This is my brain on January 2nd. According to the doctor, it showed a normal scan. I, however, was showing symptoms of a concussion. Nausea, fatigue, dizziness, headache, difficulty concentrating, mood swings, etc. I’d been through the rigamarole twice beforehand, so I knew what to do. Have someone watch me that first night, get plenty of rest, stay off the computer for a while and avoid the TV. And I did that.

For eighteen days.

I was still feeling the same symptoms on the twentieth that I felt on the second. But what really set me off was a pot of coffee that tasted nothing like coffee to me and tasted just fine to everyone else. Long story short I had just made bad coffee and I got referred to a neurologist who diagnosed me with post-concussion syndrome or PCS. It’s a disorder that combines a bunch of concussion symptoms and makes them last for weeks, months, and sometimes a year or more.

Reading that last part makes me feel more nauseated than I already do.

I can’t work like this. I can’t focus. I can’t think. I can hardly drive. My head is constantly coming up with fun new ways of hurting at random spots and random times. I’m getting double vision sometimes and blurred vision at other times. I’m living in a cave-like room full of nothing but quiet and darkness and I haven’t been able to watch the TV without feeling seasick since New Years. I can’t bend over to pick things up unless I want to almost black out when I get back up. I get so tired during the middle of the day because my head hurts so bad that I just want to go hide in my cave and sleep it off. Then I’m left awake at 3AM like right now, headache back and unable to fall asleep again.

I don’t know if I can take much more of it. I honestly feel like a burden at this point, and I know that people have said otherwise. I just do.