Family Matters Part 2 with Heidi & Braden Ulvild
Show Notes:
In our previous episode, we spoke to Richard Ulvild who suffered a concussion four years ago in a serious car accident. Together with his wife Corinna, the couple shared the story of Richard’s mental and physical recovery and the support they received from their family. Today we are joined by Braden and Heidi Ulvild, Rich’s adult kids, to hear their experience of living with a parent who is suffering from a concussion. Tuning in you’ll discover what it felt like for Braden and Heidi when their dad didn’t seem to be recovering and how it affected them when they weren’t able to help fix what was wrong. They open up about their dad’s struggles with not being able to sleep and how scary it has been seeing him try different medications that have temporarily turned him into a different person altogether. The siblings share helpful advice for the families of concussion survivors so listen in to hear the importance of educating yourself, why you shouldn’t take things personally, how to do what you can to create a stress-free environment, and some encouragement to stay motivated. Tune in for all this and more!
Key Points From This Episode:
• A recap of how Braden and Heidi Ulvild’s dad, Richard, suffered his concussion.
• The symptoms Rich experienced as a result of his concussion.
• What it felt like for Braden and Heidi when their dad didn’t seem to be recovering.
• How, despite the common recommendation by doctors, staying in a dark room is not the best way to recover from a concussion.
• What it felt like for the kids to not be able to help fix what was wrong with their dad.
• What it was and is like watching Rich struggle with not being able to sleep.
• How scary it was for Braden and Heidi to see their dad try different medications that had such a big effect on him.
• How their dad’s concussion impacted the relationship between Braden and Heidi.
• The role that Bella’s siblings played in supporting her through her recovery.
• Braden and Heidi’s tips for families of concussion survivors.
• The importance of not taking things personally and educating yourself.
• Braden’s encouragement to stay motivated.
• Heidi’s closing advice to try to provide a stress-free environment as much as you can.
Connect with their Dad Rich:
Check out Rich’s podcast Welcome to My World
Follow Post Concussion Inc on Social Media to stay up to date on the podcast
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 guests Heidi and Braden Ulvild. Just last week, we had a talk with Heidi and Braden’s parents about their dad’s accident and their experience with post-concussion life. We are now here with both Rich’s kids, who are adults, to hear their experience of living with a parent who is suffering from a concussion. Welcome to the show.
[INTERVIEW]
[0:01:25.0] HU: Thanks for having us.
[0:01:26.5] BU: Yeah, we’re excited to be here.
[0:01:28.8] BP: We did hear it last week but do you guys want to tell us a little bit about your dad’s incident anyways?
[0:01:34.1] BU: Yeah, of course, I can give the brief little recap of it but essentially, he was involved in a rollover collision. He was driving alone on the Coquihalla, he was coming back from a work trip, unfortunately. I guess, perhaps, fortunately because it was a work trip so that definitely played a scenario on the outcome but essentially, it’s just driving home from Kelowna, he was about mid-way between Kelowna, he is about midway between Kelowna and Merritt and on very empty road and just somehow lost traction, there is black ice on the road and they just ended up going around the corner and the back of the truck just swung out and he ended up, luckily, there was snow on the side of the road but he needed up spinning around and then basically went parallel to the sidewalk backwards, hit the snow bank and rolled, we think two to three times. Unfortunately, he was alone but fortunately, there was a car much further up ahead who I think witnessed it or at least saw a little bit of the aftermath because they were way back and luckily, the pulled over to help him.
That was – I mean, it could have been a lot worse. There was a big hill or a cliff even on about 40 to 50 feet away from where his truck eventually stopped so if the snow wasn’t there, it’s very potential that he could have gone off the actual cliff and down even further, where no one else would have been able to see him, so his truck would have just been lost along with him. We’re quite fortunate that the snow was there to prevent him from rolling any further.
[0:03:05.8] BP: Yeah, for sure. Have either of you had any concussions, I didn’t ask before?
[0:03:10.9] BU: No, not personally.
[0:03:13.1] HU: No, I haven’t either, Braden and I both grew up playing sports. Braden played hockey and I played soccer and softball. I think in contact sports, we have hit our head once or twice but we’ve never had a diagnosed concussion. So for dad, his concussion was something brand new to our family, to our immediate family and even to our close friends. It’s definitely a big learning experience for everyone.
[0:03:34.9] BP: Yeah, because if you’ve never experienced it, it’s really hard to understand and it’s really hard to even know what they’re going through because you can’t really see a lot of it.
How did it feel when your dad wasn’t recovering? Because, at first, it kind of seems like the doctors always make it seem like two weeks, everything will be better. How did it feel when those two weeks passed and then things still weren’t the same?
