End of an Era

If you're a regular reader, you know about GoalieHusband's concussion-related travails. In perfect frankness, he's been playing on borrowed time for some time now. There was a period of time about two years ago, after what was then the latest of his mishaps, that I very strongly implored him to stay off the ice, and he very reluctantly relented. After many months passed and he'd been feeling better for a long time, it was easy to forget why I made that request in the first place, and when he ventured back into open hockey, I worried but kept quiet, and the sky didn't fall. Then that wasn't enough and he came back to the team and played in the league again. For a while, things were fine. Then there started to be nights where he'd take a light hit and be dizzy. Then nights when I'd be the one driving home because an innocent hockey mishap, which happens to everyone all the time, left him dizzy and foggy-headed even after the game. Then there was the game when we were all leaving the ice after the handshake line, and he was still sitting on the bench, grimacing in pain, slightly disoriented, and had to be helped off the ice and back into the locker room.

And then there was three Tuesdays ago.

My disgust for what happened is causing me to consider taking some time off from this league. I'm getting burned out, getting tired of the unacceptable bullshit that is par for the course in that league (the more things change, the more the stay the same), just tired. Would the situation have been as serious if GoalieHusband didn't have this history of concussion? I doubt it. But that doesn't make what happened any more acceptable. In my eyes, anyway. And if I'd been thinking clearly I'd have filed some kind of report with the rink so that I could pursue it in some way now. But following a stretcher off the ice and trying to stay calm was taking up most of my mental capacity that night.

I'm not going to go into all the details of what happened and what led up to it, but the short story is that the game was chippy, and some back-and-forth between a player and GoalieHusband resulted in them both down on the ice, GoalieHusband facing away from the other player, and the other player sucker punching him in the head. Several times. From behind. Both of them were given double minors for roughing, and at the time he seemed ok. He finished the period, between periods I checked on him. I knew he wasn't quite right, but I felt like asking him to sit out the rest of the game was overkill. (He wouldn't have anyway). It wasn't long into the 3rd period however, when he took himself off the ice, and collapsed on the bench. Fortunately a teammate noticed what was going on just in time, and caught him and laid him down on the bench.

By the time I got there he was conscious (barely) and talking (slurring). We insisted on an ambulance despite his protests. The first guy to show up I guess was a campus cop, but he had some kind of kit with him, and put an oxygen mask on him since his pulse was low and he couldn't keep his eyes open. He was responding to questions, knew where he was, but it was terrifying seeing him like that. Eventually the EMTs got there, talked to him for a few minutes, and got him onto a stretcher. During all this time I'd been stripping my gear off at the bench, and ran back to the locker room for my pants so I didn't have to sit in the ER in my jill and hockey socks.

And our teammates were amazing. They assured me they'd put the big pile of gear at the bench into my bag for me. They brought GoalieHusband's clothes and wallet out for me to take to the hospital with him. And since I was riding over in the ambulance, they drove our truck over so we'd have a way home when it was all over. (I do hope the hockey gods took note of the fact that the truck is filthy, and was blaring Rammstein. That's a true friend. Although I did notice, when I got in it later, that the music was not turned off. Heh). When I emailed a teammate the next day to thank her for all she'd done, she said something really interesting: "these days, when so many of us don't live close to family, it's up to friends to look after each other". That really resonated with me, and not just in terms of my hockey friends. I'd been texting @byndblueshirts from the ambulance because I was scared and just needed a friend to lean on. I put a brave face on for GoalieHusband and everyone else, but I was terrified. Just having someone to reach out to and admit that to helped.

We were sitting in the parking lot in the ambulance for quite a while. They made me sit in the front though, so I couldn't really tell what was going on. I could see and hear enough to see that they weren't in any state of urgency, and could hear GoalieHusband still talking. I guess they were taking his gear off, and put him on a backboard and cervical collar just in case. (I found it odd that they didn't do that when they first put him on the stretcher, but did it later). Because of the long delay and lack of overall urgency I was kind of surprised that when we did get underway it was with lights and sirens, and a police car behind us. But by the time we did get to the ER, he was much more alert, more coherent, and talking more normally. He was still in rough shape, but nowhere near as frightening as it had been before.

They did a CAT scan and didn't find anything, so the doctor diagnosed him with syncope (fainting) and mild concussion and released him. He stayed home from work for two days, though it really should have been three, and gradually the fog lifted enough to return him to a semi-normal state. But it's been three weeks and he's still having headaches, light sensitivity, and fatigue.Everything's moving in the right direction; less intensity and frequency, it's just taking a while. The longest he's had effects has been 4 or 5 days, and I think this time he understands that this is his brain being damaged and he needs to stop putting himself in harm's way.

A few days after the incident, without any prompting from me, he said "I'm coming to terms with the fact that I probably won't ever play hockey again."  I never knew one sentence could make me feel so much relief and heartbreak at the same time. I loved being on the ice with him. No one ever defended me more staunchly (well, @gionta182 and @lct29 come very close), and it was wonderful to share this thing we both love. I think of how I felt when I was injured, a mere two months off the ice and I was climbing the walls, and I can't even imagine what it feels like to have that taken away for good. He's going to have to find other avenues though, and I think coaching is one. He's so passionate about coaching the QCats, and is thinking about going to get his 3rd level USA Hockey coaching certification now. He's also a writer; he's been working on a book for years now, a book that has morphed into a trilogy, and while it's not my genre (fantasy), I can tell it is excellent. He's got enough brain cells left to work on that and another project he's just been inspired to start, so I think eventually he'll be ok. I do expect some stages of grumpiness though, and that's ok. I'd be grumpy too. But as much as I love sharing hockey with him, I also love sharing the rest of life with him as well, and I'm glad that we will be able to do that. That was quite a close call.