I had no idea I was such a prophetess.
According to @BrainInjuryNJ, March is Brain Injury Awareness month. At least it seems to be in New Jersey. And March has definitely been a brain-injured month for me.
Those of you who follow me on Twitter (@sirclancelot) may have seen my Valentine's tweet.
It actually began on 12th February when the hatch on my sister's car boot fell on my head as I was retrieving my shopping. I was a little dazed but being dyspraxic, I'm used to frequent minor injury so I thought nothing of it. However, such was the force of the whack, it apparently caused temporary amnesia and when I was puzzling about the cause of dizzy spells and nausea for the next few days, I had to assume I was coming down with a bug. That was until the earthquake hit Friday night when I was at work.
Except it wasn't a real earthquake. Upon frantically looking around at my colleagues, all getting on with their work as if nothing had happened, I realised that the earth hadn't quaked and my head and simulated it. I sensibly went on the NHS symptom checker when I got home and was somewhat shocked to learn I'd had a mini-stroke.
Except, having completely blanked out the memory of Thursday's whack on the head, I hadn't completed the symptom checker correctly and what I really had was concussion. Thankfully I did remember and having had concussion goodness knows how many times before, I wasn't worried. Valentine's Day came and the tweet basically says it all. Such bad concussion this time (like I've never had before) that I had to leave work early and go to hospital because I wasn't sure what year it was.
It's quite possible I didn't rest enough so I was still quite concussed a couple of weeks later when I was on the top deck of the bus with my friend Andi when we went over a rather large bump in the road and I inadvertently punched myself in the temple. I laughed just as much as you probably are doing now when I was telling that little anecdote to shocked but wildly amused family and friends.
More dizziness ensued. I resigned myself to having a probable second concussion, and then on Mothering Sunday my younger niece thwacked me over the head with my Mum's crutch. Cue more hilarity and comments about it coming in threes. In Enfys's defence, it was completely accidental. Not sure why she was swinging Mum's crutch about but her coordination is about as good as mine so it was a foregone conclusion, really.
I have been concussed more times than I've had the 'flu'. In fact, when my eldest nephew is careless with his own head (it's a family trait, unfortunately) the standard family advice is "Don't do that! If you hurt your head too many times your cleverness falls out of your ears! Just look at Aunty Liz!" Which brings me to the serious side of this blog post.
Nobody has laughed more heartily at my penchant for hitting the old cranium off things than I. It's like something out of one of my favourite sitcoms or films. I have gleefully retold how the latest injury this month occurred, leaving the actual detail of how it happened till last for perfect comedic effect, enjoying the hilarity as much as if I was telling how I saw Delboy fall through the bar in that iconic episode of Only Fools And Horses.
But my most recent visit to hospital necessitated a brain scan to make sure I hadn't caused internal bleeding. Apparently the severe symptoms I presented with can be a sign of that. Thankfully, everything was fine in that respect. However, repeated concussion can have long-term ramifications.
For a start, it makes dyspraxia much worse if you already have it, and can even cause it if you don't: the term 'punch-drunk' is actually a colloquialism for acquired or adult-onset dyspraxia, which is caused by severe or repeated head injury. You can lost IQ points, so in a sense our warning to Leo about losing his cleverness is true. Frighteningly, another thing repeated concussion can do is increase the likelihood of having dementia in later life.
Even on a short-term basis my ability to cook anything edible appears to have disappeared when normally I pride myself on being a rather good cook, if not quite to Nigella standards. I've fallen behind with my share of the housework and when I'm not at work, I'm usually asleep on the sofa because I'm drowsy a lot more than usual. I'm having to drink a hell of a lot more coffee than usual just to have the energy to get dressed each day, and being a coffee fiend normally that really is saying something.
This may sound like a poor-me blog. But as someone who has been repeatedly concussed it's surprising to realise that only this month have I really started to understand concussion and that it is a form of brain injury. Unfortunately, my lack of awareness is not isolated and outside the medical profession it only really seems to be professional athletes involved in contact sports whose knowledge comes close to adequate.
So, with just a little more than a week left of Brain Injury Awareness Month, I thought it was time to stop entertaining people with my clumsy antics and raise some awareness. I've always loved to play the clown and certainly generated a lot of my own material. But perhaps some physical comedy shouldn't be funny. And maybe the sad clown was once painted happy till he did irreparable damage.
