Letting Go Of Lacrosse: Catherine Varner’s Story

Catherine Varner, a college student who lives in Florida, shares with us her story of giving up lacrosse because of post-concussion syndrome.  She has been dealing with post-concussion for thirteen months now, and will also be contributing to the blog’s cause, “Project Brain Wave,” in the near future.

(Project Brain Wave)  I’ll admit I never knew much about concussions before my life suddenly changed the day after my injury. I was a college student making my way through a busy semester that included lacrosse, 20 credit hours (5 classes), and an internship. I was on track to graduate a year early and my grades were great. I hadn’t been playing lacrosse for long but I loved it and it consumed my life. I was constantly doing something, working on something, or going somewhere. I liked being busy and I didn’t rest much or take time for myself. With the lacrosse season winding down, our team traveled by bus a few hours north to play our second-to-last game of the year. The evening game was against a team that was better than we were but that didn’t stop us from playing as hard as we could. No one wants to go down without a fight. They were an aggressive team, both offensively and physically, and there had been plenty of hits and fouls to start off the game. In women’s lacrosse, unlike in men’s, the players don’t wear helmets. All that’s worn is a slim pair of goggles that do little other than protect the eyes themselves. The reason for this is that the women’s game is supposed to be more about speed, finesse, and skill, rather than physicality. In reality, this isn’t the case.

I have little memory of the game itself. About halfway through the first half, a player on the other team hit me forcefully with her stick as we collided. I went down and the ref blew the whistle. The hit itself wasn’t anything huge or dramatic. I had seen teammates get taken out by far worse. It just seemed like a “normal” foul to those around me. The referee issued a yellow card to the other player for a “check to the head” which, in women’s lacrosse, meant that she had to leave the field for 3 minutes to serve the penalty while her team played a man down. Since I drew the foul, I was to receive possession of the ball when play resumed. I was slow to get up and I remember thinking that she’d bowled me over pretty hard. As I started to get up I also noticed that I was visibly shaking. I didn’t have much time to think about how I was feeling because the ref handed me the ball and blew the whistle for play to continue. I have no memory of the rest of the game except for a few moments when I was feeling absolutely awful. Looking back they were all indicators of the head injury that I had no idea I had. I noticed that I had become very nauseous and that felt like I was going to pass as I played the rest of the game. I remember thinking to myself “These lights are so bright, why isn’t this bothering anyone else?” It was a night game so the field was lit by stadium lights, which are bright but not exactly blinding. At halftime, I sat away from the rest of the team trying to collect myself.

I just kept thinking it was weird that I was shaking. I couldn’t think of a good reason why and I criticized myself for perhaps faking or exaggerating it. I mean, why would there be anything wrong?

The coach asked if I was okay and I kept saying, “Yeah I’m fine, I just don’t feel well.” I just wanted to be left alone and to be able to block out what I was feeling so that we could finish the game and go home. I went out and played the entire second half. It became increasingly difficult and I just kept noticing that everything seemed to be moving so quickly. I chalked it up to the speed and skill of the other team at the time.

In women’s lacrosse after every goal and at the start of the game and the second half, a draw or faceoff is taken. One player from each team holds her stick parallel with the other player’s and the ball is played in between the two. Once the ref places the ball if either of the two players moves before the whistle is blown, the other team gets automatic possession of the ball. Needless to say, it’s important to be able to hold still. We had three people on our team who typically took draws and I was one of them. After the half both of the other players were out of the game either because of injury or penalty. I was the only person on the field left to take the draws, but the problem was I couldn’t hold still. The shaking continued to get worse to the point where my sole focus, when I took the draws, was on just trying to hold still so that the other team didn’t get the ball because of me.

After the game was over, the coach dragged me over to the visitor’s trainer (we don’t travel with our own) and told her to talk to me. I explained that I didn’t feel well and that I was shaking. She asked when I had last eaten and I told her that we all ate on the bus on the way up to the game a few hours earlier. She decided that we’d probably eaten at a “weird time” and that my blood sugar was most likely low and that was what was causing the shaking and not feeling well. She gave me a tongue depressor with a scoop of peanut butter on it and told our coach that they needed to make sure that I ate when we stopped for food on the way back. Being nauseous I wasn’t exactly thrilled with this “solution” but I just wanted it all to stop so I ate it. By this time most of my teammates had already changed and were heading to the bus. I quickly went back to the sideline to pack up my stick and things. I started to try and untie my cleats but no matter how hard I tried I couldn’t do it. My hands were shaking too badly for me to do anything and I felt awful. One of my teammates finally had to come over and untie them for me. She also had to tie the tennis shoes I changed into for me. It was incredibly embarrassing. I was just thankful that she was one of the only people left out on the field and that no one else had witnessed it.

