Slowly Healing with Sophia Raquel
Show Notes:
Advocating and playing a part in brain injury awareness is such a critical aspect of our healing journeys. As we share our stories, those experiencing similar circumstances can relate, find solace, and their hope may be re-ignited. Our guest on today’s episode is Sophia Raquel, a three-time concussion survivor, and advocate for brain injury awareness. In our conversation today, we hear from Sophia about how her three separate concussions led to different healing experiences, how she decided to go back to school, and she shares tips and advice for those concussion survivors attending college. We also hear about other strategies and gadgets that have played a role in her healing journey. Tune in for all this, and more!
Key Points From This Episode:
We hear from Sophia about the three concussions she’s experienced.
Her different experience with healing after the first episode.
How Sophia made the decision whether to continue with school or not, after her concussion(s).
Sophia shares some of her concussion-adjusted tips for getting through school.
How her social life in school was as she was suffering from concussion symptoms.
How Sophia found the Post Concussion podcast, back when it started!
What else, besides time, has helped with Sophia’s recovery journey.
How Sophia is doing today, and what she gets up to!
Sophia leaves listeners with a powerful statement about head injury and the journey to recovery.
Explore Sophia’s art website at www.sophiaraquel.com and follow her creative journey on Instagram @_sophiaraquel_art and @_sophiaraquel_portraits
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[INTRO]
[00:00:05] BP: Hi everyone, I'm your host Bella Paige. After suffering from post-concussion syndrome for years, it was time to do something about it. So, welcome to the Post Concussion Podcast where we dig deep into life when it doesn't go back to normal. Be sure to share the podcast and join our support network, Concussion Connect. Let's make this invisible injury become visible.
[DISCLAIMER]
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 concussions and post-concussion syndrome.
[EPISODE]
[00:01:14] BP: Welcome to episode number 78 of the Post Concussion Podcast with myself, Bella Paige, and today's guest, Sophia Raquel. Sophia is a three-time concussion survivor and advocate for brain injury awareness. Taking healing one day at a time while believing in the power of neuroplasticity. Welcome to the show, Sophia.
[00:01:33] SR: Thank you so much for having me.
[00:01:35] BP: So to start, do you want to tell everyone a bit about the concussions you've experienced?
[00:01:41] SR: Yes. I'm nearly three years out from my most recent concussion. My first one happened in 2015. I was a junior in high school going up for a soccer header. My second one happened in August 2019. Three days into my senior year, in university studying the brain, I was getting a book from under my desk, I was in a rush, and I raised up, very hard, and smacked my head on the underside of the desk. Then less than a month and a half later, I got my third concussion in a self-defense class — which really derailed a lot of plans.
[00:02:22] BP: It's kind of like you're studying the brain, you get hurt in a self-defense class, like – they like kind of fight against each other. Your injuries do for sure.
[00:02:33] SR: Definitely.
[00:02:34] BP: So once you got your first one, did that one heal a little faster than the other two?
[00:02:40] SR: I think it did, because as soon as the concussion happened, I was assessed like on the side of the field. And the athletic trainer essentially said, “You probably have a concussion, go to a neurologist and follow those steps.” And so, I did go to a neurologist, I'm very thankful, she's amazing, and she actually inspired me to pursue neuroscience.
So the good thing about that first concussion is that, because I was in high school, the teachers were pretty accommodating, and I was able to essentially completely stopped playing soccer, and take time off of classes. I was told to sit in a dark room and stay away from technology. So I would say, I did heal from that one.
There were definitely residual effects of it. When I started senior year of high school, I really couldn't remember anything from second semester junior year. But compared to my other two concussions, I really got off the merry go round, you could say, and healed from that one.
[00:03:48] BP: No, I'm so glad. It's tough though when that happens, because then we experienced a concussion where we got better quickly, like a lot of mine at the beginning. The majority of mine actually were from before, and a lot of the severe ones too. Those were the ones that I bounced back after maybe a few weeks, a few months. But I was always like, kind of just living with it and not treating it. Like I would go to the doctor once in a while, but I kind of just carried on, because they didn't seem like that big of a deal. So, you mentioned school and pursuing neuroscience, which is wonderful. How did you decide to continue with school or not after your concussions?
[00:04:30] SR: It was definitely something I thought about for a long time. After the concussion junior year in high school, it felt like – no pun intended, but like a no brainer. I needed to graduate high school on time and I was motivated to do so. The big thing was just no more soccer. But in college, it felt like there was a lot at stake because, of course, it was college, I had to think about like financial aspects of it. I had to think about the classes, the professors. And I had also just started research that funny enough was on how to heal the brain after mental fatigue.
