Throwback Thursday - Paul's Concussion

(Written by Paul)

The date was January 16, 1975. Debbie and I were spending a Friday evening with new church friends, Rusty and Patty Gosselin, at their house.  Debbie's father and half sister Lori were babysitting for our kids.  Lori was just getting into babysitting and her father was there to back her up.

Rusty and I had planned an evening of ping pong, a sport that we both played very aggressively. I remember, believe it or not, playing the best ping pong of my life and I really had Rusty's number that night, much to his frustration.

On our way out, Debbie went first and told me to watch out for the ice.  The next thing she knew, I was lying on my back, not moving.  I wasn't getting up and Debbie thought I was fooling and kept kicking me and telling me to get up.  When they realized something might be wrong, they brought me into the house.  They started to question me and were still not convinced that this was not a joke.  I asked Rusty what we were doing there and he told me that we had been playing ping pong in the cellar.  I said, "I didn't think this house had a cellar."  They finally decided that something was wrong.  Rusty brought me to the Emergency Room at Baystate Medical Center, which was called Medical Center of Western Massachusetts at the time.  All the way there I kept asking him where we were going and why.  He would answer me and then I would go on and on about my great group insurance.  This cycle happened several times on the way.  While we were waiting in the waiting room, I kept telling Rusty that I had to go to the bathroom.  This kind of shows that I wasn't right because normally I would have just found the bathroom and used it.  Rusty brought me to the bathroom.  I was in there just a few seconds and came out.  When we got back to our seats I told him that I had to go to the bathroom.  Rusty thought to himself, he forgot to go while he was in there.  Finally it was our turn and they asked me why I was there.  I told them that I really didn't know and that they would have to ask my friend.  Rusty explained and we were eventually seen by a doctor.  The doctor interviewed me and gave me some mind tests.  I could tell him who the last several presidents were but I couldn't tell him a thing about today.  Rusty struggled to convince them that I wasn't taking drugs, and for the most part succeeded.

They then put me in a temporary holding area with several beds.  I kept asking everyone I saw why I was there.  I kept thinking I might have been in an accident and my family was hurt.  I was driving everyone a little nuts.  Finally I asked Rusty if he could write down what happened and put it where I could see it so I wouldn't have to bother people.  Rusty asked the nurse if that would be okay and she replied that anything that would quiet him down would be a good idea!  So he wrote the little note above and put it where I could see it.  I saved it all these years.

Rusty left in the middle of the night.  By then Debbie had called her father to tell him what was going on and they decided to stay overnight.  Debbie decided to just stay at the Gosselins.  Debbie has often asked herself why she didn't go to the hospital but she thought I would get checked out and come back to the Gosselins.

I spent the night in the holding unit trying to find someone who would take the group insurance claim form that I kept in my wallet.  I'm sure they all heard about my great group insurance too.  Finally, someone took it and said she would take care of it - probably just to humor me.

Another odd thing happened in this shared room.  In the bed next to me was a teenager who had tried to commit suicide.  His dad spent the whole night with him.  The dad must have had a resemblance to Debbie's Uncle Lee.  The following morning I asked him if I had already asked him if his name was Lee.  He said, "Yes, a 100 times."  I must have driven him nuts all night asking that.  I'm sure this added more grief to his very bad night.

Some of these things I actually remembered; others were told to me by Rusty.  Several days later Rusty and Patty came over to our house.  Rusty told the entire story of what happened that night.  Rusty and I laughed so hard that we were actually rolling on the floor holding our sides in pain.

My memory returned the following morning (Saturday).  During the morning I was examined by a neurosurgeon who released me to go home.  I was so relieved that they were letting me go home. This was proof to me that I was OK. I was actually worried that something permanent might have happened to me. By the way, I never forgot the neurosurgeon and brought Deb's Aunt Dot to him many years later when no one else could figure out what was wrong with her back. He said "I can help you, Dorothy" and he did.

I went to work on Monday because it was critical year end closing time.  I performed my duties but an odd thing happened.  Evidently, I had never brought my briefcase home from work on Friday because I didn't have it Monday morning.  During the day, I became very, very concerned about the briefcase which was not at home or at my desk.  After looking everywhere, I was afraid that someone had put it in the big dumpster out in the alley behind the building.  I was so fixated on this possibility that I needed to do something before the dumpster was emptied, so I went out and actually climbed inside the dumpster and started going through all the trash.  One of our managers, Carl Allen, walked by and heard the rustling thinking it might be a raccoon or something.  Coming closer, he saw me and said, "Is that you, Paul?"  "What are you doing?"  I told him I was looking for my briefcase and he said, "Oh", walked away, and the incident was never mentioned again.  I finally found my briefcase by the coat rack at the back of the room where I had left it Friday night.

This entire incident, with a few additional twists, was repeated many years later during a New Year's winter storm in Maine, but that's another story!

Both times they said I had a concussion with no bleeding, but I have often thought that maybe it's a good thing I didn't play high school football.  I seem to have enough problems dealing with icy walkways.