There are a ton of great games to play and movies to see and bands to listen to, but lately I’ve been sinking all my time into one of life’s less mainstream experiences: having a concussion. If you’ve been wondering if having a concussion is right for you, here’s what you need to know.
Availability
Unlike RAM or affordable housing, it’s pretty easy to get a concussion. I’m a little embarrassed about how I got mine: After meeting a friend last Saturday night, I biked home through a bike lane that’s long been under construction. The streetlight above it was either out or not working very well, and it was really dark. I remember smugly thinking “Boy, this is dangerous, it’s a good thing I’m being so careful–” and then I’m not really sure what happened. I was suddenly aware that I was making a weird yell–I could hear it, and knew it was my voice, but I didn’t feel like I was doing it–and then that my face and hands were skidding along the pavement. My best guess is that I hit something in the lane; I ended up in front of my bike with my shoelaces tangled in the handlebars, but even after revisiting the site the next day, I have no clue what caused me to crash.
Some other cyclists stopped to help me, but I was mostly focused on not making a big thing out of it. I thanked them and hurried away, and when I got to an area light enough to look at myself with my phone camera, I saw that my face was covered in blood and that what I thought was a bunch of gravel that had gotten in my mouth was, alas, pieces of one of my front teeth. I didn’t want to freak anyone else out, so I walked my bike home holding my arm over my face Phantom of the Opera style, which I recognize now probably wasn’t less freaky.
I tried to Google whether breaking a tooth is a medical emergency or just a real drag, and that’s when I realized I was seeing spots. I chalked it up to the adrenaline and to the fact that I’d broken my glasses, but I texted some friends to ask their advice. One of them, who is probably reading this and so would be very keen for me to tell you is a New York State-licensed neuropsychologist, came over and did the little tests you do to find out if someone has a concussion. In getting a concussion’s favor, these are kind of fun, but I could tell I wasn’t doing great at them–my balance was sort of off, and I could repeat back a list of words but not numbers. My friend told me I had a concussion, but I’ll admit I brushed it off as him being uptight; I’d had my helmet on and had been going slow. I grumbled and ranted about him making me stay awake for a few hours, and was peevy about him spending the night–he told me feeling irritable is one of the symptoms of a concussion, so it was at least also fun to yell “I’m irritable!” as a way to make light of the fact that I was aware I was being a dick to someone just trying to help me.
The next day my vision was fine and I felt pretty OK, so I convinced my friend to go home; I was tired and cranky, and I was sick of thinking about the whole stupid incident. I sat down to do some work on my computer, and I realized that even though I could see again, I couldn’t exactly read. I could see the words, and I knew what words they were, but they weren’t quite turning into meaning.
I called my friend and said “Hey, I think I have a concussion.” He said, “Yeah, I told you that,” and I said “No, I really think I have a concussion.” I still felt like the whole accident was so minor that it was impossible for this to really be happening, but I’ve since learned that you can get a concussion from all kinds of things, even if they don’t seem like a big deal. So if you’re worried you won’t be able to find a concussion when you want one, have no fear: they’re widely available.
Price
After more arguing with my friend, I decided to go to an urgent care. When I told the lady at the desk I thought I had a concussion, she told me to go to the ER. I dragged my heels and called my friend to fight about it some more, but I eventually decided that even if my friend is literally a doctor, “my friend says I have a concussion” felt like an irresponsible way to proceed with issues related to my brain, and that maybe it would be better to have it on the record somewhere.
You might share my concern about whether having a concussion is within your budget. I can’t say for sure yet, but it depends on your circumstances: Thanks to changes to New York State insurance due to Trump, I now have exceptionally garbage insurance. Prior to my crash, I had been joking that the financially responsible thing to do would be for me to have a minor but expensive injury early into my plan year to meet my impossible deductible, which my ultimate decision to go to the ER might well qualify as depending how poorly I understood my brand new insurance while having a head injury. In retrospect, I regret going, but I would definitely advise you to see some kind of doctor if you have acquired your first concussion. On a positive note, this means that having a concussion has come with bonus content: getting to have panic attacks as new, weird bills keep showing up, and getting to redirect some of my emotions about the situation into fury at the American healthcare system.
I was disappointed that the ER was not very much like The Pitt, and while I was curious about whether the show’s popularity has changed how people interact with ER staff I resisted the urge to ask, because I worried explaining “I’m asking because I’m a reporter, you see” with a face full of road rash and part of a tooth might give journalism a bad name. I was there for about six hours, during which they didn’t do very much–eventually a doctor and a resident poked at me a bit, agreed I probably had a concussion, and took some x-rays to see if I was hurt anywhere else. While this was definitely not worth whatever the visit is ultimately going to cost, I did have a sort of lovely time watching the dramas of the ER go by and all the nurses and paramedics working so hard to help people. I started wondering if I should become a paramedic, or if I should complete my chaplaincy training–neither of these career pivots will likely make having a concussion more affordable, but at least it passed the time as I sat there panicking about my insurance and feeling embarrassed that I was too small for my feet to reach the ground in the oversized triage area chair. Eventually the ER sent me home with a sheaf of papers about concussions, and I got to have one last humiliation when the resident caught me standing in the hallway attempting to read it by holding it against my face.