So that was very motivating to try and build up that research experience. So I felt like I couldn't halt everything, and that was a big struggle, because I knew that the brain can heal with time and training. But I also knew, I mean, in the process, I was taking classes about DNA replication, and how there are consequences after things get damaged. So, it was definitely a struggle and I had to get very creative with study tactics.
[00:05:46] BP: Yeah. We are going to talk about those next. I understand the need to graduate on time. I definitely always tell everyone, if you need to add time to your schooling, it's really not a big deal in the end, when it feels like a really big deal when you're younger. But as you get older, and you have a career, you're like, “Oh, I could have taken another year before I got here, and nothing would have really changed.” So it is important to give yourself a little grace. But I was the same way, I wanted to graduate, I had a plan, and I was determined. I definitely likely struggled a lot longer because I did never give myself a break.
I went right into university, and when I went into school, I hadn't even been a full-time high school student yet. So that was like not full-time to complete full-time. Everyone knows, the jump from high school to college is a big one sometimes. I made it work with things like accommodations, not doing as many courses at once, spreading them out over the year. Like there's lots of little adjustments you can make, if you want, but it's also okay to take a break too. What are some of your tips for going to school?
[00:07:04] SR: Yeah. I had to get very creative. The first step was telling my student disability service about what I was experiencing. I went to them, and essentially got documentation that I could provide to my professors, that let them know that I needed extra time to complete assignments. I think they also said that I could record lectures if they weren't already recording them. I think that was what, is the bottom line help me be successful in getting through the classes. I happen to be very quick typer. I used that strength to try and build up that weakness of my memory, was really, really inconsistent. So I would record the lectures, and it was incredibly time consuming, but I would type and transcribe what I heard. It was sometimes the lectures, and it was like a 45-minute lecture. So typing all that up, sometimes was 15 pages, or more single spaced on like a Google Doc. But it was an important step, because then I would record myself reading the lectures, word for word. Then, I would listen to those throughout the day when I was getting ready for class or walking to an exam. That was one strategy.
I also love to make art, and so I discovered that I was more successful in remembering the scientific mechanisms when I drew them out from the textbook. So, I got some markers I really liked and just replicate what I was seeing in the textbooks. That did so much more for me than just staring at it and trying to remember. So anytime I could interact with the material, that really helped. So making art for fun, but also to study is powerful.
[00:09:07] BP: Interesting how you get creative with what you can do. I used to type up my notes, and then just read them. I print them off, and then just read them, and read them, and read them. There's actually a lot of technology out there to help you now. You could get – there’s pens and things like that, that you can record. Then it will put it into text. Now, you have to read all of it, especially when you're in a science class, because half the words will probably turn out wrong, but it is worth trying and things like that.
I like that you recorded yourself, that's interesting, and listen to yourself doing lectures and things like that. I always used to just read my notes. I would read them all over. Then, another thing that really helped me was making anagrams and things like that because my memory wasn't great. So if it was like for something really important that I knew I kept forgetting, I’ll make an anagram for it. Then when I walk into the exam, I used to flip the exam over, because I got extra time because of my head, I would flip it over and write a bunch of information down. Like words, sequences, steps to problems because I was in a lot of math classes. I would just write them all out so that I could kind of use it as like a cheat sheet that I wrote out, I just like did a memory dump. Because sometimes I'd be halfway through an exam, and my whole entire memory would just like blank if I got a headache. So little things like that would really help.
It's important to figure out what works for you. We do have a small school, like cheat sheet toolkit on Concussion Connect available for survivors to kind of go through, getting accommodations, going to those Student Accessibility Centres, and what to even ask for, where do you start? So that's a really good idea. I want to ask something I didn't really experience, because I didn't really go anywhere for school, but I had like my few close friends. Then I didn't really branch out in school, and meet new people in college like you're supposed to, because of my health. But I was just wondering how your social life in school was when suffering from symptoms.
[00:11:17] SR: It’s actually something I’m still working through. I was very social, I was very go, go, go, always involved in things to the point where I really never stopped. So the two concussions nearly back-to-back really forced me to hit the brakes. I really struggled with that emotionally. I felt pretty isolated. It was frustrating, because it was my senior year. I was really involved, I did a lot of art, but also portrait photography, which became incredibly fatiguing. I tried to do a session after my concussion, and it just was too much.
