Terry Bradshaw Isn't Alone: How an Athlete Lives with Concussions

On Monday, former NFL quarterback Terry Bradshaw somberly told reporters that he's feeling the effects of his Hall of Fame career.

KTBS-TV in Louisiana, where Bradshaw was attending a fundraiser for his alma mater Louisiana Tech, reports that Bradshaw "said he has been having short-term memory loss as well as loss of hand-eye coordination."

Concussions have become a concern in sports, particularly in the NFL and more recently in Major League Baseball, which recently designated a separate disabled list for concussions.

Minnesota Twins star Justin Morneau missed most of the 2010 season with post-concussion syndrome after sustaining a concussion on July 7. It seems that the sports world is taking real notice of the fact that concussions—which are a form of traumatic brain injury—are serious business.

For countless athletes, including Terry Bradshaw, the new attention is too late. The damage has been done, and they have to live with the consequences.

I'm one of them.

I was never a professional athlete. I didn't start in the NFL for 10 years. I'm not going to try and analyze the issue on that level. What I have done is played several sports, including football and baseball, from my youth through college. In less than half his lifetime, I've suffered more concussions than Bradshaw.

I've suffered so many concussions that I no longer remember the exact number. The last known number was 10. It could be 11. That amounts to about one every two years. I can tell you personally what it's like to live with and after that trauma.

Most of my concussions were the direct result of my athletic career, though I can think of two that were the result of my cerebral palsy. I really didn't think much of them at the time. Like many young athletes, I was so competitive that if I wasn't dying, I was concerned more with winning the game than about myself.

From 1997 forward, I actually warmed up before football games to the song "Pain" by Four Star Mary, unaware of the future irony.

Like Bradshaw, I played quarterback. I was also a goalie in hockey and a shortstop in baseball. With a naturally high pain tolerance, I not only wasn't afraid of physical contact, but I welcomed it, including repeated blows to the head.

One of the most memorable stories of my sports years is from a game of intramural dodgeball that I played in college. I was pegged with a ball square in the forehead so hard that the game actually stopped. I was the only person who wasn't concerned. It had happened so fast that I sincerely didn't even notice.

I certainly notice now.

There are gaps in my memory now. I have difficulty remembering things in as much detail as I think I should be able to, and some I can't remember at all. These aren't things that happened a long time ago, either.

After I returned to my London hotel after seeing a West End production of La Cage Aux Folles two years ago, it bothered me to find I'd already started to forget details of the evening. To this day, I can recall really enjoying it, but if I try to think about specific scenes, I come up with only vague mental pictures.

Yesterday morning, I stopped to take my medication, and only minutes later, had to ask myself if I had taken them. I couldn't remember just minutes earlier.

That is both irritating and terrifying. I become disappointed when I realize a memory that was sentimental is now gone, or maybe never existed at all.

I'm absolutely frightened, however, when I wonder what else I could forget.

I fear that it may be something crucial. In the latter case, I could have easily taken double my medication and potentially harmed myself. Nothing that serious has happened yet, but there is always the possibility that something will.

I suffer from infrequent headaches, usually out of nowhere with no discernible impetus. Some headaches are accompanied by equally sudden nausea. One minute I can be a productive person, and the next I'll be stopped dead, just waiting for my head to stop swimming. I can't articulate how frustrating that is.

There are also behavioral issues. Very rarely, I'll become irritable, again, seemingly for no reason at all. I'll just simply get into periods, usually of 10 to 15 minutes, where I can't stand everyone. I don't even want anyone to talk to me. The mere sound of someone's voice makes me upset.

Needless to say, that also doesn't make me feel very good about myself.

I've suffered other long-term physical injuries due in part or in whole to my athletic career. Both of my knees have gone bad under wear and tear. In order to avoid significant knee surgeries, and also to keep me from spending the rest of my life in a wheelchair, I consented last year to have both of my legs broken and reset.

I'm still recovering from that procedure.

I haven't played sports in almost a year. It took months before I could even get out of bed without painkillers, and I still need a cane.

I have close to 20 scars—13 from surgery, the rest from more of those memorable sports plays. I'm proud of the latter. I know that, if given the chance, I probably wouldn't do anything differently. A lot of good things came out of my athletic career. I played football, baseball, hockey and other sports, aware that there could be consequences.

I just wish I'd thought about how long-term those consequences could be.

There's nothing I can do about them now—for myself, anyway. I'm going to have to live with mental, physical and emotional effects of my concussions for the rest of my life. All I can do is what Terry Bradshaw did. We can tell our stories as cautionary tales. As evidence that more should be done about concussions.

It's too late for us, but maybe the NFL, MLB and other leagues can help someone else.