I had to learn to walk again, talk again, think again.
It doesn't take science to know that when you have head-to-head collisions, there's going to be some effect.
The thing you don't realise is that every time you head the ball, your brain shakes. Every single time. Have you ever headed a ball badly and seen stars for a couple of seconds? That's your brain shaking. Let's be honest: that can't be healthy, can it?
As the mother of a grown son with a traumatic brain injury, I couldn't be more excited about the prospect of finding out how to repair even a small part of the damage that changed his life.
Permanent brain damage is one of the inevitable results of the use of marijuana.
Different people respond differently to head trauma than others.
I've been badly shocked before. I grabbed the mic to talk - it was near an outlet and there was water. I got shocked, and the jolt went from my head to my feet, shutting down my body and I just passed out. My friends woke me up and took me to the hospital.
As the story about CTE got more real, it became more clear that players are playing that without a full understanding of the risks they face, and the long-term effects.
I suffered a stroke in 2002 that made everything else in my life that happened to that point pale in comparison.
With 'Little Accidents', I spent probably three months working with a physical therapist, just understanding, starting from square one, about the neurological makeup of what happens when you have a stroke or what carbon monoxide poisoning does to your body.
No boxer in the history of boxing has had Parkinson's. There's no injury in my brain that suggests that the illness came from boxing.
I can go and fight, take one punch, and have a concussion and start having issues with it, or I can wrestle my entire career and never have a concussion. It's just a hazard of the business.
My daughter couldn't wake me up, so they called 911. They rushed me to the hospital. They drilled a hole in my head and wrapped a coil around my brain. I was unconscious for a week, and I was in rehab for two months - couldn't walk, couldn't talk. Now I've relearned everything. I'm so happy.
I had internal bleeding with blood clots on the brain. I was completely blind and deaf. I had a heart attack and a stroke.
But even Es and cocaine, over the years they blow holes in your brain, rob you of your memories, your past. Which is fair enough, convenient even.
I'm learning how to prevent my brain from getting worse than it is after suffering a career worth of concussions playing football.
These disorders - schizophrenia, Alzheimer's, depression, addiction - they not only steal our time to live, they change who we are.
I am not stupid. I am a very bright guy. I know that in the fighting game, you get people who get brain damage and do themselves long-term harm.
I'm concerned about the future of football, because we have paid a lot of attention to concussions. We are more aware of concussions. But it's really the repetitive minor injuries, the ones that are asymptomatic that occur on almost every play of the game, the sub-concussive hits: that's the big problem for football.
that was humanity's problem right there. they are brain damaged from the early sun
I've seen past fighters who don't seem all there anymore, can hardly walk around or look like the Tin Man, they've just been through the wringer.
The relationship between concussions and the asserted clinical symptoms of C.T.E. remains unknown.
Concussions is one of these pack journalism issues, frankly. There's no increase in concussions. The number is relatively small. The problem is, it is a journalist issue.
It's worth knowing more about the complicated environmental and genetic factors that could explain why traumatic brain injuries lead to long-term disabilities in some people and not in others.
I saw Bobby Green and Lando Vannata, and everybody in the back was like, 'Oh, man, that's a sick fight!' And I'm like, 'Dude, look at his face, that cannot be good for his brain.' I'm just honest.
