In this episode of the Post Concussion Podcast, Bella Paige talks with Melanie about the effects Melanie’s concussion had on her life. You can listen to the entire podcast episode by using the player below. Also, if that works better for you, you can read the blog post below that tells the summarized story.

Source: Post Concussion Inc

Table of contents:
My immediate concussion symptoms
The delayed onset of my concussion symptoms
The long-term side effects of my concussion
What started my full concussion recovery
The effects of my concussion kickstarted Lifeyana

Get to know many of the short and long term effects that Melanie experienced after sustaining her concussion. And also learn how she turned everything around and what helped her cure her own post-concussion syndrome after more than 6 years. 

What now follows is a summary of the podcast episode you can listen to using the player above.

My immediate concussion symptoms

So, it all goes back to 2012 when I was cycling home from work and I noticed that there was something wrong with my bike. It appeared that my head lamp broke and swung between the spokes of my wheel. This gave me a forward thrust and landed on my hands and feet without hitting my head. 

Direct concussion effects

For me, in that critical moment, the time went as slow as you sometimes see played out in movies. I felt excruciating pain as if something penetrated my skull. After that, a whole range of sensations swept over me. I tasted a strong metallic taste in my mouth, heard a high-pitched tone and although I was trying hard to see, I couldn’t see at that moment. 

It was like I was inside a bubble for a little while. Then suddenly my senses started functioning again. The piercing pain and the harsh ringing tone subsided. I observed a golden rain trickling down from the upper part of my vision and it was moving behind a black curtain. 

Getting my vision back

After that absolutely weird vision, I started to see the blurred shapes of people around me. I felt so awkward and ashamed that I got on my bike and went back home. I now know it was a dangerous decision to take a bicycle ride in that condition.

The delayed onset of my concussion symptoms

So right after the injury I went home and slept. The next day everything seemed fine. Yesterday was nothing but a nightmare. However, the moment I got on my bike to go to work, my body froze. This made me realize that what I had experienced yesterday was real. 

Visiting my GP: your concussion needs rest

But I pushed through and went back to work. While in the meantime, my body was suffering without me knowing about it. After two weeks I realized that something was seriously wrong. I went straight to my general practitioner and he advised me to take rest. I canceled all my work, but just after one and a half weeks my condition got worse. 

(Note: if you have been advised to rest after your concussion and your symptoms haven’t resolved or have even worsened, please check out the Concussion Stories episode: Is rest best for concussion recovery?)

CT scan and neurological tests: you’re fine!

My doctor then referred me to a neurologist. I went to the hospital and went through neurological tests and CT scans. Then came the big surprise: nothing was diagnosed. One should be happy about this kind of news, but I was flabbergasted. 

The medical treadmill

How could they say that nothing was wrong while there was something extremely wrong with me?I was again instructed to go back home, rest, and contact my general practitioner if symptoms persisted. I was perplexed and I didn’t know what was going on with me. In the weeks and months after that, I felt I was losing control of all aspects of my life. 

Rehabilitation clinic

Then the doctor of the company for which I was working at that time referred me to a rehabilitation center. Although I learned a lot over there, it still didn’t cure my concussion aftereffects. And then a whole while of nothing, which stimulated my isolation and depression. Feeling like there was no one who knew how to help me with my recovery was downright damaging for my mental health. 

The long-term side effects of my concussion

During and after the initial months of living with my concussion, I faced several career challenges. As I had just started out as a trainee at a Dutch corporation, I immediately faced the consequences of a broken brain in that environment. I couldn’t even attend the personal development engagements and social dynamics of the small group. After a while, I decided to quit the traineeship and this took off some of the pressure I felt of the life that I could no longer lead. 

Letting go of ambitions and guilt

It was a big thing for me to stop the traineeship. I think it was the first step of letting go of the ambition that had been mine before: to go higher and further, wherever I found myself. But also with my regular day-to-day work, I felt so guilty for not performing like I did before. Luckily, my manager did a good job protecting me from myself.

Cutting hours at work

After I had already visited the rehabilitation center and had spent a lot of time on my recovery, I felt that I couldn’t care much about my old ideas of a career anymore. This was around the time that I had experienced isolation and depression and I was struggling to make sense of the meaning of… well almost everything. After first cutting down my hours to a 27-hour work week, about a year later I completely quit my job. 

What started my full concussion recovery

During this healing process, I realized that I had to change my narrative. This awareness was the first step toward my concussion cure. 

I decided to create a live-action therapy for myself. I became my researcher, guinea pig and doctor– all in one. Because if doctors were not going to cure me, I had to find the solution for myself. I studied the brain, new neurological research, and patients’ cases. Really anything I could get my hands on. I realized that resting was not the right therapy. I needed consistent training, and I needed this training to be scientifically dosed and monitored. Also, I needed a whole package of lifestyle changes that would give my brain the chance to recover and regenerate. 

The effects of my concussion kickstarted Lifeyana

6 years have been a long time to recover. But during my recovery process, I already knew that I wanted to share the mindset and strategy that cured me. I wanted to share all my lessons so that others don’t have to suffer as much and can recover faster from the lingering effects of a concussion. That’s how I started Lifeyana.

Lifeyana

The word “yana” represents that You Are Not Alone. It’s also a Buddhist concept that refers to a tool or vehicle that brings you across a road. I named Lifeyana with the idea that all the shared Concussion Stories and materials empower you to make the required changes and recover from your brain injury like I did from mine. 

The Cure My Concussion Course

In The Cure My Concussion Course, I bundled all the steps, strategies and tools that were necessary to cure my concussion. It covers all the lifestyle changes that were needed plus all the practicalities of brain training. So the why, the what and the how. You’ll find schedules and I’ll teach you how to determine the intervals for your capacity. The course also teaches you the ways to train your mindset and your beliefs to set yourself up for recovery.

The Concussion Stories podcast

In the podcast Concussion Stories, people can listen to the stories of concussion survivors along with just mine, so that all people undergoing concussion injuries and their aftereffects know that you are not alone at all.