I has taken me a long time to write this post. I kept waiting hoping that Chloe would be all the way healed and I could write about her journey, however we still aren't to that point and it has been 9 weeks so I decided to write the post and do an update later on.
Towards the end of the basketball season Chloe got a concussion in one of her basketball games.
*In case you are unaware a concussion is considered a mild traumatic brain injury*
Here is a great link on an article about mild tbi.
How did this happen? Chloe and another girl both got a rebound and in the fight to control it Chloe was dragged to the ground and hit the back of her head-hard!! A parent in the stands jumped up and yelled-she hit her head. What did the refs do-nothing? The ball was knocked out of bounds and Chloe jumped right back up. The refs gave her the ball to throw in. Her coaches yelled asked if she was okay, but as she answered "yes" I could tell she wasn't. Her voiced wavered and our girl who never cries was close to tears. So what did she do---kept playing. I mean probably her thinking was-I'm not bleeding, nothing is broken, I can play through a little headache. And play she did for almost 2 more quarters. The whole time she was playing she kept touching her head-you could tell something was definitely wrong.
Looking back I don't know if the fact that she played through her concussion made her healing worse or prolonged, but it probably definitely could have been a factor.
After the game I went with her to see the trainer. He checked her out and thought she was okay, but told her to come back the next day if there were any problems and unfortunately there were. By the time we got home she had developed a severe headache, which would remain with her in various degrees for the next 6 plus weeks.
*at 9 weeks she is still having constant daily headaches-they are now considered post concussion syndrome-since she has recovered from the actual concussion.* more on that to come
After checking Chloe out the next day the trainer determined that Chloe did indeed have a slight concussion. Neither Landon or I had ever had a concussion so we really didn't know what we were dealing with. The trainer said Chloe was out for the rest of the week, and told her to rest over the weekend and stay off screens and maybe by the following Monday we could see how she was. Neither Landon or I really knew what we were dealing with, so to and extent we just carried on. We sent her to school, although she would come home early or go in late because her head was hurting so bad. We let her go to practice and games cause she wanted to-she didn't practice just sat there, but she wanted to be there with her team. However, she would be in severe pain afterwards and we probably should have not let her attend. We just didn't know.
Because we didn't know what we were dealing with I actually made an appointment and took her to her medical doctor. He kind of checked her out and then just pretty much said have her rest up and stay in touch with the trainer and it will probably take a couple of weeks for the symptoms to go away. He also wanted her to have a CTSCAN done. So I took her in to the ER for one of those. The did the scan and said her head looked okay no fractures or brain bleeds and then the freaking ER doctor told us maybe she should drink a Dr. Pepper to help with the headaches. I literally wanted to punch her. Oh and she also said that maybe her headaches were caused from taking to much medication. First off, I hadn't given her anything besides over the counter Tylenol that her regular doctor told me to give her and I could barely get that down her-obviously the ER doctor had no clue about head injuries and just wasted both my time and money.
Lesson learned the hard way both of those appointments were unnecessary and cost me lots of money I didn't need to spend, but we will get to that.
The following Monday Chloe went back to school but it was pretty hit and miss because of the headache pain. She also went back to see the trainer. He did some tests on things like balance, vision, being able to focus, etc and pretty much determined she was out for the rest of the basketball season. Not what we wanted to hear, but at least now we knew. At about two weeks in the trainer recommend that we go to a concussion clinic and see a doctor at the sport and performance building who specialized in concussion since hers seemed like it might be one that was going to take a little longer than normal to recover from.
That is where we met Dr. Millward, someone who actually knew what he was talking about. He told us our other visits with the regular medical doctor and for the ctscan weren't necessary, but that most people make the same mistake. Dr. Millward had us start giving Chloe Aleve as well as fish oil capsules. The Aleve was to help with the headache pain. The fish oil capsules to help in the brain healing. He had her go to half days of school for the rest of that week and set some other guidelines for her, such as leaving basketball games or practice if her headaches got worse. This was a hard one for her and she didn't always do it, but we tried to encourage her and enforce it. He also set restrictions in certain school classes like shop (because she had experienced dizziness in there) and computers and film (for obvious reasons).
