When you watch the collision on film, it doesn’t really seem too bad. And oddly enough, it wasn’t even a true football hit; it was a pure accident. My son, Chester Pruett, was falling forward, having slipped on the wet grass. A teammate was trying to jump over him to avoid stepping on him and he took a knee to the back of the helmet. Lights out.

He got to the sideline and was greeted by an assistant from the opposing team. I was standing right next to him as he passed the field concussion test protocol with flying colors. We pulled him from the game anyway. The next day he just had a mild headache and was his usual tired, physically beat up self. It wasn’t until Sunday afternoon that things started to get worse. This was almost 48 hours after the initial hit.

He started to feel funny and overwhelmingly exhausted, and the headache intensified. It was the same week that the football player from Evergreen High School died due to second impact syndrome, so we were more aware of the severity of the situation. So, off to the Harborview emergency room.

On a quiet Sunday afternoon, we were fortunate to find three amazing doctors who took a lot of time with him and alleviated a lot of his fears. He had a CT scan, and we all relaxed when we knew there wasn’t any bleeding in the brain. He was told to take a couple weeks off, not to  use his brain, and if symptoms still persisted in two weeks, go to the Harborview Concussion Clinic. We all sort of naively expected that he could go to school on Monday and everything would be just fine.

Let’s just say, “fine” is not what we got. He was able to make it about an hour at school that first day. All he could do that first week was sleep or lie in bed for hours. Noise was an exceptional trigger. Lights were a trigger. He wore ear plugs and sunglasses everywhere he went. Off to the concussion specialist.

Two weeks to the day after the hit he could pass the cognitive portion of the testing with some extra time, but it gave him an excruciating headache. He could not pass the physical aspects of the testing at all.

At this point he had missed so much school that we had to do something. The stress of missing class and assignments began to take a toll. With the counselor’s and teachers’ help, we filed the necessary paperwork to have him declared temporarily disabled. He was allowed to sign himself in and out of school, and he missed the greater part of six weeks of classes.

We began to attack the concussion on all fronts. He had acupuncture, cranio-sacral massage, sauna therapy, dietary adjustments, specific nutritional supplements, medication and psychiatry to deal with the subsequent depression/stress and anxiety. We were fortunate in that every single healthcare provider we saw gave him the same message: “You are going to get better.” It just takes time.

I was not prepared for the psychological toll this would take. When you take a highly active, bright teenager and render him inactive and ill, it is a tough adjustment for the entire family. We would have a good day followed by two horrible days. He was able to maintain his appropriate social filters when he was out of the house, but at home I was literally once again raising a toddler, complete with tantrums and irrational behavior.

To add additional stress to the situation, it was college application time. Deadlines are deadlines, and essays had to be written and applications filled out. To ease the stress, we converted all grades to pass/fail, and came up with a short list of colleges. And we got kittens.

Yes, kittens. It was amazing to see the recuperative powers of kittens at work. The doctor asked him one visit how he dealt with the stress of the week. “I played with the kittens.” She asked how that worked, and he said, “How can it not work? It’s kittens.”

And so it went from there. Week in and week out. I was keeping track of progress and regression from Friday to Friday. The improvement over the first eight weeks was almost imperceptible. We celebrated the day he was able to be in school all day and not come home and go straight to bed. At week 10 he was cleared for partial participation in wrestling practices, and that did a lot to alleviate the depression.

The final piece of the medical puzzle came with a trip to a chiropractor, who specializes in sports injury. We discovered his first two cervical vertebrae had been knocked out of place. As soon as he was realigned and started some specialized stretches, the recovery was astounding. By week 12, he was allowed one match against a “cupcake.” It was a roaring success, and since that night, we have been symptom free, and he hasn’t looked back.

Until this happened, I never had a clear concept of just what it really means to have a concussion and how one seemingly simple injury can affect an entire family.

One of the real problems with concussions is that every one is different. Not every sufferer will have the same symptoms, and recovery time will vary case by case. When you break a bone, it’s fairly straightforward — it’s an obvious injury with a well-defined healing course that is identifiable by everyone. Concussions don’t behave that way, and the frustration for the sufferer is high.

With a greater national conversation focusing on the issue and more light being shed on the subject via the media and even Hollywood, it seems like everyone is talking about concussions now. In sharing my family’s story of concussion and recovery, perhaps it may help someone if they find themselves faced with a similar injury, or to help you understand what goes on in the mind of the concussed.

— Cheryl Pruett is the mother of two VHS athletes.