurses were having. I heard the word "concussion" repeated, with finally the verdict that I didn't have one. At that point I was finally allowed to go home, to sleep without interruptions.

Oh, and the class got a new art project for the afternoon: writing me Get Well cards. They were brought to the hospital before I was released, and I managed to stay awake long enough to read some of them. I finally could, again. I actually remember one of them, or rather its sender, a boy named Gary Plumley. He made it sound like he actually cared, not just completed an assignment as quickly as possible. I still remembered the name when we met again as parents of kids on opposing teams in a swim meet many years and many miles later. And he remembered mine.

Huh.

I was vaguely disappointed by the verdict that I didn't have a concussion. The symptoms seemed important enough to me to warrant some kind of label, especially since they were enough to send me to the hospital. And today, with our increased sensitivity to TBIs, I think it might finally earn the name.

Now if I could just manage to quit falling on the dang ice!