I feel guilt, frustration, sadness, fear

I’ve had 2-3 bad concussions in the past from sports and freak accidents. All of those prior happened when I was in my teens, last bad concussion was about 10 years ago, now I’m an adult.

Last Tuesday, I fainted on the train platform and hit back of my head on the concrete, just inches away from the train tracks — to which l have a concussion and terrible whiplash. This is the worst one I’ve had. The ER took CT scans to make sure no bleeding or fractures but didn’t bother to do a concussion test. Said I was concussed but I would be okay to return to work last Friday. I waited to return to work yesterday, and it was tough. Bombarded with meetings and emails left and right — people thinking I took extra time off for LDW when in reality, was just trying to function and not be in pain.

I’ve been dealing with body tremors, and they seem to be getting worse each day. I’ve never dealt with tremors before when I’ve had a concussion. My whole body shakes, but my arms and hands, and weirdly jaw / mouth are the worst. I can’t even hold my phone as I type this without shaking. I always get complimented on my firm handshakes when I meet with clients at work, and yesterday I was so embarrassed with how shaky my hand was when I went to shake their hand.

I am exhausted during the day but when it’s time to sleep at night, I can’t. Muscle relaxers help to an extent but I don’t want to become dependent on them. My body feels like it’s constantly vibrating from the tremors. I feel embarrassed being out in public.

I had physical therapy yesterday for the first time since my accident, and my PT performed the concussion test on me and I started to cry so much and ended up throwing up when she performed one of the eye movement tests on me. She massaged some of my neck, because my neck, back and shoulder are messed up from the fall. I have pain at the front of my head from how my head hit the ground and my brain hitting the front of it. My sternum is sore too from the impact.

My PT doing the concussion test on me made me aware how much worse this is than I thought, but I feel so guilty taking time off from work. I then get anxious about the more time I take off, the more behind I fall. This is all incredibly frustrating because I was in the process of applying to grad school, and I do not have the capacity to continue the applications right now… so now that is on pause. I hate that I can advocate for taking care of yourself when I’m talking to others, but I can never do it for myself.

I was initially writing this post asking a question, but the more I wrote I just began to cry because I’m so frustrated and sad.