Acting Like You’re Okay with Evan Boughey
Show Notes:
Watching your friends or teammates continue to do the things you once loved doing can be one of the challenges you deal with post-concussion. You get to a place where you have to make peace with the fact that life had a different plan for you, and no matter how tough it is, you have to keep going and keep pursuing the joy in life. Welcome back to another episode of The Post Concussion Podcast, with your host Bella Paige.
Today we welcome guest Evan Boughey, a 23-year old who is currently studying communications at the University of Louisville. Evan hopes to continue to do work in the concussion industry after graduating from college. Growing up, he was an avid lacrosse player and has suffered from seven concussions in the space of a few years. He received his first five concussions playing lacrosse and the last two from snowboarding and then wakeboarding. His first concussion was in 7th grade and his last was in 2017. Tune in for today’s episode where we hear from Evan about his injuries, dark days, what sparked his motivation to seek help, and the recovery journey he has been on. We also hear about what motivated him to pursue a career in the concussion world. Tune in for all this, and more!
Key Points From This Episode:
• Evan shares how his injuries occurred.
• Things Evan has done to help his journey along; vestibular therapy and neuro-psych exams.
• Hear about how neuro-rehab has helped Evan on his recovery journey.
• Whether therapy has gotten Evan to the point where he is not dealing with any symptoms anymore.
• Evan shares his experience of having to take a step back from playing lacrosse.
• How Evan dealt with losing his sport, some of his friends, and opening up about his concussions.
• Evan shares his adjustment going back to school/college; dealing with testing anxiety.
• What made Evan realize he needed help after his concussions.
• Evan shares which elements of therapy really helped him.
Transcript - Click to Read
[INTRODUCTION]
[0:00:05.3] BP: Hi, I’m your host Bella Paige and welcome to The Post Concussion Podcast. All about life after experiencing a concussion. Help us make the invisible injury become visible.
The Post Concussion Podcast is strictly an information podcast about concussions and post-concussion syndrome. It does not provide nor substitute for professional medical advice diagnosis or treatment. Always seek the advice of your physician or another qualified health provider with any questions you may have regarding a medical condition.
Never disregard professional medical advice or delay in seeking it because of something you have heard on this podcast. The opinions expressed in this podcast are simply intended to spark discussion about concussion and post-concussion syndrome.
Welcome to today’s episode of The Post Concussion Podcast with myself Bella Paige and today’s guest, Evan Boughey. Evan is currently 23 years old, studying communications at the University of Louisville. He is hoping to continue to do work in the concussion industry after graduating, he has suffered from seven concussions in a short timespan of a few years and the recovery process is what motivated him to pursue a career in the concussion world.
[INTERVIEW]
[0:01:30.4] BP: Welcome to the show Evan.
[0:01:31.9] EB: Thank you.
[0:01:33.8] BP: To start, do you want to tell everyone a bit about your injuries and what occurred?
[0:01:38.7] EB: Sure, I started playing lacrosse in 7th grade and form the years of 2012 to 2014, I actually got five concussions from playing lacrosse. My first one came when I was in the 8th grade and it was just – I was running, I was going to – there’s ground balls and you guys scoop them up and then while I was doing that, I ended up getting hit in the head, when I fell, I hit my head on the ground and back then, I didn’t really know what a concussion was and I didn’t think much of it and I got cleared to play so I kept playing.
By the time I got to my freshman year of high school, one year later, I got two more, which then I went to see my neurologist and she cleared me after the three and I was like, “Okay, I’m going to keep playing.” I kept playing and by the time I started my sophomore year, I got two more and I remember the last one specifically because that was the worst concussion that I had received. It happened the same way with my first one, I was going to scoop up the ground ball and I got hit and I wound up in the air and fell on the back of my head.
I just remembered, when I hit the ground, I was in agony and I rolled over and I punched the ground. Next thing I know, I woke up and I was on my back and I had six coaches standing over me and they just started asking me all these questions that I didn’t know and then that, right there, was when I realized that this was probably it for me for lacrosse.
I stopped playing that but I continued to snowboard and wakeboard because those were the things that I enjoyed. I ended up getting one from snowboarding and my 7th one came form wakeboarding in 2017.
[0:03:31.6] BP: Wow, yeah. They’re quite the range of injuries, all sports though. I had a neurologist tell me I was good to ride and I was pumped when he told me that, I was like, “Okay, great, I’m going to ride then.” It was not the case, every single time, but there was quite a few times where doctors would say, “Yeah, you’re good, you can ride,” and then the second I’d start a bit, sure, then I keep going and then I’d be like, “Oh no, I shouldn’t be doing this.” You believed them because that’s what you want to be doing, right?