[0:03:59.8] HU: It was definitely discouraging, very difficult to watch. I think about the day when we pick my dad up from the hospital and, on the outside, he looked okay, besides a few bumps and bruises but we didn’t know to the extent of how bad his concussion was until those few weeks. He had the classic symptoms, he wasn’t sleeping, he was physically in a lot of pain from the whiplash and the headaches, the brain fog, the emotional impact too, you’re a little bit more agitated, it’s hard for you to kind of grasp things. To see that continue on was definitely really hard to watch because he is such a very important role model in our life and before he went on his business trip, everything was normal for our family so it was a complete 180.
[0:04:48.0] BU: Yeah, I mean, we didn’t exactly know and he didn’t know and his doctors really didn’t know the extent of the trauma that he had been through either. I think for the first month or so, he kept on going to our family doctor and she just kept on saying, “Yeah, it’s going to be like a couple of months, you’ve had a concussion, just basically take it easy, don’t do anything, stay off your computer, your phone, don’t work and then we’ll see how things go. Things are going to get better,” but nothing was happening.
I’ve had friends who have had concussions, even at a very young age. I mean, one of my friends playing hockey I think we were 10 or 12. He sustained a massive concussion, not even during hockey, actually, during school he had hit his head on the corner of a desk and I remember him having quite the kind of rehab after that kind of concussion and then of course, just being around sports and watching professional sports, you hear about concussions a lot.
I didn’t have a whole lot of background on concussions before he had it but I definitely was aware that it was a growing issue. I mean, there had been a couple of movies that come out just before that, Concussion was one of them, that was very eye-opening and I guess, I just managed to watch that maybe a couple of years before my dad has his concussion. I had seen a number of sports interviews where a lot of players and professional sports were really trying to get together to fight because they just weren’t getting the support they had after their career. Even sometimes, most of the time, throughout their career as well.
I knew that it was an issue and I knew that it was a big – the help that he was receiving was not what he should have been getting. He was getting nothing, it was just like, sit down, sit in a dark room, don’t do anything. I mean, that alone is really hard to watch. I mean, you’re seeing your dad, your best friend, one of our biggest role models in our family just literally can’t do anything, it was not fun to watch but just knowing that we just weren’t sure if he was even getting better throughout that time, it was just not easy. We’re kind of grasping at straws and really catching up on what concussions are like and what needs to go into the rehab for it.
[0:06:55.1] BP: Yeah, it’s hard. I got told that to stay in a dark room too actually when my concussion symptoms really started to get bad and we’ve actually now learned that it’s terrible for concussions and it’s not the number one recommendation but for the longest time, it was. Even today, a lot of people that aren’t educated on, up to date with concussions still recommend that that’s the only thing you should do and it’s not a bad thing to do once in a while but it’s not the number one recommendation.
It feels hard, I know my parents any my siblings had trouble with this for me. I’m sure it was hard for you guys, your mom mentioned it a little bit, you guys working together and talking and stuff about your dad. How did it feel to not be able to help fix what was wrong because that can be really hard as a kid, as a sibling because you want to help but there’s really not much that you can do.
[0:07:47.3] BU: It was really hard. It was really hard because it was hard on him as well. I mean, we were all going through it together but the fact that I couldn’t help him and the fact that he didn’t know what help he needed and he didn’t have anyone telling him, “This is what you need,” it made it even more difficult. We were kind of flying blind and throughout that time, he is not getting any better. In fact, he was likely getting worse from doing what he was doing.
It was so incredibly difficult. It wasn’t motivating for ourselves personally at all. I mean, that was a really hard time for each of us individually watching dad. Our life, as Heidi mentioned, really took a 180 after the accident. I mean, dad was – we’re just a normal family before that, no drama, none of us had ever had any big injuries, I’ve never broken a bone, I don’t think Heidi really has either. We were all just one big happy family and then suddenly, our dad is on the couch and in total fog, doesn’t really know what’s going on and we kind of don’t know at all either. As time went on, it was kind of increasingly hard for him to communicate exactly what he was going through and what he was dealing with and, emotionally, you could just tell that it was really compounding for him. I mean, he was getting depressed, he’s losing a lot of motivation because he just didn’t have anyone around who could tell him, “This is what you can expect, this is what we’re going to do for you, and this is how you’re going to get better.”
In the first few months, we just did not have that until [Inaudible 09:16] stepped in. Yeah, it wasn’t just hard for him, it was really hard for us, personally.
