As a collegiate fencer, Max Stearns is supposed to be at a lower risk for concussion than his peers who play football, soccer, or ice hockey. But at Ohio State University, where Mr. Stearns is a junior, the warm-up regimen for fencing practice happens to include a soccer scrimmage.
That’s when the concussion happened.
Twice.
Now, nearly a year and countless headaches later, Mr. Stearns, who is from Winnipeg, is all too familiar with the unpredictable characteristics of this common brain injury, and just how long it can take to recover from it.
“Concussion is kind of a weird injury,” says Mr. Stearns, who also competes on the international fencing circuit. “It’s not like you ice it for three days and it’s better.”
The first concussion occurred last fall, when a hard-kicked soccer ball smacked his head, jarring his brain. The woozy sensation that immediately followed, along with the headache, were familiar to Mr. Stearns, who had suffered a concussion playing basketball as a teenager. (Like any prideful competitor, he says the collision with the soccer ball was the “lamest” way to be injured: “I hate that this is how I got my concussion,” he says sheepishly.)
But even the “lame” injuries, it turns out, can take an eternity to heal.
Mr. Stearns says an athletic trainer at Ohio State told him to take the rest of the day off. The following day, still suffering from headaches, he was told that he would not be cleared for anything athletic until his headaches went away. For about two weeks, the political-science major still went to class, but couldn’t concentrate. Reading caused headaches, and the essays he wrote were “all over the place,” he says.
After Mr. Stearns had two weeks of persistent symptoms, a doctor diagnosed post-concussion syndrome and said Mr. Stearns couldn’t go back to class until he had improved. For the brain to heal from a concussion, experts say, time and rest are essential, and Mr. Stearns, who had stopped going only to fencing practice, was getting neither.
Every week he went for checkups and tests to measure his reaction time and other cognitive skills. Finally, in mid-December, after two months of no practice, no competitions, no class, and quite a bit of time spent with doctors and trainers, Mr. Stearns was declared symptom-free and ready for action.
‘A Major Letdown’
Over the holidays he made up the schoolwork from the missed classes, and he returned to the campus in January for the start of the new academic quarter—and the NCAA fencing season.
Going back to practice was fine, he says. But competition was much more difficult.
“I had an incredible mental fatigue,” he says. “I’d be able to go a certain length into the competition, and then my brain would just shut down. It was like my brain was tired of thinking of what to do.”
This proved to be a serious detriment in fencing. “A lot of people consider it to be like the chess of sports because it’s my mind versus your mind,” he says. “It’s very, very mental, and very analytical. So not being able to keep myself going mentally really was a major letdown.”
Despite the setbacks, Mr. Stearns made it through the season, finishing 13th at the NCAA championships and eighth at the junior world championships.
And then it happened again. Another soccer game, another hit to the head, another concussion. The headaches immediately returned. “It was a pretty big disappointment,” he says.
The second recovery was faster than the first, although it involved another stretch of missed class. But the headaches Mr. Stearns still gets while reading are a constant reminder of the risk: Athletes who suffer just one concussion are more likely to get another, and the long-term effects of repeated concussions can include memory loss and depression.
These days Mr. Stearns avoids sports with any kind of contact. “One hit to the head and I’m out for the season,” he says. But even being healthy can be nerve-racking, he says.
“Any time I bump my head, I have a second of panic,” he says. “I wonder, Am I going to have to go to the doctor?”
