I slept on the sofa-sleeper last night.
The reason isn’t what you think, assuming you were thinking what people usually think when a husband winds up on the couch. Earlier in the evening Molly hit the wall. (Figuratively, I mean.)
She went to dance but didn’t dance because she can’t dance because of her concussion, though outside of a slight-and-getting-slighter headache she was feeling just fine – a little tired physically, but more than anything else tired of being restricted, tired of being told she couldn’t do things that she knows she can do and very much wants to do.
A week and a half of frustration surfaced volcanically. She wept, she sobbed, she moaned about being tired. All she wanted to do, she said, was curl up with her mom and watch wedding shows. So she and Ann got the big bed and I got the couch.
One of the most insidious things about concussions is the way they recast the definitions of sick and well, or perhaps “injured” and “non-injured.” Though there is absolutely nothing Molly is unable to do, she is injured. Andy is injured. They’re in far less pain than I am – thanks to the dynamic duo of three sets of tennis and a Hide-A-Bed – but they can’t run, can’t dance, can’t lift weights, can't shovel snow, can’t play in band, can’t drive, shouldn’t watch TV, shouldn’t be on the computer, shouldn’t play video games, should only do the minimum amount of homework, and should spend as much time as possible in a quiet room with the blinds drawn.
And except for the days where Molly wore sunglasses to school (and did laundry), their behavior hasn’t betrayed their injuries. Andy and I loaded a godawful heavy snowblower into our van last evening, and he fired it up after it was unloaded – all supposedly taboo, but what are you going to do? Numerous friends have joked that we should bubble-wrap our children, but they can only stay wrapped up so long. Like Ted Williams told a friend of mine, “Hell, it’s a long season. You gotta live a little.”
I have a problem reconciling my children’s appearance and behavior with their injuries, and I know based on last night Molly has a hard time coming to grips with her injury, so I can only imagine how teachers, friends, teammates, and others on the outside comprehend these injuries.
(Interestingly, Andy has had a much easier time dealing with his concussions than Molly has had dealing with hers. I think that’s because of the importance dance has in Molly’s life, Andy’s level of concussion awareness – including the research paper on concussions he wrote just before he got his first concussion -- and the fact that a life of indolence just plain suits Andy.)
Sometimes I think concussions would be easier to deal with if they came with a set of outward manifestations: a limp, a bruise, a twitch, something to make people believe damage has been done and repair is needed.
I don’t really care about what people think, even Andy’s teammates, who saw him loose and goofy – totally himself, in other words – before their biggest game of the year, yet didn’t see him on the ice during the game playing with the verve and aggression that usually accompanies the loose-and-goofy.
I do worry that my kids start thinking of themselves as plague dogs or pariahs. It’s healthy in a way that Molly and Andy both have concussions; they can relate to each other. They have an on-again, off-again contest to see who’ll be back in action faster. (I say Molly. Andy likes the concussion life a little too much.) But I don’t want them thinking that it runs in the family somehow.
Taking Molly to school this morning, it was apparent the night of snuggling with her mom was not a success. “She breathes funny,” Molly said. “She makes noises.”
So the sofa-sleeper is no more, thankfully. But the concussions remain.
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