“Headaches and dizziness mostly. I’m off the pain meds I was on, mostly Tylenol, and working out. I feel great.” I haven’t had one symptom since my headache at the diner in the desert.
“I see you were diagnosed with postconcussive syndrome, very common among athletes.”
“It made me want to punch a hole in the wall,” I say grimly.
“Don’t do it in my office. And your heart?”
“Passed all my tests. There was never an issue with it.”
She types in rapid fire. “I suspect your heart issue on the field was because of the violent collision to your brain.”
I wince. “I wouldn’t say ‘violent.’”
Surprising me, she stands, picks up the brain model on the table, and slams it down on the coffee table. It makes a horrible smacking sound, ripples vibrating through the silicone model for several seconds. “This was your brain at the Super Bowl.”
“Right, but I had a helmet on. Our protective equipment in the NFL is better than in any contact sport.” I tap my temple. “And I have a skull.”
“And I’m just a little old lady throwing a brain model on a table, and you got yanked down by a three-hundred-pound lineman. Are we going to argue over this?”
I exhale. “All right, I get it. I hit my head hard.”
She sits back down and studies me from head to toe. I feel like a specimen under a microscope. “No bullshit with me, Mr. Harlan. I’ve seen people suffer the effects from this type of concussion for more than a year. We cannot know how long it will last. Just because you have no headache today does not mean it is gone.”
My jaw tics. “I am healed.”
She points a wrinkled finger at me, eyes keen. “So your brain looks good on scans. They clear you to play. Big whoop. So far you pay me for things you already know. What else should I help you with? Ask me your questions, and I will be brutally honest.”
Dread coils tighter. “I’m worried about CTE, chronic traumatic encephalopathy.”
She narrows her gaze. “What did your other doctors say about CTE?”
“They told me to get off the internet.”
“True. CTE is a brain disease from repetitive trauma.” She picks up the brain model and slaps it on the coffee table three times, each smack making me cringe. “Your doctors are correct: there is no documented evidence about how many concussions increase the risk of CTE or even if the severity will increase the risk. Why is this?”
“Because they don’t know if you have it until you’re dead.”
She nods. “CTE can only be diagnosed with autopsy, so it is difficult to gather data because people usually do not want autopsy while alive. So, we have no good answer.”
She stands and shuffles over to a poster on the wall that shows two brains. Surrounding the brains are microscopic pictures and little lines pointing back to the diagrams. She points to the poster. “Two brains are here, one good, one CTE. In an MRI, you see no difference, both good brains.” She points a finger in the air. “But in autopsy we take tiny slices and look under the microscope.”
I grimace, aware that many athletes donate their bodies to science after they pass away.
She points at the microscopic pictures of the CTE brain. “This is where we see tiny black splotches between and around the cells. These areas, they do not work anymore. They have atrophied. They died because they don’t have blood flow or have a damaged neurological pathway. When you have lots of these black spots in your brain, you think differently, sometimes depressed, sometimes angry, sometimes forgetful. Maybe this is caused in a football player that has one big concussion. Maybe this is caused in a football player that has many, many little concussions. We can’t tell.”
I twist my Rolex, anxiety rippling.
She shrugs. “There are many autopsies of players that had many concussions in the record, and the doctors see no CTE. On the other hand, do you know story of Jonah Truman?”
Jonah died when he fell out of the back of a boat while on vacation. “Wide receiver for Atlanta. It was terrible what happened to him.”
“How many years did he play?”
“Not too long—I just met him a few times.”
She twirls her wrist in the air. “Four years is the right answer. He had no documented concussions in high school, college, or pro. They don’t hit Jonah so much because he was very fast on his feet. His autopsy showed CTE, minuscule, yes, but there. He never knew he had it or probably never felt any issue from it. So the correct answer is, no one knows how many concussions will be bad.”