My Concussion Story + Why I started Rethink Speech Therapy
An estimated 1.2 million people experience a concussion every year. In 2014 I was one of them. I didn’t know it at the time, but in a split second I went from graduate student to brain injury survivor. Life became muddled with sudden loss of cognitive functioning and the lingering effects of physical symptoms.
Thankfully I started treatment right away. I know that’s not everyone’s story. And yet, despite seeing the best specialists around, life was still so hard. I thought I could research my way to recovery but soon realized that there were big gaps in brain injury education. I knew I needed to do something to help bridge that gap.
My name is Kara Focht MS CCC-SLP, CBIS. I’m a medical speech-language pathologist, concussion survivor, and brain wellness advocate. It was a long road from concussion patient to brain injury blogger, but I’m so excited to start this next chapter. This is the story of how I got here.
My Concussion Story
The Big Fall
It wasn’t supposed to be bad. But it was. April 19th, 2014. I was back home for Easter weekend near the end of my second semester of graduate school. I was supposed to be studying for a test but couldn’t make myself focus. I felt stressed and restless and found myself wandering out to my parent’s backyard with a pair of headphones and my current favorite playlist.
I sat down on the swing and pushed off. To me, swinging felt like sprinting downhill. Pushing harder and faster, wind in my face, momentary adrenaline rush. I still remember the song that was playing when it happened. In the beginning I tried to find significance in that song, but it was just a song, and the accident was just something that happened. Back, and forth, higher, louder. Snap.
I don’t remember much of that first weekend. I know that family came into town, we went to church, and ate brunch. Mostly I remember the light and the noise and the pain. Constant blinding light streaming in from the floor-to-ceiling windows at my aunt’s house and the restaurant. Overwhelming sounds from Easter hymns and kids laughing. Anytime I could escape to the couch or my bed I pushed a pillow into my face to drown out the noise and light and ease the throbbing in my head.
I had a scholarship due either on Easter or sometime after. I couldn’t remember what day it was due or even figure out if the date on my calendar matched the one listed on the scholarship deadline. My family had to help me navigate my department’s familiar website to find the link. Still, I did not realize that anything was wrong.
Back to School + Starting Therapy
I was supposed to head back to class the next day. Instead, I went to see my primary care doctor. Walking into the doctor’s office I had to grip my mom’s arm to balance myself walking up the stairs. At the top I paused, stunned by the busy and colorful carpet pattern looming up from the hallway. I closed my eyes for the rest of the walk to the office.
It didn’t take long to get diagnosed with a concussion. My doctor said to take it easy for the next few days. Leaving the exam room, I felt overwhelmed trying to figure out if I had to turn right or left to get back to the waiting room. My mom grabbed my arm and guided me down the hallway. I went back home, and back to bed.
In the beginning I slept upwards of 14 hours a day. When I wasn’t asleep, my muscles were restless. I could barely walk down a hallway by myself but I always felt like I had to move. I paced up and down stairs or to the end of the driveway and back before getting dizzy and sleeping for another few hours.
I have no memory of how I got back to my college town. I did drive myself to campus the next day to work my graduate assistant job. My professor took one look at me and asked what happened. I was sent home and told to come back in a few days for an advisor meeting, and to bring my mother. My mom said that’s when she knew that this was a big deal. I was still fiercely determined to maintain my grad school schedule and graduate on time.
Slowly it became clear that wasn’t going to happen. I quit my summer job and dropped out of some summer classes. A friend suggested I see a physiatrist (rehabilitation doctor) at a hospital. More providers got added. Physical therapy, occupational therapy, speech therapy. I saw a neuro optometrist for my eyes and had to wear funny glasses with black tape on the inside edges for a while. Then I saw a neuropsychologist for cognitive testing.
I spent that summer getting by as best I could. I took classes and went to my rehab appointments. I also spent a lot of time lying down in the backseat of a car in-between classes, or when stimulation from noisy events was too much. But by September I was doing better. Headaches were down. Neck pain was down. I was working part-time and completing my graduate classes part-time. My processing speed was still a little slow, but I was getting close.
The Set-Back
October 21, 2020. I had moved back to my hometown along with many of my graduate school friends to save money while we did clinicals. I was driving to meet up with them to commute the 45 minutes to one of our on-campus night classes. All of a sudden, I got T-boned. The accident brought back headaches, dizziness, and this time neck pain that radiated into my shoulder from the whiplash.
This injury was nothing like the first concussion. I did not have to sleep 14 hours/day. I did not forget how to tie my shoes or have trouble going to the bathroom. But I was back in doctor appointments and therapy and spent more time in the backseat of a car because activity made me nauseous again. The physical pain, aggravated vision issues, fatigue, and cognitive symptoms crept back into my life and would take a long time to overcome.
The chronic pain was trickier this time. It took two physical therapists, two chiropractors, and 1.5 years of treatment to stop the constant pain. It took 4 more years of at-home exercises to stop hurting when I exercised or sat in a car for too long. The cognitive symptoms were trickier, too. As I slowly got back to life it became clear that I did not know my limitations. I had a hard time knowing what would help, and even when I knew what would help I had a hard time doing it consistently. It was a constant cycle of missed deadlines and disorganization.
When you’re seeing doctors and therapists there’s a tangible sense of progress. After that part was over, I felt like I was drifting. Sometimes things would go smoothly. But as I tried to get back into activities, I would see broken parts of my brain that I didn’t notice before. Or I would have a strategy system in place one day and forget it the next. Life felt unpredictable and tumultuous. After my last medical appointment in 2016 it took several more years for all the pieces to come together.
Moving Forward
By that time I had started working part-time with other brain injury survivors as an outpatient speech-language pathologist. Part of my recovery was giving back to others, and I had the capacity to do that professionally. I discovered that we had many of the same experiences and unanswered questions about mild traumatic brain injury.
Over the next several years I learned everything I could about brain injury from mentors, seminars, and other survivors. I learned about what causes a concussion and why some people are more prone to persistent symptoms. I learned about cognitive therapy and coping techniques. I learned that although brain injury survivors have many shared experiences, everyone is unique and so is their path to healing.
The Big Idea
As my clinical experience grew and my own health improved I had the mental space to start dreaming. I dreamed of creating one space to talk about brain injury from both a therapist and survivor perspective. I wanted to talk about the science behind thinking skills and evidence-based treatment. I also wanted to talk about the messy parts of brain injury recovery and how to cope. Rethink Speech Therapy was founded in 2020 to do just that. At RST you’ll find stories, education, and printable handouts to help you better understand brain injury and reach the next step towards recovery.
I hope that this little project is encouraging to my fellow survivors and the people who walk with them.
I still can’t promise to have all the answers. And that’s a little frustrating sometimes. But I can promise to be a friend who’s been there, rooting for you, and providing a helping hand when you feel like you’ve been going at it alone.
I hope you’ll stick around and grab some free resources from the blog.
And, if you’re comfortable, let me know your story and how I can help. I’d love to hear from you.
Take care, Kara