Pain of playing

Fribourg muddles through concussion

Photo courtesy of McDaniel’s Photography

MAKING A SPLASH. At water polo practice, an offensive player gets the ball while defensive player, Aryan Godha, puts pressure on him. This demonstrates the aggressive nature of water polo–even at practices. Fribourg shares that he got his concussion while at practice. Photo courtesy of McDaniel’s Photography

Maya Goldenberg, Staff Writer
December 4, 2017

Concussions take only seconds to happen, but they linger for what seems to be far too long. The amount of time it takes recover from a concussion varies based on its severity, the individual’s health beforehand, as well as the individual’s sex. According to a study done by John Neidecker, a sports medicine doctor, 28 days is a common concussion recovery time for girls, but for boys it is only 11 days. Junior Lucas Fribourg has had his concussion for over a month.

Describe how you got your concussion.
I swam into a wall. Then, I got hit after doing a drill- one of my friends was turning around while I was trying to swim around him, and he accidentally punched me. I hit the wall–I got a concussion, and me getting hit [by my friend] made it worse.

What was your attitude toward water polo while injured? Did you want to get back to it?
I was a bit annoyed that I couldn’t do anything, and I was upset that I couldn’t play, but there wasn’t much I could do about it.

How did your concussion feel? What was the worst it felt?
That day, the day I hit my head, it didn’t feel bad. But then the next day, my head hurt a ton. From then on I started getting light sensitivity, noise sensitivity, all that fun stuff. Some days [my concussion] really hurt a lot, but other days it was less painful.

Did you take off from school?
No. I just didn’t really do anything at school.

What sort of side effects did you get from your concussion?
I have experienced light sensitivity, dizziness, nausea, crappy memory, [and] fogginess. [Also] I can’t think straight and have trouble focusing. It was really frustrating because I was falling behind in classes and sports. I couldn’t keep up with everyone else… I couldn’t even go on a walk for two or three weeks.

How did your concussion affect your everyday life?
I couldn’t really do anything–like simple tasks. [For example,] mowing the lawn because of the noise and I would get really dizzy.

When will your concussion get better?
Well, I still have it. Some of the symptoms are starting to quiet, some are disappearing all together. Generally, the ones that still remain are pain while doing math and reading, and light [sensitivity].