On the bus ride back I called my mom to tell her about the game and to tell her that I wasn’t feeling well. I don’t really remember the phone call. When we talked about it later she said that I was crying and that it had worried her because that wasn’t at all common for me.

When we returned to campus, at about 1:30 in the morning, the coach told a teammate to walk me back to my dorm and that I shouldn’t take a shower in case I passed out. My irrational brain, however, decided to take a shower when I got back. I had convinced myself that I was fine and knew that I wouldn’t want to have to get up earlier to get one in before class.

I spent the next day fighting the urge to pass out. I was still shaking and felt awful. I went to our school Health Center and they told me I was probably having an allergic reaction to an allergy medication I had started taking (ironic, I know). The semester was almost over and I had a lot to do before it wrapped up, not to mention the fact that we still had the last game of the season. I still thought I might just be sick.

At practice the next day I had a splitting headache, was nauseous, and couldn’t stop shaking. It was our last practice of the season, and while we still needed to be ready for our last game, everyone was joking around having a good time, including the coaches. I was extremely serious and focused, however. I was struggling really hard not to let me symptoms slow me down but it was so sunny, and I was so sensitive to the light, I could barely keep my eyes open. When practice ended I went the training room as I usually did to put ice on the hip flexor I’d torn before the season started and to remove the tape on my ankles. I was extremely edgy and snapped back at anyone who asked me how I was, something very out of character. I wasn’t the kind of person who liked to wear their emotions on their sleeve, let alone admit physical weakness, but this was amplified even more by the injury. One of my teammates was worried and she spoke to the trainer while I stormed in and began aggressively wielding the tape cutting scissors at my ankles despite the tremor. The trainer knew I was sensitive to talking about things and come over to where I was sitting to ask me how things were going. I grunted several minimal responses but deep-down I knew she was probably and right when she said I needed to look into what was wrong.

The next day we traveled by bus to our last game a few hours away. I didn’t eat much when we stopped for lunch because the nausea was particularly bad that day. It was a noon game and the sun was shining so brightly. The biggest things I remember about the game were that I just kept thinking it was uncomfortably bright, I was shaking but not as badly as I had during the last game, and I couldn’t get the nausea under control. I was fortunate that it was the last game of the season but I know I was probably jostled and knocked around in the game. Looking back, I was extremely lucky that I was never hit hard enough for Second-Impact Syndrome to occur but it scares me how close I was cut it.

In the weeks that followed I avoided going to the doctor at all costs. It was the last thing I wanted to do. I just wanted to finish up with all my classes and go home. This was easier said than done though. I found it very difficult to study for my exams; I couldn’t stay focused, let alone retain any information. I had three final exams and they all went poorly. I also had four large final papers that I turned in. They took me much longer than usual to do and all had a slightly incoherent element to them at times. I finally, after much pressure from my family, friends, and coach, went to see a doctor near the school. I drove myself and got lost several times along the way. The doctor ordered a series of blood tests and such. To my embarrassment, I got lost in the three-story parking garage as I was trying to leave and ended up in tears. I just didn’t understand what was wrong.

I continued to have more tests run as the school year finished up and the doctors were confused with my case. I went home worn out and defeated by this mysterious illness. After a few weeks of being at home I started seeing doctors again, despite being reluctant to do so. I was referred to a neurologist who specialized in movement disorders. Things were being ruled out left and right as more and more test were performed (I had so many blood tests my arms were bruised) and the neurologist diagnosed my shaking as an essential tremor. He could offer little as far a broader diagnosis was concerned but told me that whatever it was would probably get better with time. I was then referred to another infectious disease doctor (an infectious disease being the popular theory as to what was wrong at the time).

I was so tired of being poked and prodded and questioned, only to be told the same thing by each doctor: “Sorry, I don’t know what’s wrong but give it time and things will probably get better. If you want I can refer to someone else who can rule some other things out.” Things weren’t getting better with time though and I was feeling worse and worse as things went on. I finally decided to stop seeing any more doctors. If time was what my body needed, then time was what it would get.

