I personally believe that it's inevitable to experience hardships in some stretch of one's life. For me, I faced my first major setback Junior year of high school, and I think that I’m still facing it head on today. As a recent transfer, I made it my mission to stay on top of school work, my social life, extracurricular activities, and work. I was determined to have a successful Junior year. Shortly after the first day of school, I was in a car accident with my mother and two year old sister. As a result, I was diagnosed with a mild traumatic brain injury (TBI).
All brain injuries are serious and TBIs are no exception. The thing about concussions is that there is constant uncertainty. Uncertainty about how severe it is, how long it will take to heal, what symptoms come up more and why. I was on brain rest for two straight weeks, never leaving my bedroom because even the natural sunlight would trigger headaches. I was doing half days at school for months on end, while juggling the many Physical Therapy, Occupational Therapy, MRIs and brain trauma sessions I had to help guide my healing process along. I would be lying if I said things got easier right away, because they did not. My grades slipped and I stopped many activities. Junior year was the hardest year of my life.
After winter break I was hoping that things would get “back to normal” but they did not. TBIs cause cognitive deficits and my IMPACT assessment results showed my memory was quite affected. My ACT suffered due my inability to maintain short term memory and headaches were triggered after condensed concentration. In fact, my therapy management plan stated that I should refrain from all standardized testing. I was frustrated because it felt like I couldn't do anything normal. For well over one year, I had planned an independent study to Europe after Junior year. As therapy progressed, I vowed to not let my concussion take over my life, therefore I still went on the trip. Europe was challenging, with symptoms constantly flaring up and little time to rest and let my brain cool down. But I had built up a lot of tolerance to the pain, dizziness and vestibular challenges and I was able to endure quite a bit. Realizing this dream trip meant a lot to me and I don’t regret it for a minute.
As soon as I returned from Europe, I started gearing up for Senior year. Life had a different plan for me, when on July 14, 2018 I was in another car accident and suffered a second TBI. The process began all over again-- more doctors, assessments, brain rest, therapy and accommodations throughout my days, as well as confusion. I was confused why this happened to me again, and couldn’t help but wonder, “Why was I involved in two accidents in less than one year?” I’m pretty sure I still don’t have an answer.
What I have learned is to never take my health for granted. I have also learned how distracted drivers are everywhere and so incredibly dangerous. It’s hard to live life to the fullest when you have constant headaches or dizziness. For someone like me who wants to constantly move, being forced to slow down was challenging. I’m thankful for my family who had my back, and I’m proud of myself for never completely giving up, though I wanted to many times. A huge takeaway is how fragile and incredible the brain is. Arguably it is the heart of your whole life. I now know that I’m so much more than the accidents that happened to me. Things have improved and now I can happily say that I’m writing this essay without a single headache. I’m not completely healed, but I’m on a strong road to recovery.