[0:04:08.3] EB: Yeah, because when you have a doctor who is supposed to know this stuff and they tell you that you're good to play and it’s a sport or something that you love doing, you just want to get back into it and just keep doing it, you’re not thinking about the long-terms.
[0:04:22.3] BP: Exactly. What have you tried to help so far?
[0:04:27.0] EB: Some things that I did to help was I got a new neurologist after the one cleared me. I went and saw a new one and he was actually shocked that I was still playing after my first three because –
[0:04:38.8] BP: Probably a good idea, yeah.
[0:04:40.1] EB: That’s usually when we tell them to stop but he was helpful, he gave me some good tips. He got me into vestibular therapy to help with my balance which also helps with some of the headaches and all that and then he also had me take a neuro psyche exam to evaluate my brain, like what was working and what was damaged. After I did that, I was able to get into neuro rehab which helped me with regain some of my memory, it helped me get my speech back and just helped my reaction times and just other things but my neurologist also prescribed me Cymbalta and Nuedexta.
The Cymbalta to help with then feelings with like they keep going through that concussion, the persisting concussion syndrome to help me get through that. I took those, to be honest, I didn’t really feel much difference, I think the thing that helped the most was the neuro rehab and the vestibular therapy, actual doing physical therapy and working with my memory, trying to regain my speech and just trying to get my reaction times back up and all that.
[0:05:51.7] BP: Yeah, I know, I went a while where I did like the – I call like the drug cycle where you try something for three months and then you go, “Okay, it’s been three months,” that’s last time you saw that doctor and then they’re like, “Well, it didn’t work, let’s try a new one,” and then I tried a bunch of those and my problem was either, they did absolutely nothing for the side effects and I’m one of those people that would get the scary side effect of night terrors or something that you really don’t want and those, I didn’t’ find a lot of them help me, but some people, they do.
I had one that did help with my headaches but then the side effects weren’t worth it — I’d rather deal with the headaches than not eating all the time. I had to come and make a choice there but I’m so happy that all the therapies helped because a lot of people get into therapy, even compared to when your concussions started, it’s so late so people get nervous that they’re getting into it too late but it’s important to know that at any time, it’s a good time to start. Especially if you haven’t done it yet.
[0:06:58.5] EB: I know when – I actually did therapy as well after my neuro rehab, they recommended me to therapy and so I tried it and I also thought it was like, “Well, I think it’s too late for this, I don’t know how much we’re going to be able to help me in that,” but I mean, I went through three therapist and I finally found one that I liked and that helped a lot too, just having someone that — she kind of understood concussions and what it was and so it was good having someone to be able to talk to and have them be able to kind of relate to you.
[0:07:30.1] BP: I got sent to a bunch of therapist from different doctors and I think most of them, I didn’t go more than once because like I was just done after one appointment with them, “I never want to see you again” which was probably a bad attitude but eventually I found the right one. Are you dealing with any symptoms like currently? Has the therapy gotten you to the point where you're not dealing with anything anymore?
[0:07:53.7] EB: For the most part, my symptoms, they have decreased greatly, there’s a lot of days now that I don’t even recognize them but I still have those days where if it’s really bright outside and I’m leaving my house in the morning or for the first time, the brightness can disturb my head. I’ve also noticed like buildings with bright LED white lights can also hurt my head as well.
Really, my big thing that I noticed is sensitivity to light and loud noises are when it really starts to flare up my symptoms. I try to wear sunglasses when I go outside and try to avoid that heavy base where it’s like shaking the room or the car and then it’s like, my brain is just like, what’s happening and then I feel like panic.
[0:08:39.1] BP: Yeah. I know I get the loud noises, I’m not bad with light most of the time now but then again, I don’t really go outside not wearing sunglasses so that’s probably why. It’s just a habit now but the noise sensitivity, I thought that is something, that’s really loud. I will still blast music in my car and then be like, “What am I doing?” I tune it down. It is way too loud, your head’s going to be really mad at you. That wasn’t very fun but what was it like to take a step back from lacrosse? You were pretty young at the time so how did that go over, was it pretty easy?
[0:09:26.5] EB: That was very tough for me because that was one sport that I loved and I saw myself playing it in the future like I want to play lacrosse and just play it for the remainder of my life. I had visions of myself doing well, it was just something that I loved to do and once I got that hit, I knew I was done and then once I saw a neurologist, he was like, “Yeah, you’re done” I was like, “Yeah, I saw that coming” and that was just – that was tough for me because my playing, I felt like it was just getting to a level where I wanted it to be at and then I had this happen where I just had to take a step back for it, forever.
