Everybody chuckles in disbelief when I tell them that that my ambulance trip to the hospital was as a result of pickleball.
"I thought that pickleball was supposed to be a gentle sport", they usually say.
I suppose that they haven't seem it played by the folks that I usually take to the court with.
Alas, it was in the course of playing pickleball that I indeed did split my scalp open and wound up with a significant concussion. But it wasn't just your 'ordinary brand' of pickleball - it was while playing a variation of the game that's called "Mortimer". If you're not familiar with Mortimer, check out the hyperlinked website - but basically it's a way to accommodate one extra player on each side of the court (making for 3-vs-3 as opposed to a standard game of doubles).
So in my case what happened is that I was playing with a partner on-court, while we had a 'Mortimer' in behind us. During the course of play, a high-ish and deep-ish ball was sent over to our side by the team across the net. Being the kind of player who still thinks that he's in his twenties, I backtracked to try to play the ball. Our 'Mortimer' moved forward, presumably treating the ball like a lob and taking responsibility for covering the deeper shot. As it was early in the morning hours, my best guess is that we both lost track of the ball against the sun, and she and I collided as we both moved toward the baseline. We tangled feet, and I immediately recognized that we were going down - and since she's significantly older than I am (and perhaps with some old-fashioned sense of chivalry) I did my level best to catch her and protect her from the worst of the fall. She ended up landing with her full weight on me, and apparently the players the next court over said that they could hear the sound of my head bouncing off of the playing surface.
I don't believe that I ever lost consciousness, and I was aware that I took quite a knock to the noggin. It wasn't until some other players came over to assist me up off of the ground that they noted the blood soaking through my hat. They helped to support me over to a picnic table nearby, where others had already taken our 'Mortimer' over to as well. Apparently she seemed to be in shock, as she was feeling very faint and was nauseous. Cutting to the chase, paramedics were called for both of us and we were taken separately to the local hospital emergency ward - me to receive stitches and concussion assessment, and her because her blood pressure was very low and to be monitored for worsening symptoms.
As I write this it's been just over three weeks since the incident - I'm happy to say that the other woman was able to return to the pickleball court about three days afterwards. That was a real relief to me! Meanwhile I'm only now feeling like I can walk at a normal pace without excessive headache or wooziness. I had about a full week immediately after the headbanging that I could only remain awake for 2-3 hours at a time before my brain shut down and forced me to sleep for 1-2 hours in order to recover. I'm thankful for a very supportive family (and work colleagues) that created the kind of space that I needed to nurture my recovery.
So why this post? Well, on the one hand, I wonder about the safety of the 'Mortimer' variation of pickleball. I will readily admit that I was probably in the wrong, trying to track down a ball that should have been the territory of the 'Mortimer' player ... but that's likely the all-court tennis player in me. And in our situation the 'Mortimer' and I had never played together before, so she would likely to have been unaware of how tenacious I might have been in going after balls, and therefore not expecting to potentially cross trajectories with me in the course of play. I guess that I would just submit that on a small court (and the one that we were playing on wasn't even enclosed by fencing, at least not in a way that would have constrained our movements) adding a third player on any given side creates more opportunities for physical collisions and/or paddle swing-path injuries. I like the idea of giving more people playing time, but there's definitely a cost-benefit analysis that could be worth conducting.
Secondly I wanted to share a little bit about my first experience with a traumatic brain injury (TBI). It sounds kind of melodramatic to describe it in this fashion, but that's technically what a concussion is. I'd previously had issues with vestibular issues (specifically, benign paroxysmal positional vertigo) which incapacitated me for a short time, but this was of an entirely different order. While I've not suffered any memory loss or confusion, the 'extended hangover' symptoms have been quite interruptive.
In a strange way I'm grateful that two of our kids had suffered concussions of their own and navigated their recovery from them, as they had plenty of good advice to offer. While their recoveries included a lot of sitting in a dark room doing nothing, mine was a little more active (I attempted even short 100m walks during those periods that I wasn't being autonomically forced to sleep). I did lean significantly into supplements like Lion's Mane, Omega-3 and creatine, as well as chiropractic adjustments. I also found in addition to my unscheduled naps, I have been sleeping closer to 11 hours every night instead of my usual 8. It seems that my 'internal body clock' has decided to hit snooze on itself, and I'm no longer waking up automatically at 5:00 am - which has been the case for about the past 10 years or so as part of my running routine. Nowadays I'm doing well to be aware of my surroundings before 7:30 am, even when I am in bed at my normal bedtime.
The bottom line is that I feel that I'm still in the later stages of recovery, as I don't want to (a) have a second concussive incident by pushing too hard too soon, or (b) any lingering long-term symptoms. I'm grateful to all of the connections and advice offered to me by my physio and RMT friends. I hope to be back on the pickleball court soon ... and if you see a guy swinging a wild two-handed backhand while wearing a padded rugby-style helmet, well that could be me.