[0:09:22.4] BP: Yeah, for sure. Yeah, there’s nothing easy about watching either. People don’t always understand that, it’s hard on the survivor but it’s also hard on all of the family and friends who are there watching someone change and go through something a lot different than they’ve ever gone through before.
You guys, everyone listening, can learn more about their dad Rich and his podcast, Welcome to My World, by clicking the link in the episode description. With that, we’re going to take a break.
[SPONSOR MESSAGE]
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[INTERVIEW CONTINUED]
[0:10:32.7] BP: Welcome back to the post-concussion podcast with myself, Bella Paige, and today’s guest, Heidi and Braden Ulvild. Something we talked about a little bit when we met before was, your dad going on medications and kind of changing him and mood swings and things like that. Do you want to talk a little bit more about what it was like to live with him when he was going through therapy and treatments and things like that?
[0:10:57.9] HU: One thing that our dad struggled with and I know is still a symptom, he experiences today is his sleep. After his concussion, he was not sleeping at all, of course, and for months and months after that it was becoming a really big issue. He did try a variety of different medications to help him fall asleep, help him stay asleep, taking a nap here and there when he needed to, but just nothing was working.
Anybody that knows, even if you don’t have one good sleep, it affects you the next day. When it’s consistently, you start of eventually to lose hope that you’re ever going to sleep a full night and it’s still a symptom that he experiences today and still continues to work towards and seek advice from medical professionals for, but it was just really discouraging to see him try different things and for nothing to work out. To see him deal with the impact of being sleep deprived every single day for months and months and now, even years on end.
[0:11:59.8] BU: Yeah, it was not fun to watch at all. I mean, some of the medications that he was given, pretty much were like either horse tranquilizers or like an immediate drunk pill. I mean, some of the stuff he would take it, within 20 minutes he was a completely different person.
That was terrifying because the medication wasn’t helping. You just knew that right away, if it was having that big of an impact, that fast and completely altering who he was, that can’t be helpful to his condition. He was on a number of medications, he had to get a pill box with the weak breakdown because he was taking, I think, upwards of 10 plus pills a day.
When it came time to sleep, he was on a few pills, he had to take a kind of a cocktail of pills and he couldn’t get himself out of a chair after that. I mean, he was just – it’s like he had just pounded a two six. It was scary. I mean, I had to carry him to bed, I had to get everything ready for him. He’s not like I am, he’s got a bit more muscle than I do, he’s at the gym a lot more than I have, so it was a bit of a struggle but, I mean, that in itself was just, it was terrifying. Just knowing that there is tiny little pills that could make my 200 pound dad, 250 pound dad a completely different person within minutes of taking them. It was terrifying.
They weren’t even working, that was the thing as well. I mean, he took them consistently and they said, it was probably going to take a month before it works and a month goes by, two months go by. His motivation just continually to spiral down and then so was ours because we’re seeing not only his motivation go down but we’re seeing everything that he’s been given,
we were hopeful that it’ll work, not work. I mean, almost not a single thing did anything for – just me and him completely different person for hours at a time. It was scary just knowing that that kind of medication is out there.
[0:13:58.0] BP: It is crazy when you think about it, as you say a tiny little pill completely alters something. I took – I haven’t talked about it on the podcast a few times, there was one medication I took that slightly lessened the headaches. My problem was, I had chronic pain and excruciating pain every day so that’s what all the medication was for and in three months, I lost over 20 pounds and then I took a year to two years to relearn how to eat a full meal again. I think I had my first full meal a year after I started therapy with the nutritionist and a dietician on how to even learn to eat again and that was from one pill for three months and then it took a year to get back to where I was before. It can be things like that.
Or I had one that it was night terrors, I already get night terrors and then that medication was so bad that my partner at the time said, “No, you can’t take this because you’re scaring me at night. You cannot be doing this in your sleep every single day,” and then I was afraid to sleep because the night terrors was so bad.
It is amazing how some medications has such strong side effects but you can ask someone else who is taking it and they had a completely different side effect of completely different mood swing. They all interact differently with all of us and it’s important to recognize that when you take them that it might not be the same reaction that somebody else caught.
Speaking of pills, but reactions and relationships of pills, how is the relationship between you two through all of this? Because that is definitely something that you would have to deal with when dealing with your dad as well.
[0:15:36.8] HU: Well, Braden, he’s my big brother so of course, you know he got to do his part to keep me safe and everything. During our dad’s recovery and ongoing recovery, I strongly believe that while they can have assistance from medical professionals, you need family support no matter what. Braden did a really good job at being dad’s sidekick, being there for mom and taking over light duties in the house and stuff and checking in with me.
