In August 2008, I suffered a concussion in an auto accident. Another driver — who told the cops that he was going 35 mph, but humans being humans, probably was going 10 mph faster than that —  T-boned the driver’s side of my car. I have read a lot in the news lately about concussions, particularly regarding collegiate and professional athletes, and I imagine that you have, too. So as a public service, I am going to tell you about my concussion.

First, a disclaimer. I am not a doctor, and I do not attempt here to give you any medical explanation. If I did, there is a 100% chance that it would be all wrong. The only “medical” thing that I will tell you is that the Mayo Clinic website defines a concussion as “a traumatic injury that alters the way your brain functions.” (That may not explain a lot about a concussion, but it may explain a lot about me.)

In any event, I certainly was not in the market for a concussion at 9:15 that morning. I had just dropped the kids off and was headed into work. The light turned green, and I accelerated, and then the car was no longer moving. I remember thinking, “This is weird. The car is no longer moving.” When I woke up, firefighters had surrounded the car, looking into the windows like I was an animal at the zoo. I did what any reasonable person would do: I reached for my cell phone. After many, many tries, I was finally able to dial the seven digits of my husband’s number. I gave him this reassuring message: “I am surrounded by firemen but I am not on fire. I repeat: I AM NOT ON FIRE.”

At this point, I had no idea that I had suffered a concussion or even that I had been knocked unconscious. Those realizations came later. All I remember was the corsage of pain spreading on the left side of my head. And a certain degree of mania.

Just as some athletes who have been walloped go into a “put me in, coach!” mode, I went into a spectacular display of 40 year-old womanhood. An hour and a half after the car had been towed away, I was sitting on a spin bike, hooping and hollering in an exercise class. I had no idea why I could never get the orange Gatorade to go from water bottle into my mouth, so my right shoulder stayed wet (and full of electrolytes!). After spin class, I walked next door to a shoe store and very loudly bought four pairs of shoes. (I am normally not a particularly quiet person, so if I remember being loud, it must have been something.)

And then I visited my co-workers. This is when the red flags began to wave. I learned later that I walked in and out of one friend’s office and told him the same story, in the same words and cadence, three different times in a 10 minute interval. (My grandmother suffered from Alzheimer’s, and I remember similar conversations with her.) I recall suddenly finding it very hard to see, like a recurring vision brown-out. And I told another friend the whole part about waking up surrounded by firefighters in terms of the songs that I had missed.

Let me explain. That morning, and most mornings during that time, I listened to a CD called “Now That’s What I Call Party Hits!” (You can see the entire album list here.) I will mention as a side note that when I was growing up, my parents always warned me to wear clean underwear in the event that I was in an accident. (When I mentioned this to my husband, he told me that he never received a similar warning from his parents. I now have a gnawing fear that I was notorious in my youth for not wearing clean underwear and that this was my parents’ remedy. But I digress.) I wish that my parents had also warned me about listening to appropriate music in the event I was in an accident. Did everyone really need to hear Kelis’ “Milkshake” at the scene? Wouldn’t it have left a far better impression if I were listening to classical music? But I wasn’t, and thanks to the fact that I obsessively listened to that CD, I realized that I last remembered hearing “Party Like a Rock Star” and woke up to the end of “Run It!,” meaning I’d missed parts of those songs and all of “This is Why I’m Hot.”

My missing six minutes of music was enough for my very small but very determined co-worker to load me into her car and take me to the emergency room. I remember being a handful (which, again, is saying something), and I remember her driving by my house as I tried, without success, to open the door handle. When I arrived at the hospital, I fortunately had new shoes to show the all nurses and the ER doctor, and even more fortunately, I had a CT scan that came out negative. But I had a concussion.

Several things stand out about this time. My brain felt like a yolk rattling around the shell of my skull. When I would walk, it was like watching a film of myself walk. The movement worked, but I felt completely disengaged from it. My head hurt, but my teeth hurt even worse. I had trouble remembering words. And I had a bewildering meeting at a restaurant with a caring stranger — a tall, good-looking man who seemed to know a lot about me. What had I done? Alas, it was my neurologist, a fact that I deduced weeks later. (Although I felt bad at first, I felt even worse later: How many times exactly does this happen to a neurologist, to have all of these patients who have no idea who you are?) I will give you this advice, too. If your co-workers offer to take you to someplace like TGI Friday’s to celebrate your return to work, decline. It is sensory overload times a thousand. As I sorted through post-concussive syndrome over the next few months, I remember headaches, depression, insomnia, forgetfulness, anger, confusion, overwhelming anxiety, and lots of crying jags. I was a delight. An addled delight.

Fortunately, the concussion has left no lasting physical effects — well, at least no physical effects of which I am aware. Although I couldn’t remember my neurologist’s face, I remember well his advice: Don’t get another concussion. It is sound advice, but I can’t figure out exactly how to change my behavior to avoid another concussion. God knows I wasn’t looking for this one.

ALC