A diagnosis finally came three excruciating months after the injury. Having no idea what was wrong I attempted to do some light exercising to stay in shape and improve my foul mood. One afternoon I put in an easy, beginner’s yoga DVD at home, thinking it might help me relax. About ten minutes in to the light warm-up I felt dizzy and nauseous and my tremor got so bad I couldn’t hold anything. I had to stop and spent the rest of the day in bed. Being a medical professional herself, my mom was worried about this reaction to what was extremely light exercise compared to what I was used to. She sat down and began to pour over the stack of doctor’s records I had accumulated. She started at the beginning and was asking me questions about the first time I started to feel bad when she had a thought. My symptoms had started during a game in which I had been telling the doctors that I remember getting “bowled over” by a player on the other team. She started pressing me for more details about the game when I suddenly realized I couldn’t remember any of it. I remembered getting up off the ground in the game and not feeling well but I had no memory of the first half of the game at all. It was a scary feeling to have a gap so obvious in my memory and not have known it had been there. I had seen more doctors than I could count on one hand by that point and yet it was my mom who first one who brought up the word ‘concussion’. To confirm her suspicions, we scheduled an appointment at a Sports Concussion Program at a hospital about three hours away from where we lived. When we got there, the doctor immediately had me take the ImPACT test again to compare to my baseline results from the year before. Even three months after the injury, my visual memory score had dropped by 30 points. While it was a scary realization for my mom and the doctor, I felt relieved that there really was something wrong with me. That the reason I couldn’t study for my exams wasn’t because I’d become lazy, but because I couldn’t hold on to the information from my notes in my head. After such a long time, I had begun to have doubts and was even starting to questions whether or not I was just making things up or exaggerating them. I thought I was going crazy.

The doctor confirmed our suspicions and officially diagnosed the concussion. He explained that most people with cases of post-concussion syndrome, which considering it had already been three months, he said I had, begin to feel better sometime after three to six months. I spent the rest of the summer hiding out in dark rooms of the house with headaches and nausea. I wasn’t eating much and began to lose weight that I had no business losing. Shortly after the diagnosis was made, I developed another unusual symptom; muscle spasms in my throat. They were extremely painful and uncomfortable and, like many of my other symptoms, there was little that could be done to provide relief.

I had serious talks with my parents and my doctor about whether or not I should return to school for the fall semester. I was eager to resume some kind of normalcy in my life so I decided that with some academic accommodations and a much lighter course load, it would be possible.

Back at school in the fall, I began seeing a vestibular therapist for the vertigo, dizziness, and balance problems that were making my daily life difficult. I was also trying various medications to help with the migraines, as well as the depression that had emerged after the promised six month mark had come and gone. I was struggling in school and the team had started to work out and prepare for the season. While they were running miles in practice, I could barely walk to class without feeling sick. Some days the fatigue was so bad it would take me almost two hours to be able to get out of bed and I would spend the day in a brain fog.

In experimenting with finding the right medications we discovered that I had developed a high sensitivity to most medications that didn’t allow me to take anything for the migraines without a horrible reaction. It meant that I had to take at least a quarter of the normal therapeutic dose of any anti-depressants I tried and that migraine medications had to be approached with extreme caution. One medication, in particular, caused me to lose feeling in my lower arms and hands. Others caused my blood pressure to bottom out every time I tried to get up.

Today, over 13 months after the injury, I still suffer from many of the same symptoms I did at the beginning of this process. I’ve seen way too many doctors who didn’t provide the help and support I needed along the way, and I’ve felt abandoned by the athletic department that promised to support me during my recovery.

One of the most devastating parts of the whole experience was learning that I’d never be able to play lacrosse in college again. It was too risky and there’s a strong possibility that I will still be battling symptoms even when I graduate. Even after sharing much of my experience with the training staff and coaches at the college, few changes have actually been implemented in practice on the field. It’s heartbreaking to watch teammates get taken out on the field in a game, and clearly suffer a concussion, only to be allowed to play in the next game two days later. I don’t feel that the college has learned from my experience or takes head injuries as seriously as they warrant. I have reached out to fellow athletes on campus who have actually been diagnosed by the training staff to offer the support and guidance I know they’re not getting from the athletic department. It’s disappointing to know that others could suffer the same fate I did because a lack of education and awareness. Over the past 13 months I’ve researched and read everything I could get my hands on about brain injuries and concussions in sports. It has become my on-going passion; to spread awareness about concussions and to emphasize that education is crucial. To reiterate to other athletes that it’s important to just say something. Whether you’re concerned about a teammate or yourself, it’s not worth it to keep your pride intact. All you have to do is say something. Admit that something’s wrong. Better to miss a few games, than to miss a few months of your life.

CATHERINE VARNER, Contributor

Tags: Catherine Varner, ImPACT, Lacrosse, Noodle's Noggin, Post Concussion Syndrome