[0:10:03.2] BP: How did you find having a neurologist tell you directly that you should stop?
[0:10:09.9] EB: It was tough, I kind of spiraled down into a dark place and I honestly believed that that was the start of my depression when I slipped into that was having – losing something that I love to do that I did every day.
[0:10:25.8] BP: Yeah, it can be really tough, all that mental, my mental health like tanked so I really get it especially the sport part, I actually posted about it the other day before we recorded this and I had a memory pop up like you know, like Snapchat and Instagram and Facebook, they have all these memories that pop up and it was from two years ago and it was me riding horses in Florida.
I was like, “Wow, that hit me like a brick wall,” I just felt like a ghost all day. That is what I was supposed to be doing right now. I shouldn’t be here, I should be in Florida. Those kinds of memories, I was like yup, like you’ve been doing great but sometimes, even to this day, the quitting the sport, I’m like ouch, that still hurts, yup.
[0:11:15.8] EB: Yeah, I got some of my friends into lacrosse and some of them went on to playing in college and I would just see them play and I would just be like, “That’s tough, I should be there with them,” I should be there with them but — life had another plan for me.
[0:11:33.3] BP: Yeah, it’s like a proud but angry kind of moment.
[0:11:37.5] EB: Yeah.
[0:11:39.1] BP: I go to horse shows, one of my best friends rides in shows all the time and I go with her and I’m like, “I’m so happy,” but then I really want to be in the ring, it’s really hard to – it took me quite a few years to disconnect and just be there and be happy to be in the environment and be with all the friends and people that I know from the world just from all the years I spent in it.
I still get that missing feeling but it’s not as strong as it used to be. At first I was like, I can’t even be here because this is really hard to watch but it took a lot of time to get over that. Those friends that you had played lacrosse, did you explain to a lot of your friends and your non-lacrosse friends, what you've been going through this whole time?
[0:12:25.5] EB: Unfortunately with those friends I played lacrosse, I kind of fell off from them but my friends that I got in college, they were the first ones that I really opened up to about my concussions because I can’t just keep trying to pretend like I’m a normal person because I can’t do it because that’s just too much work for me just to try to pretend that I’m just like them.
Eventually, I did ended up opening up to them, which I was really nervous about because I didn’t know how they were going to take it, you never know how someone’s going to take something like that but I think they took it quite amazingly and they helped me a lot throughout my recovery and I probably wouldn’t be where I am today if I didn’t have them to help me throughout it.
[0:13:11.7] BP: That’s amazing. It’s hard to tell them but it’s good to have at least a few good friends know, like my one friend, she always watches, we were playing cards the one night after going to a restaurant and this was before COVID. She looked at me and she’s like, “You should go home,” she’s like, “You are losing way more often than you usually do and you don’t look good.” She’s like, “Don’t stay just because you want to be here, just leave,” because I’m sitting there and I’m in a lot of pain but I was enjoying myself at the same time, I love game nights and I just love it.
She’s just looking at me like, “Bella, just leave, just go home.” It did save me, I was able to drive home and go to bed before I got too dizzy or kind of pushed my symptoms to the point where they’d affect me the next day.
[0:14:07.5] EB: Yeah, that’s always good. I’ve had that happen a few times. Before I knew, I thought I was ready to go for loud noises, I went to a concert with my friends and — terrible idea.
[0:14:18.1] BP: Yeah, indoor concert or outdoor?
[0:14:20.9] EB: It was outdoors but –
[0:14:22.4] BP: Okay, it’s a little better.
[0:14:23.7] EB: Yeah, the bass is loud and I just remember feeling the ground shaking left about that, I just started getting dizzy and I was just like, “I need to go home.” Luckily, my friend, he looked at me and he was like you said with your friend, he was like, “You don’t look okay,” and I was like, “I don’t think I am.” He was like, “I’ll drive us home,” and I was like, “Well, thanks!” So it is just nice having people that would take away from their fun just because they know that it would help you if you all left at home.
[0:14:52.9] BP: It makes a big difference especially in the mental part of all of this. You can follow on Instagram @evan_boughey_ which also be available in today’s Show Notes. With that, let’s take a break.
[BREAK]
[0:15:11.6] BP: Want to create awareness for concussions? Want to support our podcast and website? Buy awareness clothing today on postconcussioninc.com and get 10% off using “listenin.” That’s “listenin” and be sure to take Post Concussion Inc. in your photos. We’d love to see them.
