SYLVANUS URBAN Sylvanus Urban - The Space Issue | Page 37

Head Space
CONCUSSIONS BLOW
Author: Charmaine Noronha
My life didn’t flash before
me. Nor did I see visions of my
childhood race through my
mind. Heck, I didn’t even realize
I had been knocked unconscious
for a split second. After a swift
kick to my jaw, chin and mouth
while helping someone execute
a headstand after a yoga class,
I thought my bloody, swollen
mouth and cheek were the worst
of my injuries. Until the next
morning…
Groggy and a little disoriented,
I struggled to lift my unusually
exhausted body out of bed. After
several attempts at transitioning
from horizontal to vertical, I
thought the problem might have
been accumulated blood flow
to my swollen face that left me
unable to rise out of bed.
After checking up on me
that morning, the woman who
had accidentally kicked me
texted “I think you might have a
concussion.”
A what?!
Concussions are
relegated to the world of pro-
athletes or stunt performers, no?
Admittedly I knew so little about
traumatic brain injuries.
And
S y l v a n u s - Ur b a n . c o m
definitely would not have thought that I had endured one after a kick
to the jaw.
“What you experienced was essentially equivalent to a boxer’s hook,”
said my diagnosing doctor at a Toronto walk-in clinic. “A blow to the jaw
causes the head to spin around.”
I knew just as much about concussions as I did about boxing, aside
from seeing famous footage of The Greatest sting like a bee when he
threw a right hook to his opponent, knocking him to the ground. This
was no Muhammad Ali blow so I was in disbelief that a kick to the face
could cause a significant concussion.
I would quickly learn that points on the side of the chin are especially
vulnerable to knockouts where the jaw is attached to the skull. When
the jaw is punched, the head quickly accelerates and after a fraction of
a second, it quickly decelerates as muscles, tendons, and bones prevent
the head from spinning any further. The brain inside the skull is floating
in fluid so it accelerates slower than the rest of the head. This forces
the brain to crash into the inside of the skull, causing trauma. It then
bounces off the inside of the skull and slams into the opposite side. This
causes even more trauma. Hot damn, I thought.
“A person who is knocked out by a punch or kick to the jaw suffers
a severe concussion,” said my doc as I was likely staring at her in
amazement. “It can take anywhere from several seconds to minutes to
regain consciousness. In mild cases, the person injured can shake off
the blow with little more than a headache. In severe cases, brain trauma
from a knock to the jaw can cause a significant concussion, cerebral
bleeding and death.”
Hot damn...times a hundred. This quick 101 in concussions almost
felt like a blow to my brain as I scrambled to make sense of her words.
And in a matter of what felt like seconds during the blow, my life was
impacted immediately and significantly. I canceled plans to attend a
music festival for a friend’s birthday that day and was told to rest, take
a week off work, avoid screens, reading, or any external stimulus. In
The Space Issue
37