In eighth grade we spent P.E. Learning how to play lacrosse and I was hooked. I’d read about it in My Side of the Mountain by Jean Craighead George and was excited to play the sport from that book. My mom encouraged me to try out for the team in high school, and I was put on offense for my freshman year. Sophomore year was spent on defense, and I played goalie in my junior year. Senior year was spent as team manager because my knee was causing me problems. (More on that next chapter).

I think the worst concussion I’ve ever had happened during lacrosse practice when I was sixteen. We were doing a scrimmage with the JV girls, and Coach had me playing defense. I was tracking one girl on offense, and she somehow tripped me and I went crashing into the ground. This was during February in northern Virginia, so the ground was still basically a grass-covered block of ice. Next thing I know, I’m on my back, my glasses and the goggles I wore over them are fucked up, and Coach is kneeling next to me and asking how many fingers he was holding up.

I saw a bunch of fingers. This was not the correct answer.

Later, I’d find out that he told my mom it sounded like a watermelon being dropped on hardwood when I hit the dirt. I have no memory of leaving lacrosse practice, and I think I didn’t immediately ask to be taken to the ER because I’m an idiot who thinks: “suck it up, rub some dirt on it, and move on” when this kind of thing happens.

(I once refused to go to the ER when I broke my wrist and had my mom make me an appointment for the following morning because I wanted to show off how high my pain tolerance was to my classmates. As an adult, boy howdy did that probably make the doctors judge my mom for not forcing me to go to the ER.)

Either that, or my mom drove me to the ER right away. It’s probably the latter, considering how I can’t remember pretty much anything of the rest of that day. I remember sleeping a lot and not having a blanket while I was on the gurney in the hospital. And how they kept saying I hit my head on a hardwood floor no matter how many times my mom and I corrected them.

I fell asleep during my CT scan. I kept falling asleep no matter how hard I tried to stay awake.

I don’t remember much of anything else after that. I don’t remember the weeks after. I don’t remember if I missed school. I don’t know how I recovered from this concussion.

Maybe I never really did.