So, it completely stopped and doing – I called it Sophia Raquel portraits, like all of that, it just completely stopped. I've done maybe three sessions since 2019. Before that, I was doing sometimes three or four in a month. That aspect of my social life is still very slowly healing, which is disappointing, but it's also what's best for my brain right now. On top of that, I got very close with my roommate, and she was very supportive to me. I’ll honestly be forever thankful for that. The other thing was, I just had to essentially nurture the friendships that were most supportive towards my healing journey. So. it meant less events, it meant attending less group settings, like no more parties, for sure, too loud, too bright.
Most recently, it was last year, there was a music festival that I thought maybe I could go to, maybe things getting better. As it got closer, I was just like, this is a bad idea. It's definitely still impacting, but I'd say, as time is going by, it's starting to improve a little bit at a time.
[00:13:13] BP: I find time is a really big healer. I strongly believe in all the therapies. I do think they help, and teach your brain to do a lot of things that you're struggling with. But I also believe time is a big factor, but it's also really hard when time is a factor, because there's no timeline on it. But I am really glad you are seeing things improved, and we're going to talk more about that. But before that, we're going to take a quick break.
[BREAK]
[00:13:42] BP: Have you joined our Support Network Concussion Connect? Did you know we do monthly giveaways? Next month is a custom Post Concussion Podcast Yeti water bottle. Just for being a member, you get entered to win, become a member, and get the support you need by going to concussionconnect.com.
[INTERVIEW CONTINUES]
[00:14:05] BP: Welcome back to the Post Concussion Podcast with myself, Bella Paige and today's guest, Sophia Raquel. We were talking about on the break a little bit about how Sophia actually found the podcast when it started. Do you want to talk about that for a minute?
[00:14:22] SR: Yes. I was working at the time, and I was really struggling with a lot of post-concussion symptoms. I was honestly seeking some support from a community that knew what I was experiencing, and so I just kind of looked it up and happened to see that there was something out there. I remember, you probably have maybe two or three episodes out, and I've heard you say, new episodes on Thursdays, and I would just listen every Thursday and loved it. What I wanted to say was that, of course, it's been a while since it started and listening across the journey of Post Concussion Podcast growing has really helped me kind of benchmark where my symptoms were too. I'm really thankful to be able to say that my symptoms are no longer as severe as they were when I first was listening.
The stories and the interviews still really resonate, but I guess, I'm really excited to be on the podcast today. Because when it first started, and I first listened, I thought, “Oh my gosh, I very much want to be involved with this, but I'm still struggling so much with symptoms.” But clearly, things are getting better. The brain can heal with time, and training, and that's why I'm here today.
[00:15:41] BP: Yeah, I'm so glad. It makes me like so excited. Whenever people say, like I actually had a meeting before we recorded this too. They mentioned that how much the podcast has helped them as well. Sometimes I forget, there's me behind a mic, and I talk to a few people on social media, but I don't talk to everyone that listens to it. I don't have a relationship with everyone. So it always feels like there's like me, and then everybody else is on the other side of a glass wall. As I was saying earlier, it's kind of nice. I'm so excited that we have Concussion Connect now, because it's kind of taking the glass wall down. So now, I get to hear from people all the time, how they're doing, how they're improving, that they're listening to the show, what else they want to hear. questions for the show, just so many things that I find so helpful. It just like kind of sparks a little bit of a light in me when I get really tired, so that's great.
Time has obviously helped. What else has helped you in your recovery?
[00:16:44] SR: There's kind of two zones of it. Of course, family and friends have been very supportive. I would say, there are certain products that have really helped me. I really, really struggled with driving at night. I ordered some night glasses from Amazon, my friends would joke that I looked like a construction worker, or like a bug because they looked really funny, but they really, really help. They also help when it's super overcast, because that kind of blue tent is kind of hard to describe, but it very much helps. I also got blue light blocker glasses, and I wear those all the time earplugs. I'm a big fan. For a while I was using the foam ones. But I found that I really liked the silicone because they're reusable. I also got those on Amazon.
I also really enjoyed going to different therapies. So vision therapy, that's helping train my eyes to move more smoothly. It's not acuity, but it's just the way they focus on things, and like move side to side to read. Going to acupuncture for about four months. I finished my training program almost a year ago. Chiropractor, vitamin therapy, just as many things as I could do to manage the anxiety, because I was very concerned about getting a fourth concussion. Still kind of am. But I'd say those were some of the most important steps towards healing. Oh, and memory strategies. Anytime you can make something meaningful, that helps it stick.
