getting brittle, ain't ya?

There is a lot of talk in sports these days about concussions. It seems that now when an athlete gets what might be a concussion, s/he has to pass a series of tests to see if s/he is allowed to play. When I was a child, I am pretty certain that I had quite a few concussions. Bike riding, skateboarding and quotidian beatings by my friends were pretty much to blame. We never wore helmets, we never took any precautions to safeguard ourselves from heads smashing concrete or whatever other solid surface may have met our craniums.

The concussion protocol that we followed as children went something like this: A child, such as myself, smashes the ever-living stuffing out his head. Wooziness begins. Stars are seen. Limbs may or may not have gotten numb. Can I move my toes? Yes, that's good. Can I see once the stars disappear? Yes, that's good too. Is my bike damaged? No, that is nice. Did I have a concussion? Probably.

Now what????  Stand up, dust yourself off and do it again, hopefully not hitting the concrete as hard the next time. This sort of behavior may explain a lot, but I'll leave that to others to decide. Basically, when we were young, if it was not a compound fracture situation, just get up and get back at it. 

O.K., that's great when one is a teenager or younger (or even in his or her twenties). I learned today that resilience to injury is something that dissipates with age. How did I find this out? I have injured my knee sitting in a chair. Not getting out of a chair, not getting in a chair, but actually just sitting in the chair. It hurts to walk and is no fun. Maybe I can wrap it artistically in some of that kinisio tape that is de rigeur at the London Olympics. Anything to save a costly doctor's visit...