It was a cold January day. The fifth graders were at recess out on the grassy field playing soccer. You could hear their laughter. You could see their energy. It was not a competitive game, but a fun pick-up game until the bell rang.
Two of the boys collided. Both fell, but a boy named Cecil fell to the ground. He's not sure how he hit or what he hit, but he was lying on the ground. It wasn't obvious he was hurt but the teacher was concerned enough, she had a couple of friends walk Cecil to the school nurse's office.
He didn't make it.
"I remember a bunch of people lifting me onto the stretcher, but then I don't know what happened," Cecil recalled.
An ambulance took Cecil to the hospital, while his parents both left work to meet him there.
"As they were taking him out of the ambulance, I came up next to him. I could tell he was dazed and noticed his right arm was twitching," said Cecil's dad, Stephen.
There were tests, and some scary moments.
"As the time in the emergency room progressed, his leg started twitching as well. And then he started having a little bit of slurred speech and that's when they became very concerned," said Stephen.
Emergency workers did a CT scan and it came back clear. So the instructions were to take Cecil home and monitor him for the night.
"We came home that night and woke up the next morning. Didn't have a headache. He felt find. Wasn't twitching. Speech wasn't slurred and so we said 'do you want to go to school?' and he said 'yeah, I'm fine'. In retrospect we should've held him. I don't think he got through the whole day. By lunch time he had a headache," said Stephen.
Cecil remembers the day after, too.
"I fell asleep in class. Twice," Cecil recalled, admitting this was abnormal.
He developed a headache, but it was a different kind of headache than he'd known before that day.
"I think of a regular headache as just 'ah, my head hurts'. It's just there. But a concussion headache feels like your brain is getting smaller and it's crushing down on you. And it hurts," he said.
There was dizziness, sensitivity to lights (not just bright lights, any lights), and to loud noises.
Cecil ended up having to miss 14 days of school - nearly three weeks. And it was painful in more ways than just the concussion symptoms. He couldn't play sports, or spend time with his friends, or read or color.
"It felt like a year because me and my babysitter just played Sorry all day. We played almost 200 games," Cecil explained with a roll of his eyes.
He hasn't played the game Sorry since.
It's now been eight months, and Cecil is playing sports again. He was just cleared to play and is on a soccer team with his friends.
At first, he was cautious and nervous. And so were his parents.
"It's a really fine balancing act between how much can you give them to still be a kid. You're in the fifth and sixth grade. These things are temporary, your brain's going to be with you for the rest of your life," said Stephen.
Cecil has promised to tell his parents if he starts to experience any symptoms.
Cecil's parents are now big supporters of baseline testing - a test kids can get starting at age 10 which shows normal brain activity so it's easier to diagnose a concussion should a child sustain an injury. If they'd had that for Cecil they might've known much sooner the severity of the concussion.
Baseline Testing
Dr. Michael Moncure from the University of Kansas Hospital says it can be tough to diagnose a concussion.
"It is an objective process for the most part, but it requires that someone identify it," he said.
Baseline testing can help with that. Moncure said the FDA has approved baseline testing for kids over the age of 10, and that there are active studies right now showing promise for kids as young as six.
So how does a baseline test work?
"They would sit down in a quiet room. We would make sure no one's there to help them out. That there's no distractions, and they know the rules of the test and the computer will determine what their score would be and would compare to the norms in that age range and for a male that's 12 years old, that's a lot of date to show what's normal," said Moncure.
The idea is, if you have a baseline then you know your child's normal brain function, which makes it much easier to diagnose a concussion should there be one.
Tests need repeated every two years to keep up with a kid’s new normal.
Common myths about concussions
The University of Kansas Hospital says there is a lot of misinformation about concussions. Some of the common myths are:
Myth #1: Everyone with a concussion needs a CT scan or MRI right away
Fact: While there is damage to the brain cells in a concussion, the damage is at a microscopic level and cannot be seen on MRI or CT scans. The concussed brain looks normal on these tests, even though it has been seriously injured.
Myth #2: Someone with a concussion should be woken every 2-3 hours.
Fact: Drowsiness and fatigue are common symptoms of concussion. Getting plenty of sleep and allowing the brain to heal are necessary for recovery.
Myth #3: A concussion requires loss of consciousness.
Fact: Loss of consciousness is not the only indicator of concussion. Approximately 10% of concussions involve loss of consciousness.
Myth #4: Male and female athletes have the same chance of sustaining a concussion.
Fact: Female athletes are more prone to concussions than their male counterparts in studies.
Myth #5: A child needs to be hit on the head to sustain a concussion.
Fact: Concussions can occur with any movement or jostling of the head as in whiplash injuries (front to back) or rotational force (side to side).
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Christa Dubill can be reached at Christa.Dubill@kshb.com.
