Wow….It has been awhile since I have been able to blog. it’s not for a lack of news in the world of the Oval ball:Rugby was added as an official sport in the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio. (The Seven’s version of the game), we had the first weekend of Heineken Cup matches this weekend(with some interesting results, not the least of which was Perpignian’s shocking loss in Treviso and Toulouse’s big win against Sale), as well as locally, my Metropolis club lost a game to Pearl City on the snowy field at Columbia Park( Yup, the earliest snowfall in the Minneapolis/St.Paul area in 24 years)

You know, when you watch sports news on sites like Sky TV, Setanta, or ESPN, you hear the term “Concussion” tossed about like a simple flesh wound. This is particularly true in sports like American Football, rugby, boxing and mixed martial arts. Here in the U.S, University of Florida quarterback Tim Tebow played this past weekend against Louisiana State Universtity(LSU) in the Gators 13-3 win. This win happening a couple of weeks after Tebow suffered a concussion in a game against the University of Kentucky.

Two weeks ago, while I was out in Colorado visiting my mom,  my wife was on her way to a charity event when our minivan got hit from behind while my wife was at a stop light by an elderly driver. The crash totally caved in the rear hatch of our minivan and knocked the rear seats loose. The guy had to be going at least 40-45 miles an hour to do that kind of damage. My wife initially was seen in the emergency room at North Memorial Medical Center for back and neck injuries.

I got back from Colorado late on Sunday night. I thought that my wife’s mental and verbal sluggishness was due to fatigue. On Monday morning, I noticed that my wife was having a hard time tracking simple conversation, had thick speech and was having trouble with fine motor movement. I brought her back to the emergency room, as she obviously was not quite right. She was diagnosed with post concussion syndrome, and has missed work the last 2 weeks, and will miss this week as well, under the orders of the neurologist who is following her.

I have worked with head injury patients in my work as a nurse. I have to say that living with somebody with TBI(Truamtic Brain Injury) has been a real eye-opener. My wife is doing better than she was-but what really strikes me is that as messed up as my wife is with one concussion, I know that there are proffessional rugby  and American Football players with multiple head injuries and concussions. I still don’t know what the long term prognosis is going to be for my wife, if she will be OK to drive a car or do her job as a funeral director…what about professional athletes with their head injuries? There was a recent study here in the US that showed a very stroing link with head injuries suffered by NFL players and with Alzheimers later in life.

I guess my point in this posting, is that there really is no such thing as a “minor” concussion, and it’s something that really needs to be taken seriously by coaches of rugby players and American football coaches.