[00:18:24] BP: I really like that. I like that you tried a few different things, like it's good to kind of take everything out of the toolbox and see if it works for you, and kind of see if you can help yourself. The big support network is very important, whether it's one person, five people, or 20. It can make a really big difference, especially on your mood as you go through this, because it's definitely just as much as a mental thing as if it's a physical thing, and so it can really help. So today, what are you up to? How are you doing?
[00:18:56] SR: Today I'm doing well. I do still have, I'd say pretty significant insomnia, which is kind of frustrating, because, of course, I also have fatigue on top of that. So you'd think I'd be so tired that I just fell asleep. But instead, my brain starts to get wired, usually around 10:00 PM, then I want to create, and like make art, and I'm struggling with that still. But in general, doing much, much better.
In good spirits, for a while, I was really concerned about like the long-term effects of my concussions, especially them being back-to-back. But my neurologist reminded me that the positive outlook is very powerful, and having such a negative and a perception of the future that hasn't even happened yet can almost lead to a self-fulfilling prophecy of making it harder. So, of course, this did not fix itself overnight. It's taken me months and months to reframe that and I still have rough days where I'm concerned about the future. But in general, trying to just protect my brain, and staying positive is it sounds so cliche and it's way easier on some days than others, but just trying to be hopeful towards the future rather than catastrophizing the potential of long-term effect.
[00:20:23] BP: Yeah, for sure. Mindset is huge. I didn't believe in it at first, like especially in high school being stubborn. And probably the first years after I've had, people will be like, “Oh, well. Like if you believe it, then t's like that.” So, I just didn't believe that that’s how it was, like my thinking could change a lot. Like you said, it's not an overnight thing. It takes months, it takes years to create a different mindset, but it can help you so much.
I know for myself, like, everyone that listens to the podcast knows that I'm an adrenaline junkie, like I was jumping a dirt bike three days ago. I don't want to say how high because my dad listens to this. But yeah. So it's okay to kind of have those fears too. I know, for myself, when I've gotten hurt after all this started, I would panic, and be really afraid. I started to kind of give myself a break, and how to make decisions for me, what works better for me, am I happier doing this than protecting myself, or am I happier feeling safe. Like whatever works for you, is what you have to do and kind of find a balance in there. Because I like to take risks, but I also have to remember that I have had injuries. When it's slippery and pouring outside, and everyone else is racing through the mud, I don't get on a bike. You have to kind of make decisions and make it work for you.
So I really liked that you also mentioned your insomnia while being tired.
[00:22:02] SR: It’s a struggle.
[00:22:03] BP: It is a struggle and it’s a thing. I know, I would be exhausted, and then, also I’d be wide awake. I probably would hit that overtired line sometimes. Then, I would do puzzles, used to be my thing at night, so I'd be like, “Well, I need to do something,” or working on Post Concussion Inc. to like four in the morning. It's a big thing for me in the winter, because I get kind of like winter depression when the season lasts long, and I don't want to do anything else. So I just like live on my computer working. But then I'm exhausted. It used to happen to me a long time ago, because my headaches were so bad.
So I would want to sleep to make the pain go away, but then I couldn't sleep. So it can be tough to deal with. But I think it takes time, and it can get better. And you just have to try different things. Eating is a huge thing before you go to sleep, trying to figure out what you're eating before you go to bed, when you're eating before you go to bed, and how much can really affect your sleep. So always something to think about. Is there anything else you'd like to add before ending today's episode?
[00:23:06] SR: I just wanted to say that there is hope after head injury. That I think anytime you can be an advocate for brain injury awareness to try and do so. Sharing to protect your brain, trying to treat your symptoms and do what you need to do to feel good. Wearing a hat for me really helped for a long time, but also listening to your symptoms. If you're starting to feel more comfortable, then try different things and just gradually branch out of your comfort zone. Again, healing is possible. I'm doing things now that two years ago, I never thought that my brain would be able to handle, so there's hope, if you just had a concussion, just know that take it one day at a time, and you're not alone, you're going to be a survivor.
[00:23:59] BP: Thank you. That is some great advice. Thank you so much for joining us today and sharing some of your story.
[00:24:05] SR: Thank you for having me, Bella.
[END OF EPISODE]
[00:24:09] BP: Need more than just this podcast? Be sure to check out our website, postconcussioninc.com, to see how we can help you in your post-concussion life, from a support network to one-on-one coaching, I believe life can get better because I've lived through it. Make sure you take it one day at a time.
[END]
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