The actual concussing occurred three days ago. I only confirmed the concussion today.
So, I am a terrible sleeper. It takes me forever to fall asleep and then forever to wake up. While asleep, I apparently flail, roll, and kick the entire night. My sister has refused to share a bed with me since I was at least eight years old, opting for a couch or the floor whenever we went on vacation rather then risk bruises from my unconscious assault.
The problem has apparently gotten worse as I have gotten older. I have torn sheets off beds, flung pillow across the room, and caused pillowcases to go completely missing. I have woken up horizontal or so tangled up in blankets that I had to roll off the bed in order to free myself. One time, I woke up with my head where my feet normally are, with the comforter bunched under my head as a pillow, and a pillow balanced on my bum to act as a blanket.
Given all this, it should be no surprise to y'all that I have injured myself while sleeping in the past. Now, until this week those injuries have just included random cuts, a few bruises, and a pulled shoulder or three. On Sunday night, I decided to up the ante.
Now, this occurred while I was asleep- so I am not entirely sure what happened exactly, but this is what I could piece together:
Sunday night I had a terrible headache. I had already woken up two or three times because of it. Sometime around 5 or 6 am, my snoozing self decided to pull the blanket over my head- possibly to block out the light that was streaming through the window. Now, as I sleep like the Tasmanian Devil, at some point during the night I must have pulled my phone off my night stand and onto the bed, where it then proceeded to get tangled up in my blanket. At least, this seems like the reason why I was woken up by the sharp pain of a phone landing quite hard on my forehead. The only benefit of the bruising pain was that it caused my original headache to flee for a minute or two.
So there I was, clutching my forehead, staring at my phone, and trying to figure out what the fuck had happened. The pain began to spread, and my headache came back with a roaring force. I stumbled to the bathroom- took an Advil-and promptly went back to sleep. ((Note: if you ever have a head injury of any sort, this is a seriously dumb thing to do.))
I ended up sleeping until 4 PM, and besides for a red bump that was tender to the touch, I didn't seem any worse for the wear. I figured because I didn't have any symptoms of a concussion at the moment, and because the injury occurred to the front of my head, I was good to go. If nothing else, I knew what a concussion felt like...as I had given myself a concussion before by smacking my head inside of a refrigerator.
Given all this, I concluded that I was in the clear, and thus I promptly decided to ignore any and all symptoms I felt over the next few days because, you know, I didn't feel them right away.
In my defense, concussions can mess with your mental processes.
The next morning I was so dizzy I couldn't sit up, let alone stand or walk. I had to call out from work, and when the dizziness faded, the headaches started again- and they were much worse then the night before. I was texting my friend about it later that day, with typos so bad that they pointed out that I should get checked for a concussion- and I promptly waved it off. After all, the double vision that was causing me to to type so poorly was probably just headache related.
The next day, yesterday, I had a doctor's appointment for a physical, and while I was still a bit dizzy- I was mostly just so exhausted that it felt like I was dragging myself through pudding. I proceeded to not mention the head injury to my doctor during the exam. I then forgot my fitbit on the exam table and almost left my bag in the office.
Today, I went to the chiropractor. I told him about the dizziness and exhaustion and then only mentioned the head injury as the spot where the phone had hit was still tender to the touch, and I wanted to warn him before he grabbed my head all willy-nilly to crack my spine. He of course paused, put two-and-two together, and pulled out a flashlight to check my eyes. Apparently, yup, I had given myself a concussion, and ignoring those symptoms was probabbbbly a bad way to go. I now get to track everything that goes wonky with me over the next few days and make sure things don't get worse. I should also probably warn my boss that the work I've done over the last two days should be looked over by a non-concussed individual, especially as most of that work consisted of grading papers. Whoops.
And yes, my friend did give me a massive told-you-so after I told him. He deserved that one.
Also, if there are any spelling, grammar or formatting errors-please go easy on me. I have a concussion after-all.
TL;DR: I sleep like a tornado and hit my head while asleep. I didn't have symptoms of a concussion right away, so figured I was in the clear. I then got symptoms and ignored them. I am an idiot.
Submitted October 12, 2017 at 05:24AM by dredreidel http://ift.tt/2xzISef tifu
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