In a way, his accident brought our family closer and we already are incredibly closer family but Braden also took the lead to educating himself more on concussions and to find different things to help dad even, you know, “Have you tried this for sleeping or this for your headaches?” or whatnot.
We’re definitely as close as we always have been but, you know, our support when we felt discouraged and sad and we are both feeling hopeless in our dad’s recovery that we had each other to support each other and to listen because we’re going through the exact same thing together at the exact same time. So you need your family support to help them but also to help you too during the process.
[0:16:44.1] BU: Yeah, he was between Heidi and I, you had moved out I think shortly six months after or later that year I think, or a year later. I continued at home because I was continuing school. I was there for just the three of us between my mom and my dad and, I mean, all of our relationships, I mean, as Heidi said, it really did kind of bring us together because we had to battle it together and we knew that we had this worked out through it all but it was a big, big curve.
I know, in mom, it was something that was a little harder to grasp than perhaps myself and Heidi but the fact that dad was likely never going to be the same again after this accident that his road to recovery just kept on getting longer and longer. It went from, “Two months, you should be okay back to normal,” to, “A year like, okay, within a year we think you’ll be back to it” to two years, three years, four years, plus, to “Honestly, we don’t know if things are ever going to be okay again. You might be operating at 80 to 90 percent of who you were before for the rest of your life because we just don’t know.”
I think for that that was really hard for my mom to understand because my dad’s always been the primary for everything, not that my mom is like not – he can’t use it for anything but my dad has very much taken the leadership of everything and he was very career driven. He had an extremely successful career up until the accident even still after but he was very much doing extremely well for himself before.
The fact that that was all changing and it was really out of all of our control even as I think it was really hard for my mom to understand. So we definitely had our battles at times but it was really just to help each other understand what was going on and what was going to happen and what the future is going to look like.
I mean it was hard for all of us to understand but I know anyone listening to this who’s been in this situation has likely gone exactly through the exact same thing as well. I mean, there is going to be some barriers to understanding because it is so unknown and this is not a broken arm or a broken leg. It gets all up here and it is really hard to see any progress that is being made or whether things are going forward or backwards.
We definitely had our difficult moments but in the end as how you mentioned, we’re all very much in it together and we always will be. I mean, I think we’re definitely closer today than we ever were really before.
[0:19:16.6] BP: Yeah, it is important because you do need that family support like Heidi said because without it, it is even harder and it is already something hard to go through and I get like you said, it’s not always perfect when you’re going through it either. I know my little sister, now she makes jokes about it. I know it was really hard at the time to deal with but she makes jokes that I lived in my room for two years and it’s true.
I did live in my room for two years and either in my room or in the hospital is where I was and now, she makes jokes but I know that when it was happening she didn’t get it because she was younger and didn’t really understand why I was okay for a few hours and then in bed or I was happy and then I could snap really easy. We had a lot of anger issues when I was going through it and my siblings sometimes make jokes but they all know like if you touch my head I jump and I used to snap and I get really mad because it was always hurting. The idea of it hurting more used to make me react so that would cause problems but my siblings are also the ones who have been there for me when, “Well, can you drive me to go see my horse? I am really dizzy today” when I want to go so they would pick me up and take me and little things like that. It’s like, “Oh well, I really need this from the pharmacy” and they’d be like, “Oh, I can go get it for you” or I need help reorganizing my meds, I can’t keep track anymore. They would help with things like that and it’s so important because it made such a big difference for me as well.
Do you guys have any other tips for individuals going through the same situation?
[0:20:50.3] BU: I think just understanding or at least being open to understanding. I mean, one thing that we kind of dealt with dad the temper. Before I mean, he’s had a slightly shorter fuse his whole life but, I mean, after the accident, it went tenfold his fuse and that was really difficult on all of us. I mean at the end of the day, we just really had to understand this isn’t you, this is the concussion that is causing you to do this. It’s the cocktail of medication that you’re on, it’s the sleep deprivation, this is all what’s causing you to be like this. So you really can’t take those kinds of things personally.
You really got to understand that you’re not who you are right now because that’s who you want to be. You are who you are right now as a product of your injuries and the medications that you’re on and any other contributing factors. So that was something that we definitely had to understand all together.
I mean we had our battles for sure and my dad would just storm off and he just needed his space and we had to give it to him. We wanted to of course chase after him and be like, “No, wait we’re sorry” or whatever, “Let’s try to fix this,” but suddenly he really told us he’s like, “No, I need my space. I sometimes don’t understand why I’m like this, and I just need to cool down after it. I just need to be with myself” so we had to give that to him for sure.
Really just understanding the A of who they were before and the B of who they are now and what’s causing them to be that way and just being open-minded about it and not taking it too seriously or too personal at all.
