How getting concussed changed my life forever

It’s not just football that can give you a head injury

November 11, 2014 is a day that I can vaguely remember, but that date will forever be embedded in my head.

That night I hit my head on the rugby pitch during a scrimmage with the Austin’s Women’s rugby team and became severely concussed. I can’t really remember anything from that night and since then, my memory hasn’t exactly been the same either.

During that particular scrimmage, I was playing as a Lock: Locks drive against the front row during the scrum thereby providing much of the power. Since I’m a Lock, I was wearing a scrum cap to protect my ears. I feel that a common misconception in rugby is that scrum caps will protect you from head injuries, which is false. They offer little to no protection, and despite wearing my scrum cap, I still got a concussion.

Like I mentioned earlier, I don’t remember that night, but one of my closest friend and teammate, Jessica Popoola does.

“There were a lot of injuries that night each of them increasing in severity. I was the first with a pulled groin muscle that crippled my ability to walk. I was taken out and all the attention was on addressing me and telling me to keep stretching and keep warm because it was cold out. I remember you laughing at me pulling my butt muscle again, then Shagam cut the interaction short by subbing you for me.

“Another player sprained their foot/ankle, the attention focused on her because she can’t walk. Finally, the most severe of them all was your injury. I didn’t see exactly what happened to you because I was focused on my issues.

“Then suddenly everything got real quiet, I was asking questions trying to figure out what was wrong. Remember, I was on the ground so my visibility was very low. Then Ru said you got hit and haven’t gotten back up. Two people walked you off the field and sat you down on a chair.

“You were so quiet. You didn’t really say much. Ru was asking you all kinds of questions, to determine the severity of it. I remember previously you told me that you forgot your bank pin code. So, I asked if you remembered. Ru thought that was in bad taste, but I thought if you couldn’t remember that you told me you forgot it roughly 15 minutes ago then you were probably very badly concussed. We wrapped you in blankets and tried to keep you warm.”

Ashley Ephraim, ball carrier, during one of the two playoff games in Colorado Springs, Colorado of Fall 2015. (AP Photo/ Elyanna Garcia)

That night, I couldn’t go back to my dorm, and had to be babysat by a teammate. She was given a basic list of instructions which included things to look out for that would require her to take me to the hospital. She didn’t feed me, because I apparently wasn’t allowed to eat a huge meal. I still remind her of how she starved me to this day. The next morning, I remember being lethargic and not being able to open my eyes fully, because any light made them hurt more. I could barely walk in a straight line: I’m quite sure that morning resembled someone suffering from a hangover. All I wanted to do was sleep for weeks.

I was sidelined for nine months, before I was finally clear to play again, but even then the sports doctor advised against it by telling me she was worried about what would happen if I got another concussion of the same severity. Before playing in the first game, every player has to get a physical which includes a baseline concussion test, basically just a series of timed activities on the computer. After taking the concussion test the second time, my simple reaction time score went from over 50 to just one.

My results from the concussion test when I finally got cleared to play are represented by the light gray lines. The middle section on each graph were when I retook the test about a month or two after my first initial visit

For two weeks, I was excused from both school and work, both were hard to deal with. School because, those were the final class days before finals, and I missed crucial lessons. Work was just hard in general, because I’m putting myself through school and paying for my own expenses like my phone bill, so two weeks off was me missing a whole paycheck. The doctor advised me to not listen to music, watch TV or use my computer just because the light or sound could irritate me and give me a massive headache… which it did. She also advised me to get a CT scan or an MRI, but I couldn’t afford it, so I opted out of it. At one point, the doctor thought I was crazy when she asked me who brought me to her office that morning, and I responded, “Ashley”. The problem with that answer is that my name is also Ashley, so I’m quite sure she was seconds away from calling the ambulance to take me away.

People often compare rugby and football with one another, but I have learned through research that football players suffer concussions more frequently because they smash helmets as a tackle method, but with rugby we wrap around their waist and use our shoulder to help us stop our opponent. My teammates reassured me that concussions didn’t really happen on the team, but during that season, I witnessed three other teammates get concussions. One was so severe she didn’t remember how she got to the game. I still never thought it would happen to me. I don’t think I was scared, but I was in denial for a while, sometimes I still want to forget that I ever had a concussion, but my remaining side effects never fail to remind me.

I learned that you really know who your friends are when you get injured. I’m not saying that my teammates are awful, but you can see the ones that really care. Of all my teammates, only four visited me or even attempted to contact me after I got my concussion. Even now, some of my friends on the team have gotten badly injured, and they get what I’m talking about…sometimes it just feels like the team really doesn’t care about your injury. Since being mainly neglected by teammates, I try to reach out to every teammate that gets an injury, because being alone really sucks, especially away from family in college. A support system, I learned, is key to recovery.

That scrimmage was the first time that our current coach, Patricia Adams, was taking over. She contacted the teammate that babysat me maybe once, but she was new, so I could see how she didn’t think it was her responsibility to check on me. My aunt was concerned when my teammate called her the next day, but after that I feel she expected it to go away overnight. I can’t blame her for not knowing how serious concussions can be, since it’s probably the first time she has encountered someone with it. Even when I went home for Christmas break that next month, she expected me to be regular ol’ Ashley, but I was still in the middle of my struggle.

Ashley Ephraim, orange scrum cap, waiting for her teammates to make the tackle so she can join the ruck that would form soon after during a Fall 2014 game during Tech. (AP Photo/ Varanich Chinprapinporn)

My memory is basically gone, sometimes short-term, sometimes long-term. My friends can tell me something and then I’ll forget it in less than five minutes and might remember it two to three days later. I remember I got my concussion around finals, and I had to basically relearn everything I learned in my Math course to prepare for the test. I spent two weeks studying and relearning, but when it was finally time to take the test, I couldn’t even finish half of it…to this day I actually don’t know how I passed that class.

Jessica saw my concussion affecting me in a different way:

“You forget a lot of things. You forget things that happened recently. You get frustrated with people pretty quickly. You’re a smidge angrier and just overall a bit bitter.  You’re so quick to accost someone too before considering all the implications. The biggest aspect I witnessed you struggle with was accepting that you were concussed.”

Since my concussion, I hear things. I hear creaking near the stairs that lead up to my bedroom. I believe I hear the balcony door slide open, despite the fact that I know it’s locked. Even though I know what makes these noises, I can’t help the fear that something is going to happen to me. I sound needy, but this has become my life. One day, I stayed in my room, hiding under the covers for hours until my roommate came home, because the noises got unbearably loud. After doing some research on this issue, I learned that “psychotic symptoms can happen a few months to many years after a concussion. It can manifest as hallucinations, delusions, paranoia, or any other perceptual disturbances.”

Now, I’m trying to take each day as it comes.

My only advice would be to let people help when they want to, don’t push them away.

Even though the team doctor advised against playing, I couldn’t help it. I love the sport and everything about it.

So in the meantime, you can either find me studying for classes or snapping my scrum cap on waiting to get back on the pitch.

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