Saturday, November 3, 2012

A year later...

A doctor dumbed it down for me...a kid between the ages of 6-12 getting a concussion...their brain is roughly the size of a baseball inside a skull the size of a cantaloupe.  When they suffer a head injury there is a great deal of space and fluid between the skull and brain making the impact quite severe.  Once a boy goes through puberty, their brain is larger and there is less room between it and the skull decreasing the impact of a head on hit...make since???

After a great summer, in September, Clay's headaches came back with a vengeance.  Why now?  I don't know???

He went on a weekend church trip to Epworth, the minute he got off the bus I knew something was really wrong.  He spent the next 3 days in the den, on the sofa, in the dark, curtains drawn...horrible, horrible headache.  Day 4, I called his neurologist and he diagnosed it as a migraine (which I had already figured out.)  He prescribed him a crazy (and scary to me) migraine cocktail.  This cocktail consist of a steroid, 330 mg of naproxisodium, 400mg of magnesium and 5 mg of Magsalt.  We were told to repeat the Magsalt if the headache was not gone in 2 hours but not to give him this cocktail more than 3 times in one week.  After 2 hours, he was not much better.  In the meantime, I had googled all these drugs and decided I knew better than the doctor and was too chicken to give him anymore.  The following day started like the past 4 so I decided to give him all the drugs and come hell or high water I was not going to chicken out.  It was truly amazing....like someone turned on a light switch.  Less than an hour after the second dose of Magsalt, Clay was up and as nuts and active as ever.  It was like the 5 days of suppressed energy had to come out.  We went to the grocery store, the mall and out to lunch.  It was a great day.  The next day was just as good without any medication.   My synopsis was, that he was now going to be prone to having migraines as a consequence of his concussion and PCS last year.  I hated that, but felt like we had the medication to deal with it.   The following Monday he was back at school and all was normal and great.

Fast forward a week.  Brantlee took all of our children camping for the weekend.  The minute Clay walked in the door, I could tell he was not doing good.  He showered, laid around and went to bed.  He woke up Monday morning and went to school.  The nurse called me at 10:00 to come and pick him up.  That was October 15.  He has been home ever since (with a few exceptions of a couple of attempts that didn't last more than an hour or two.)   Since then we have been back to Macon to meet with his neurologist and have started daily medication.  He has good hours and bad hours, good days and bad days.  Dr. Trasmontey told us it would take about 2 weeks for the medication to really start working.  Well, we are on day 12 of the medication.  

We have also seen Dr. Davis Kinny who discovered a severe misalignment in his C2 and C3 vertebrae.   He explained it like a kink in a water hose.  The spinal fluid and blood flow to the brain is not moving as it should.  With a misalignment like this headaches are imminent because of the pooling of blood in the brain and the added pressure.  With the tightness of Clay's neck muscles, he is certain his neck has been like this for a year, since his concussion.  He had severe neck pain for a week after the hit and the doctors called it whiplash.  It never crossed my mind to have a neck x-ray.  Between Dr. Trasmontey's medication and Dr. Kinny's adjustments...I am hopeful that things are slowly getting better.

As of now, we are presuing Hospital Home Bound through the school system.  He wants to go back to school so bad!!!  He misses his friends, he misses his life, he is tired of these walls we live in.   Dr. Trasmontey explained his headaches in a very interesting way.  He said, sending a kid to school in Clay's condition is like sending a kid to PE with a broken leg.  Thinking, concentrating, reading only triggers worse headaches...just like a kid with a broken leg playing kickball would be extremely painful, difficult and cause further damage.

All that being said...we are closer to him getting better today than we were yesterday.  I am so hopeful that he will continue to improve.   In the meantime, I wonder how in the world I landed here, a year later still dealing with his brain injury, on Hospital Home Bound...it blows my mind and breaks my heart to see him like this.   However,  if me telling Clay's story helps one child or changes one parents mind about their child playing football....I will continue to do it.

Honestly, I love the emails I have gotten from mother's telling me they did not allow their son to play football because of hearing Clay's story.  My all time favorite was the email I received from  a mom who told me that her husband was mad at me and that they got in a big fight because of this blog and Clay's story.  

I know there is a huge chance your son could play football from the time they are 6-18 and nothing happen....but the stories, studies and medical proof is coming to light...it's a BRUTAL sport!!!
Everyone has their soap box....THIS IS MINE!