Gameplay
Following the dramatic early hours of having a concussion, the rest of the experience really drags. While you no longer have to slog through a tedious opener of sitting in a dark room for 48 hours, I probably rushed things a little too soon. I couldn’t look at my computer at all, and I could only bear my phone for brief flashes before my brain started to feel hot and gross in my head, so I spent a little too much time wandering that would have better been spent back at base. On Monday I went on a walk, which turned into the brain injury-induced bad idea to go to a nearby zoo. Groups of schoolchildren and the more energetic animals were way too much for me, and I ended up mostly staring blankly at the birds that were too boring for the kids to be interested in.
I also went to the dentist to get my tooth fixed. At the time, I thought everyone was very charmed by my declaring “I have a concussion!” whenever they asked me questions, but I can see now that this probably just freaked them out as they shined bright lights in my face and asked me to make medical decisions. I was relieved that the tooth was actually a pretty easy fix and not horrifyingly expensive, which means I never have to tell my mom what I did to the teeth she spent so much money for braces on. Walking home from the dentist I made another bad early concussion decision to go to the botanic garden, only to realize about 15 minutes in that I absolutely could not be there and had to sit down with my hands over my eyes until I could rally the strength to go home.
If you’ve been looking to make the experience of “looking at tulips” more cognitively challenging then you might enjoy a concussion, but all these bad choices laid me out later in the week. I’ve spent most of the concussion mid-game lying around at home feeling physically awful and also wildly anxious and sad, then trying not to feel anxious and sad because apparently that is also bad for having a concussion. It took me nearly a week to get to the dishes I’d left in the sink before my crash, because every time I thought about doing them, the steps involved seemed way too complicated. This weekend I decided I wanted a snack from the grocery store, and then was physically unable to decide what to get until I got worried the store staff thought I was shoplifting and left.
Apparently the optimal concussion strategy is to do things as you can handle them, then back off when they make your symptoms worse. Some of the things that slowly started to feel more possible were a little bit embarrassing: One of the things it was recommended I could do was color, so I bought an adult coloring book at a nearby bookstore, needlessly explaining to the staffer “I have a concussion!” when she asked me if I was looking for anything in particular. After a few days I was able to use my computer to watch literally only The Simpsons if I turned the volume and brightness nearly off. Fascinatingly, I never had problems doing my Duolingo Irish lessons, which required just enough cognitive effort to help my brain remember how to operate normally without overtaxing it, which is probably a real knock against Duolingo as a learning tool. Video games are still too much, though I did download one of those scammy-looking sorting puzzle games Duolingo is always advertising, which, like Duolingo, has been just the right amount of mindless to help me feel like I’m using my brain without causing it to pulse hideously against the inside of my skull. Trying to play my mandolin for the first time on Friday caused me to spend the rest of the day battling the need to throw up, but on Saturday night I managed a few scales as long as I kept my eyes closed.
My favorite parts of having a concussion have been going on walks, taking showers, and getting in bed at 9pm, which even if they feel like the way a sickly Victorian boy spends his time do have a certain charm. Besides the deeply unpleasant physical experience, it’s been surprisingly difficult emotionally, with my already-chaotic feelings just being all over the place. I suppose it’s a point in having a concussion’s favor that something so boring can still be so intense, and that it manages that feat with relatively little resources.
Takeaways
Even when I’ve had setbacks, things have by and large been improving. After a week I’m feeling a lot better, but there’s still more concussion to get through before I can roll credits on the whole thing. The experience of writing this blog has been incredibly weird, where as exciting as it is to be able to put words together again, it feels like way more work than usual. When I first started trying to write this, I managed about an hour before getting so clobbered with a headache and nausea that I had to turn off all the lights and dive into bed.
As awed as I am by my brain’s ability to clean up the mess I made for it in relatively short order, I’ve also found myself sort of struggling with what it means to get better. Before this happened, I was having a really difficult time with stress here at work, and even though having a concussion has been in no sense a vacation, it’s been a kind of a reset on how tough things had grown for me. My general life strategy for dealing with challenges is to pride myself on pushing through, and having to notice when my body and brain need rest and give it to them, even when I don’t want to or when I feel I haven’t put in the effort to “deserve” it, has been a real wakeup call. Being medically obligated to go easy on myself has been, frankly, terrible, but it’s given me some space to think about if it’s even possible for me to not just fall back into my usual habits.
It’s also made me think a lot about how I spend my time. There are so many things I want to do or spend more time on that I let take second place to work, and having my ability to do them put on pause just by banging my face on the ground has made me realize how precious my literal ability to do them is. Not being able to scroll social media without getting dizzy has made me more aware than ever that I don’t want it to play such a big role in my life, and all the things I do want to do have taken on a new urgency. (Having a concussion has also at least temporarily cured my bad habit of falling asleep on the couch in front of cartoons; going to bed in my bed is amazing.)
You could surely learn these lessons without getting a concussion, which if I could do things over is probably how I’d go about it. (Or I’d at least try to get one in a cooler way; the fact that it wasn’t even from playing rugby will shame me for life.) Overall, I can’t say I recommend having a concussion: while the novelty has on occasion been interesting, and while it’s introduced new challenges into stale life tasks like sitting upright and choosing what to wear, it’s a slow-paced experience that’s nevertheless unpleasantly stressful, and the variable cost and runtime don’t make it a good deal. 4/10.
Nathan Grayson
