Recovering from a Climbing Concussion

I celebrated my 14th birthday in December by doing a mock regionals and our gym's first ever lock-in. Those were great, but, hands down, this has been one of the hardest months for me. On December 7th, I went to climbing class with a great attitude considering it was the last push before regionals. Our coaches decided to have us on ropes. My friend Iza and I were partners, and she was leading a tricky route. When she was at the third clip going for a small crimp, she fell. The heel of her foot whammed into my head, but fortunately I was still able to catch her. At first we laughed and giggled, after five minutes, I found myself sitting on the bench, feeling very lethargic and sleepy and holding an ice pack on my head. My coach Tim made a great call and recommended my mother pick me up and take me to the emergency room. I was dizzy and very slow walking on our way in to the ER. As soon as we explained my injury was from rock climbing, the medical team took it a bit more seriously and ran me through some tests, balancing and remembering numbers. As soon as they said I had a mild concussion, tears started pouring down my face. I knew what was going to happen - that I'd have to miss regionals. I knew in the back of my mind I wouldn't be able to compete, but I didn't want to let it come true. I stayed home from school for three days. I needed the rest, but I was very sad even thinking about climbing. I'd spent the whole season working up to this one competition, and now it was all wasted. On Wednesday, I went to climbing class because it's a team sport. It was hard being in the background watching everybody else climb. Again my amazing coaches helped me get through this hard time and put positive thoughts in my head. By Friday, I was sadly still having headaches and made the call to not compete on Saturday. I attended the event and watched my teammates compete. They did an amazing job! I was back to normal the next week and was cleared by my doctor to start lightly climbing again. Now it is winter break, and it feels great to relax and enjoy winter here in Colorado. I wish all Dragonwing girls happy holidays and a wonderful start to the New Year.