The Importance Of Concussions

Caitlyn wakes up, gets ready, and walks outside to her car. As soon as she walks out of the front door, she gets an instant headache, just from the faint sunlight peeking through the clouds. Daily activities become a struggle, all because of one thing- a concussion. A concussion is a neurological injury which is typically caused by a hit or shake to the head. Concussions affect many people daily, and even though some people think it is something to brush off of one's shoulder, it is not. I have had multiple concussions in the past, which have affected me by altering my focus and study habits, which typically harmed my grades in the past. This pushed me to work harder and to continue doing so.

Freshman year, I acquired two concussions, one
involving getting dropped from a stunt in cheerleading, and the other was from fainting and hitting my head on the toilet. As one should know, the greater number of concussions, the greater effect of it. This means that focusing gets even harder, and headaches get increasingly worse as the numbers add up. These hits to my head, resulted in me missing multiple days of school during each period that I had these concussions. Sadly, during efforts to study, I would get migraines, which I would have to close my eyes to relieve the pain from it. After so long, it got to my head (no pun intended) and it would stress me out in new levels that I never knew existed- simple tasks would make me extremely overheated and emotional. This caused me to want to give up, but during that rough patch in my life, I pushed myself and got through it. Even though I pushed and started to get more involved with school work and better grades, my final grades were not as good as I expected them to be, at all. I was affected for multiple months, which destroyed multiple marking periods worth of grades. People who have not had a concussion before, typically do not understand; which increased the stress even more. I learned to strive for perfection in the years following.

During sophomore and junior year, I tried to get through the concussions and get good grades, which succeeded. I maintained a B average, even with constant migraines. This turned into a learning experience, because I'm going to try even harder during my senior and college years. In my opinion, one does not push their limits until they physically try, and even then, there is still more room for improvement. Therefore, I want to push myself until I break the wall of "more room." The aspects that motivated me were: all of the stress from my concussions, and my family. Most importantly, my sister pushed me more than anyone else and gave me motivation just from being herself. For an example, when she was born, she was predicted to be mentally disabled for her whole life, to this day she pushed herself, and she is currently in law school. This shows that miracles do happen, if one is willing to try.