Tom Ashbrook is right now interviewing wives of athletes who've had serious concussions - after today you can listen to it streaming radio, if you go to it now you can stream it in real time. There should be some other links up soon too. I know some of us have spouses who have had dementia after accidents, or whatever.
This would seem to jive with the results on the thread "Maybe a common thread" where a surprising number of our spouses suffered concussion or other "head" traumas at some time in their lives.
Thanks, Bluedaze. It was heart breaking. I haven't talked with her today, just guessed that she'd be sleeping ..since more than likely she was awake all night. It's so sad. All of my life is so sad right now. I can barely take a deep breath lately. Just jerky ones.
thinking troy aikman should be worried after that news. he was KO'd sooo many times. he retired over it and aftrwards was kinda ditzy in interviews for a while. scary. divvi.
Cassius Clay aka Mohamed Ali got knocked around as well....he has Parkinson's...no mention, to my knowledge of dementia though.
Divvi, there are several OLD quarterbacks (that would make Troy look like a baby - age wise) that I think got their wires crossed on the football field!
I definitely think there is a relationship in SOME concussions (depending on WHERE on the head the concussion occurred) that COULD have disconnected some of the wiring in the brain. Nancy, I don't think you need to be concerned for yours....
Speaking of Nancy's concuss'd brain...Saturday will be one month since I fell, and I still have a knot on my hairline/forehead the size of a marble..and still have headaches. Makes me wonder how football players feel most of the time. They get their bells rung with every hit, or so it seems. I feel so sorry for Mohammed Ali. Same for Michael J. Fox. Michael J. Fox is getting worse and worse. He was on TV recently and was really having a hard time - and I read he takes meds right before going on to control the tremors and jerks. Was anything ever said about whether MJFox had a head injury in his early years...I don't think he did.
The NFL is not being honest on this issue. They have a plan under which they'll pay up to $88.000 a year for a retired player who is diagnosed with dementia and needs care; yet, their disability plan apparently doesn't recognize the same condition and they are waffling on cause and effect. Obviously, it all comes down to money.
I saw that on TV too and my DH played football in college and got hurt all the time. He said he didn't have a concussion when he played football but he did when he got ran over by a car.
NancyB - I've been out of town and busy and .... and missed your post about your fall. I fell on Aug 1, also had CT scan. Now more than 2 months later I still have awful headaches, some blurred vision, and fatigue which feels moreso than before. AND I've found myself incorrectly naming things, like a "ladder" - can't remember what I called it, but my doctor says I have POST CONCUSSION SYNDROME and that this could last for awhile. Sheezzz.... the headaches are bad enough, but the forgetting names of things is really frightening. I handle it by just putting it out of my mind which I'm getting really good at these days. I have a hematoma STILL just under my eyebrow. Last two doctors visits it didn't hurt when he touched it but usually it's painful to the touch and sometimes quite so. He has ordered an MRI but doesn't thing it will show anything. But I don't want to take any chances so I'm definitely having it and just hope it doesn't show anything.
Terry, OMG....you are the only one I have heard from who also had a concussion. You are describing to a tee what I am experiencing. The blurry vision ... (I have even wondered if my vision needed to be re-checked, and perhaps changing my contacts).. the fuzziness in my head and oh LORD, the headaches. My huge hematoma (about the size of a tennis ball, is down to the size of a marble..and YES, it still hurts when I touch it. It's near my front hairline and it hurts when I brush my hair and touch it with the hairbrush. The big knot was on my forehead, between my hairline and down to my right temple. HUGE. Then, it turned purple,red,blue and slid down my face to include a closed gooey eye, and upper cheek bone. I have had nurses come in to see my husband and they have simply said, "Oh, it'll take at least a month to get better"... but no one used Post Concussion Syndrome ... I am under so much stress, I thought that the forgetting names was stress related. I cannot believe I didn't fracture my skull, but the CT scan said I didn't. I wonder why Natasha Richardson didn't seek care right away. It hurts sooooooo much when you hit your head. I thought about her right away and went to the hospital ...
I hope you get better..I hope I get better. I am sure we will, but it's not easy to do all we do and have those incredible headaches at the same time.
I hate being a "whiney butt" as my daddy used to call us. I'm almost to the other side of the stress thing..in that it's become so normal to me... that I'm afraid normality as others know it..would stress me out. .........Think about that!
Nancy and Terry, every time I read about your concussions I think of Natasha Richardson. I hope you are doing whatever is necessary to prevent the same thing happening to you. They say it can happen even months after the original blow. I'm sorry - that's really a negative thing to bring up. But do take care of yourselves!
Weejun--I meant it as a compliment, actually. I agree with you on the use of humor--maybe one of us will become a standup comic "later on", kind of like when Roseanne or Phyllis Diller broke ground joking about being a housewife. That would sure be a new angle!
Marilynnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnnn, you want someone to stick a needle into my "headache".... noooooooo, please nooooooooooo. I do wonder about what Janet said. I mean to tell ya, folks, ... When my head hit the ceramic tile floor, I heard something go "CRACK"!!! I have never had such a feeling or heard such a sound before. I'm hoping these headaches get better. I don't know if they are from the concussion or the stress of getting Hospice on board topped with my husband throwing two mini strokes into the mix.
Janet, it's all just part of our life. Thank you for understanding and seeing beyond the obvious. I've always been the 'fixer" in the family and was darned good at it until recently, I was a single mom (with no dad in the picture) for 21 years before I married Foster. We made it work..by keeping our shoulders together and heads UP! If no one blinks, we'll make it through this one..just you wait and see.
The segment on 60 Minutes really impressed me. My husband played football in HS, fell off the roof a few years ago "uninjured", also was in a car wreck on the Interstate where he was Tboned and the car was totalled. He would not receive any medical attention for the roof incident and car.
He is not as bad off as the exNFL player on 60Mins, but there was something about the info that struck a cord in me that somehow resembles our situation. My husband acted "strange" for a few years after the accidents and before his diagnosis.
He kept telling me that we had a "difference of opinion". We did, mine was based in reality and he was off - and still is - in left field somewhere, just farther away.
I've posted a link on my Facebook site to Malcolm Gladwell's article about football players and dementia - and dog fighting. I wouldn't have read it if it hadn't been by Gladwell, or probably if it hadn't been in the New Yorker, but I found it very interesting. The link with dogfighting is basically with dogfighting you know living beings are going to get hurt/killed; and with football it is becoming obvious that that is also the case. And then he goes into lengthy discussion of how examining the brains of football players, all ages, is leading to a discovery of the tau in almost every brain, whether or not dementia had been identified, and that it leads to not Az but CTE, Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy, which is "a progressive neurological disorder found in people who have suffered some kind of brain trauma... has many of the same manifestations as Alzheimers"