We started looking forward to softball season hoping Chloe would be better and cleared by the time it was time to try out. The trainer did her first exertion test just before that and let's just sat it didn't go well. She got dizzy, her head hurt badly, and you could tell just by looking into her eyes that she was still concussed. Unfortunately, she wasn't cleared. At this time we had another appointment with Dr. Millward. It was about 3-4 weeks in. We decided to start her on a prescription, Diclofenac, that would hopefully help more with the brain swelling and headaches. This seemed to help a little bit and she started to see some difference in her pain level. The doctor and trainer decided to let her got to softball tryouts with restrictions-she could hit off a tee and throw the ball, but no live play, and mostly she just had to sit in the dugout and watch. The coaches put her on the team, not really knowing when she would be cleared, but they knew she could play ball and were hopeful. The first few games of the season came up, a tournament, and Chloe wasn't able to play. She was getting upset and frustrated. At this point we started to give her CBD oil along with her other medications.
*CBD oil is naturally derived from cannabis plants, usually hemp, and does not contain THC.*
After about 4 days we started seeing more positive results. In fact she would have several days over the next few weeks with no pain or a level 1 which is the lowest. This was hopefully. However, after failing another exertion test we were all beginning to feel frustrated. I went and talked to the trainer and asked if we could go about getting her cleared in another way. So instead of having her do those intense exertion tests we just had her work her way back into the game little by little. By the next tournament the trainer and doctor decided to let her play a couple of games and see how she did. The main reason they decided this was that they could tell by looking into her eyes that she was doing better they were clear, she could focus, and had better balance. During those trial games her headaches did not worsen and better yet she was happier than she had been in weeks.
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| Her first time being able to play with the team. Look at that smile! |
The following Monday she had another appointment with Dr. Millward. He ran some tests on her and cleared her to play sports even though she was still dealing with some headaches. The reason for this was that even though she was still having headaches everything else was doing better such as balance, focus, eye clarity. She was so happy. Honestly I truly believe that sometimes part of healing is being able to do the things you love.
She told her coach that Monday and he immediately switched her from the Freshman/Sophomore team to the JV/Varsity.
Even though she was cleared to play-she still wasn't 100%. We noticed that a school especially her headaches seemed to get worse. I talked with the school counselor, I had actually been in contact with him several times before, so he knew what was going on, but once I contacted him he immediately put a plan in to place for Chloe, which included emails to all of her teachers and time for breaks. This seemed to help and we were able to get her daily headaches down from about a 3 to a 1 or 2. However, after a few weeks she stopped doing this partly because it made it hard to keep caught up on everything she missed when she left class early and a few of the teachers caused her more stress than it was worth.
At 9 weeks we went again for a visit with Dr. Millward. He determined that she has moved past the concussion and is now dealing with something called
post concussion syndrome. It is unknown why some people experience this and others don't. Simply speaking post concussion syndrome is a medical condition lasting weeks or sometimes months after the injury has occurred. There are many different ways it can manifest. In Chloe's case it mainly constant daily headaches, but she also can experience brain fog at times (feeling like her head is in a bubble). Here is
link on an article on post concussion syndrome. Though Chloe's headaches are less severe than our last visit she is still experiencing them pretty much constantly on a daily basis. We are going to kind of taper off medications when she is at a level 1, but if she gets to a level 2-3 we are going to try giving her Imitrex (which is used to treat migraines) and also try what she was prescribed before or Tylenol and ibuprofen if the imitrex doesn't seem to help. In four weeks when he sees her again if the headaches haven't resolved we will get more aggressive with them. At this point he is thinking her healing might be 3-4 months, but possibly up to 6.
Honestly Chloe has handled all of this pretty well. I mean there are times she has shown frustration, but for the most part she just carries on she doesn't whine or complain about it. In fact one day she said to me "well I can't just lay in bed all day". I'm glad she feels that way otherwise we might be dealing with some depression on top of everything else.
In the meantime we will just keep hoping and praying that one day she will be fully healed. I believe she will I just don't know when. I remember telling someone right when this happened that I felt like this was going to be a long process. When they asked what I meant I said I don't know for some reason I just feel like this might be one of the biggest challenges Chloe has to face in life and that I think it's going to be a long time for her to fully heal. Unfortunately that premonition was true.
Even though I had that feeling at the beginning it hasn't made this whole thing any easier. I have had my share of angry moments, said several bad words, and cried more than once, but all we can do is keep trying new things and believing there will be an end to this all.
Keep fighting and believing Chloe girl-never give up!
#concussion #mildtraumaticbraininjury #postconcussionsyndrome
In my post I failed to mention everything we did or tried with Chloe, but we did a lot and I'm going to mention it now because I believe most of it was probably helpful in some way. Here are some of the other things we tried. Essential Oils-I think the blend we used was----. Hyperbaric Chambers-she went to several dive sessions throughout this entire thing. Massage-both cranial and on her neck from a very knowledgeable masseuse -she had many of these. Chiropractic Visits and adjustments-also had several of these.
