I was inspired to write this blog due to once of my recent pages in my comic, dealing with blurred vision. I was thinking about head injuries and my experience with them like how I felt, what I saw, etc. So I wanted to make a blog out of it!

How about it?

• Have you ever hit your head, or injured it in some way?
• How did it happen?
• How did you feel?
• Did you lose consciousness?
• Did you have any lasting effects from it?

I injured my head badly on two occasions. Once in a bike wreck and once playing softball.

 

The First Time: "The Big Hill"

It happened when I was small. I was 8 years old and I was riding my bike down the infamous "big hill" near where I live. I did the two things my mom told me to NEVER do.  I had the bright idea not to wear a helmet...and to wear my mom's too-big, slip-on sandals. I thought I could wear the sandals because I velcroed them tight around my foot. I was used to wearing things that were too big for me because not only was I the youngest of three, I was a very tiny, under-sized eight-year old who refused to eat anything but ice cream. So, my mother resorted to keeping it away from me and cramming vitamins and iron pills down my throat to combat my stubbornness. The result: my clothes hung off my thin frame like a tent.

As luck was have it, as I rode down that hill, one minute the wind was whipping my face, and the next, my left sandal slipped off. I lost control. The pedals started to spin round and round and I couldn't get my feet back on. I could hear the gravel crunching on the road and my heart was thrumming in my ears. I freaked out and squeezed both of my handlebreaks as tight I could. The front of the bike came to an abrupt halt. Alas, the backend of the bike kept going, and I went with it, flying over the handlebars in a full-out somersault. I remember seeing the sky twice as I pin-wheeled, but on the second turn mid-air, I didn't make it all the way around before I collided with the ground. CRACK, my forehead smashed into the ground. I don't remember where the bike went.

The next part I remember is enormous effort of trying to stand up. My head felt really heavy, like a bowling ball, and I was very confused. I was scanning for the house so I could run to it and tell Mama that I hurt myself, but I could not find it. I managed to kind of stand once, more like a rocking of my feet, but I quickly flopped back to the ground, arms sprawled. I had no control over my hands or arms, and I could hardly raise my head anymore. I thought I saw Erin once or twice, so I opened my mouth and tried to call for her. Next thing I knew, Dad was picking me up. I was unable to cling to him.

For two weeks, I had a big whelt on my forhead on top of a huge goose-egg bump.  All my friends at school kep hovering around me worriedly. For a long time after that, I couldn't do things the same way anymore. I played softball, and I couldn't step and swing the bat at the same time. I had to relearn. (Before, I had been the best hitter on my pint-sized team.) I walked with my hands and feet in sync. Right leg with right arm, and left leg with left arm. I was told that I walked very strange and that I should walk more lady-like. (It took me about a month to get back to normal.) Post-incident, I began to do more things with my left side, like I learned that I could switch-hit more effectively and could even pitch left-handed.

Moral of the story: wear a helmet. Don't ride your bike with sandals.

...

The Second Time: "The Clump"

The second story is much simpler. I ate a ground ball. Literally.

Okay, I'm only half-kidding. My coach wanted to hit us ground balls on an unraked, grassy, grown-up-with-weeds field. I was the shortstop, so she always made me an "example" by hitting "BB's" (hard ones) at me. Unfortunately, this stupid coach wanted to do this for the first grounder of the season on a horrible rocky field. (It still makes me mad.) I usually wear a mouthguard, but this day I didn't because I had just gotten new braces, and I was still searching for a mouthguard to properly fit over them.

And so... When the the ball was hit, it ricocheted off a hard clump of red rocks and redirected to my mouth, flying just above my glove and "guard-hand" and cramming into my teeth. Blood exploded everywhere. My teammates were freaking out because my shirt was soaked with blood all the way down to my sleeves. (Heads and mouths are well circulated with blood, so they're what my sister terms, "big bleeders.") I was a bit woozy. I didn't know the shot had laid my teeth flat against the roof of my mouth and broken my upper palate (and given me a nice concussion) until my sister Erin arrived and forced me to open my mouth so she could see.

Gross!

 

So, how about you? Do you have any head injury stories?

Do you incorporate them into your comic? I know I do! When I was trying to imagine how Jude's vision looks when he's "out of it," I tapped into my very own childhood memories!