I needed more than an image gallery for this, it needed substance and a background explanation. This is Forrest aka my boyfriend. He has been dealing with post concussion symptoms for over 6 months now. Constant daily headaches, loss of energy and motivation, tired more often but not always able to sleep and an overall change to his personality/behavior. The way he is right now is not him, but knowing there is a bright future ahead and past the symptoms helps.
Here are some images to show the raw emotion and struggle with this for Forrest. There is a testimony written by him as well.

Forrests Testimony-

It was a fairly inconspicuous pass that connected with my right temple. An errant throw of a basketball combined with some misplaced focus. I made a pass to the corner after bringing the ball down the court. My teammate, who caught the ball, intended on passing to the man who was coming behind me, I missed that and was looking elsewhere. It was a simple mishap, I didn’t even lose the ball. That two second exchange in mid August has haunted me ever since.

Over the course of the last 6.5 months I have been dealing with post-concussion symptoms. The same ones you hear about on ESPN’s expose on NFL concussions. Headaches, lethargy, depression, and an overall feeling of gloom have been mainstays in my life since I took the shot to the head. Perhaps the worst part of the entire ordeal is that I still look the same. There were no outward indicators that my head hurt, I didn’t wear a helmet or have a bandage telling everyone something was wrong with me. The injury was internal, relentless and internal.

I teach in a fourth year charter school in inner-city Grand Rapids. We have worked hard to build the school into a success, but we have a long way to go. Much like other institutions similar to ours, we struggle with student behavior and achievement, very large stressors on teachers and principals alike. My days are filled with a constant barrage of signals from my limbic system. There is never a day where my guard could be let down to just relax and teach. From 7:30 - 3:30 my brain is required to function at capacity, regardless of how it felt. Most days the headache, which was already there in some form, flared by 11:30, if i was lucky it’d wait until 1:00. As i exited each day, I was spent emotionally, mentally and physically.

Last May I signed a piece of paper to dissolve my marriage. The day was bittersweet, of course I never dreamed of getting a divorce, but for myself and my children, it was the proper thing to do. The decision came with some baggage that I am happy to carry, but being a single parent is no easy task. My son, Gibson, is 5 and full of life and energy. Cadence, my daughter, is 3 and is bright and sassy enough to be a teenager. My head injury meant that I was only a shell of what I should have been as a father. They were cared for and always in the best of hands, but daddy did not always want to get on the floor and play cars, Barbies, or board games. My brain needed to rest and unwind, when theirs wanted to go. I hated what I became as not only a person, but as a parent.

From August through February I estimate that I spent over 40+ hours at doctors visits and physical therapy. My physician believes that the symptoms, though not common, are just a result of the brain trauma and should fade with time. The timeline, however, she had no clue as to what it would look like. I went to the post-concussion clinic and was treated through Mary Free Bed’s Rehabilitation Center for 12 weeks. The treatment worked to decrease the day’s current headaches, but did not generally improve my headache symptoms. How was I supposed to function everyday while dealing with this?

From my own research and from what my doctors told me, there are hundreds of medicines designed to fight migraines and headaches. I tried most of the over-the-counter varieties to no avail. So, the doctors ended up putting me on Norco for severe headaches and another medication to start curbing the headaches before they began. The Norco worked, as it should, but was exposing me to a complications and rebound headaches, after its effect wore off. The other medication caused some crazy side effects. I had no drive to do anything, lost my appetite (not terrible as I lost 7 lbs) and became generally disinterested in a romantic life, but worst of all, the headaches persisted. My options were basically narcotics or deal with the pain.

When I look back and think about the why of this whole ordeal, I’ve come to some startling conclusions. In my 29 years I have had 7-9 concussions with 5 of them being diagnosed and the others as possible/probable concussions without being diagnosed (high school football culture in the early 2000’s). In the gymnasium I teach in I am exposed to shots to the head in various ball control sports (basketball, football, soccer, frisbee, volleyball, etc.) I like to play sports, even as an adult I played indoor soccer and pickup basketball. So what now, I have been encouraged to get more active , yet the activities that I used to do so are dangerous to my head. I see many joyless hours on the elliptical in my future.

Over the past few weeks, the overall headache seems to be fading. Fingers crossed that this trend continues. It has had me in an introspective mood and I have been wondering how I made it through and what it has done to my overall well being. First thing I have to do is thank my girlfriend, Lindsey. Although it has been very difficult on her to “lose” her boyfriend for half a year, she has been there whenever I needed her and has been an equal partner in helping to raise my children. I have no clue what I would have done had she not been there on the days where the headaches had me on my back. Her strength and grace deserves more recognition than I could ever give her.

As trying as it has been, I challenged her to capture what I have been dealing with in a photo shoot. The pictures attached to this blog represent the results of that session. The emotion and pain is real and hard to see from the other side. This internal struggle has a face. I know I am not alone in dealing with post-concussion symptoms and silent but debilitating headaches. I offer this testimony with the hope that someone may read this and understand someone else’s struggle that is very much so real even without the outward signs of illness/injury. Also as hope to those who may not have any in the moment, I spent many nights hopeless and yearning for a headache free day. I have since had five in the past two weeks. It can get better.

With hope for a better tomorrow,

Forrest J. Page

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Personal Photography Project- Forrest