[0:22:25.3] HU: On top of that, I think education is really important. As a family prior to our dad going into the head injury treatment clinic, we were starting to learn more about concussions but we actually learned a lot through him with what he would share with us when he would come home and that opened up our eyes a lot to the variety of symptoms of concussions. Because then when we look back on for a few months after his recovery, we can be like, “Oh, it was hard to be in a grocery store because of all the lights” or he constantly had headaches even if he was just watching TV and that’s consistent pain. Even just the lack of sleep that he was going through, those are all the symptoms that he had and we learned about them as things went along but I think we have way more education now that we can share with others than we used to.
I think it just comes down to the family working together and supporting each other. Our mom is a very strong woman and she’s been there beside our dad every single day, so it’s education but also checking in on each other too because we’re all are handling it a little bit different.
Certain things about my dad’s accident make me sad but not make essentially Braden sad or my mom sad, so we all respond differently but to know that there are now, to our knowledge, places that people with concussions can go to get help and to work hard so that it can get there and to celebrate their little achievements. When our dad doesn’t have a headache, it’s a big deal because he is not taking any Advil or Tylenol. He can sit and enjoy what’s surrounding him instead of having dinner with his family and having a pounding a headache. It’s something that could be a normal fix for someone is actually a pretty big achievement for somebody with a concussion.
[0:24:15.2] BP: Yeah, well that is awesome great advice especially the not taking it personally because I think if my mom did, she probably would have never spoke to me again by now. There was a lot of things I’d say to her because she was the one – I was around her every day and I’m sure your mom experienced it a lot too because you’re the one who is around them the most. My mom was the one who was always checking on me and taking care of me and she was also the one who took the brunt of my anger all of the time, so I’m glad she didn’t take it personally because she still loves me.
That wouldn’t have gone very well and the education piece is really important and that’s what this podcast is all about because you have to learn what someone is going through because it’s hard to explain like you guys have mentioned and it’s invisible. Sometimes my family knows now that if I say we’re in the middle of family dinner and I’m like, “I am going to go lay down” on my niece’s bed at my sister’s house, they’re like, “Yeah, okay. We’ll wake you up in an hour” because that’s just part of our life. It’s not, “Oh, you’re going to miss out on dinner. Oh you’re going to miss out on some family stuff.” It’s just, “That’s fine, we know that that’s what you need and that’s fine. You are not trying to skip out on things.” I have missed family events are not gone because it is just easier for me and they just get it because if they didn’t that would make it way harder for me to deal with.
You guys have already given so much great advice but is there anything else you would like to add before ending today’s episode?
[0:25:43.8] BU: Yeah, I’m sure listeners have heard going a lot through all of the podcast but I think just staying motivated. I mean, you’re not alone. There is so many people out there who get concussions, who get life-changing injuries and at the end of the day, you have time. You’re not perhaps you’re road to recovery is going to take quite a long time but in that meantime, you still have who you are and you still have those around you. Yeah, it is going to be different but just understand that that’s the new normal and find a way to just make peace with it.
That’s really the only way that our family really got through with it. As soon as we really understood that this is where things are and this is how things are going to be, it is a lot easier to move forward because you’re not constantly hoping like, “Tomorrow is going to be much better, why isn’t today better, why has it been so long?” We just know that okay, this is actually going to take quite a long time and now that we understand that, we can work together at it. I really think just keeping an open mind and staying motivated and finding the new positives in the new normal is a key way to recover.
[0:26:52.2] HU: I would say on top of that too, our dad has a very great sense of humor and he is always making people laugh, so during the time he wasn’t cracking jokes as often as he used to, as he was recovering from his concussion, but when we started to see that side of him come back it was a relief and just to have laughter again, you know find that like Braden said, find the motivation and then the positivity but try to do what you can as a family to provide a stress-free environment as much as you can.
To sometimes take the conversation a little bit of a detour away from the topic of the concussion and just find things that you guys find funny as a family or that will make the person who has a concussion laugh and just feel some sort of relief in a different way. I think that is something that’s helped our family too and if anything, made us more funny.
[0:27:43.8] BP: That’s great. Well, I just want to thank you both so much for joining us today and sharing your insights on family and life post-concussion. Don’t forget, Heidi and Braden’s parents were on last week’s episode if you want to hear more.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
[0:28:00.7] BP: I just wanted to say thank you. The podcast is just over six months old and I couldn’t be happier with the response. If you truly love the podcast, please consider leaving a tip in our support the podcast tip jar down at the bottom of our episode description. All tips are greatly appreciated and help cover cost of the show.
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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