[INTERVIEW CONTINUED]
[0:15:37.7] BP: Welcome back to The Post Concussion Podcast with myself, Bella Paige and today’s guest, Evan Boughey. Something I wanted to ask you, how is the adjustment at school been because all of these started before university? How has that been?
[0:15:54.2] EB: Well, I thought the adjustment is going to be fine for school because I’ve always – in high school, I was always an AB. I wasn’t always an honor roll student. I was like, “This won’t – I’ll be able to do it” but once I got to college, everything changed. I would go to the class, I would sit there and pay attention or at least I thought I was but right when I would leave the class and be like, “I don’t know what we just talked about” even though I took all the notes and everything.
When it came to the test, I would study like days in advance making sure I cover everything that is on the study guide, what’s going to be on the test and then when I would go in to take the test, I would sit there and I would get really anxious. My palms would start sweating, I would start getting a little tremors and right when I would get that test I would be like, “I don’t remember anything I just studied.” Doing poorly in college, I was – my freshman and sophomore year I was a C and a D student.
I was struggling and I was thinking about dropping out. I was like, “This just isn’t for me. I can’t do this,” and that’s really when my neurologist recommended me to work from out of school’s disability resource center. I was like, “Okay, maybe they’ll help with my testing anxiety in that,” because what they would do is they gave me extra time. It allowed me to take the test in a separate room, so I would just be by myself but I was still not performing as well as I thought I was doing.
During this time, I was trying to get into the business school, which you need a 2.8 GPA, which I did not have with Cs and Ds, so they didn’t let me in and that’s when I decided to switch my major to communications and that is when I really started to see improving in school. I believe it was because there was less tests, and it was just more papers, I can better explain myself and take the time that I needed to get it done and make sure I was doing it well.
I didn’t feel as pressured, I didn’t have as much anxiety when it came to doing those papers and I also felt like my teachers, my professors were willing to help me more. They are a lot more helpful than the ones that I had in the pre-business school. I got to give a shout out to my professors that helped me and all that because now, I’m set to graduate this upcoming summer semester and I never thought that I would see that day.
[0:18:17.2] BP: Yeah, well that’s awesome. Congratulations. It can be really hard and those accommodations like I had lots of accommodations, some of them I use and some of them I didn’t. It just kind of depended but I never really thought about it that way of the programs start being different because my little sister is in history and all of her work it’s all papers. There’s no – they have an exam but it is just been a few hours to write an essay like there’s no – everything is a paper, which is kind of a nightmare to me because I don’t understand any of it but I did take business and yeah, a lot of it is tests.
It’s amazing how we all think differently and the memory problems is really hard. That was one of my hardest things and then the memory when I was studying was really hard because I’ll be reading all of this information and then I couldn’t tell you what is said and the school environment in college is a lot different especially at larger schools because the classrooms are huge and like you’re sitting with like four inch to other people and it’s like, “Great, this is really going to help my head and my symptoms” and then also trying to learn in the same environment.
I just didn’t end up going was how I did school but I guess no one is really going right now but I just gave up. I was like, “Nope, I will just do this all from home,” because I would go for certain professors because they didn’t write anything, they didn’t post anything online. That tapping or like somebody sitting there like chewing gum really loudly and I’m like, my head wants to explode so I can’t do this but it’s great that switching programs worked for you and there’s nothing wrong with switching programs.
I switched programs within the same program about six times. I just lucked at where business has a lot of different career.
[0:20:16.3] EB: From the others a ton that you can do in business.
[0:20:18.1] BP: Yeah, I went from wanting to be a lawyer to an accountant to now I do podcasts, so you never really know where you can end up doing when you go into school and you decide so young and then you add concussion issues on top of that. It’s a lot of pressure that you can put on yourself but it’s really good that you were able to push past that and not really give up because it is hard not to give up. There is a couple of times I had a doctor tell me to just give up once.
Maybe I’ll just try – well, I had them tell me a couple of times but one time in university, it hit me a lot. They were like, “Why don’t you just stop? This just isn’t working for you” I’d even have one of the counselors at the school kind of advice the same thing. I can’t do this, don’t tell me to quit. Isn’t this not your job?
[0:21:12.1] EB: I thought that they were supposed to be there to help you stay but –
[0:21:14.9] BP: Right? Are you supposed to encourage me to make it work not try again later? Everyone is different but at the same time, they’re just trying to be as honest as possible but I was suffering. You feel like a different person too with going through high school into college and you feel like a different person after head injuries for sure. When your symptoms kept going and you had that one hit, what made you realized you needed help other than that hit? Was there anything else that was like, “Oh there’s something off here.”
[0:21:48.9] EB: Yes, it was probably my freshman year is when I realized I needed the help because as I mentioned earlier, after I loss lacrosse I kind of spiraled down and slipped into depression and my freshman year, once I got into school, I realized I wasn’t doing as well and my symptoms were really bad. You mentioned the larger classrooms, I would walk into a class of 300, with those bright LED lights I would already have headaches and then with all the chatter in between everyone and the professor, it was just too much noise going on at once so I won’t be able to focus.
I was just wasn’t doing well in school, I didn’t feel like myself. I wasn’t really sure who I was anymore so I was just in this dark state and I was just depressed like I didn’t really want to do anything. Whenever I did, I would just put on a smile and just try to act like I was okay and then probably go home and probably cry because I was doing a lot of that during that time but there is one day I went to a football game with some of my friends and I actually have to leave early because my symptoms flared up.
I was just like, “I’ve had enough of this,” so it’s like I don’t want to do this anymore and I just remembered grabbing a bottle of vodka and my pills, Cymbalta and Nuedexta and I just started throwing them as I started popping them, and I woke up the next morning thankfully and that’s when I really realized that I’m not okay. I need more help. I need more help than what I was getting and that’s when I started to reach out and I told my mom what happened and she started – she got me the help, some help that I needed and that’s when my journey really began.
My recovery process was after that day, that morning. I woke up and part of me was upset that I tried, another part of me was also happy that I woke up the next day but it was a tough time for me. That’s really the moment when I knew that I needed more help than I was getting.
[0:24:03.4] BP: Yeah, thank you for sharing. It’s really hard and it’s tough to realize that it took me also hitting like the bottom and being in a hospital room instead and to realize that like I need to go therapy and actually agree with people that I should go to therapy because I didn’t want to. I was mad, everybody takes it differently. There is some in me that like you said you’re happy that you’re there but then there was some of me who was just numb and mad at the world still.
I didn’t feel great so that’s why the therapy was like the next step and I’m so glad that you mom was the one to help you because without that support system lining that up it feels impossible to try to how am I supposed to find someone myself to do this when you barely feel like getting out of bed, right?
[0:24:55.7] EB: Yeah. I am very thankful for my mom. She’s been my number one support system through this and I’m just glad that she was able to help me the way that she has and yeah, I am very thankful for her.
[0:25:09.4] BP: I’m also very glad you’re here today.
[0:25:11.5] EB: Thank you. Me too.
[0:25:13.7] BP: It takes a while to get there but I am very glad you are. What helped you in therapy was there tricks or was it just talking it out? What worked for you?
[0:25:22.2] EB: When it was with therapy, it was really just talking about it like she would just ask how much – I would go out and tell her, I would tell her about the symptoms and then she’d like, would you try anything to calm them down? I was like, “I’m not really sure how to do that,” then she said like doing like breathing techniques or just closing my eyes for like 15 seconds, putting my head down.
I started doing that and those would help for classes and that. Then, when they were really bad, I would just – I would go home, lay in a dark room, what they always tell you, just lay in a dark room for a little bit and just try to reset my brain but I know with my anxiety and that one thing that really helped me was actually cannabis which is what I turn to after I stopped taking those pills.
Because whenever I do that, it would just calm my brain down, I would not be anxious and I would just feel like human again. I didn’t feel like I was someone who had all these issues with me, I just felt like a normal person again and it was nice, it was just relaxing, relieving.
[0:26:33.4] BP: If it works, it works. As long as you're doing it safely and it’s helping you then why not, right? If it’s going to allow you to be able to walk out that door every day confidently and carry on with your life then it’s really important if it helps, yeah. Which is fantastic. Is there anything else you would like to add before ending today’s episode?
[0:26:58.2] EB: I just want to say that during my time in the darkest, I felt like I was alone and that no one understood me but I was wrong, that was just my mind tricking me because there’s other people that were struggling with concussions too, I just didn’t reach out to them because I didn’t feel like they would understand me but I mean, if you’re struggling, just reach out to someone because they more than likely will want to help you.
You just got to keep pushing, that’s really it, no matter how tough it gets, you can’t put your head down, just got to keep going.
[0:27:34.7] BP: Yeah, well, thank you so much and one day at a time, everyone. That’s how we get through it and thank you so much for joining and sharing your story and life post-concussion.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
[0:27:46.7] BP: Has your life been affected by concussions? Join our podcast by getting in touch. Thank you so much for listening to The Post Concussion Podcast and be sure to help us educate the world about the reality of concussion by giving us a share and to learn more, don’t forget to subscribe.
[END]
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