Robbie (Post Concussion Syndrome): Chapter 1 - Life, the accident and the weeks following

Episode 4: Chapter 1 - Robbie Frawley - Life, the accident and the weeks following (PCS).

In this episode I tell my story of recovering from post concussion syndrome (PCS). It took me 7 years to fully recover, but if I knew at the start everything that I know now, I believe it would have taken me only a fraction of this time and that’s why I want to share these learnings with you. I hope that they give you some hope and they help you with your own recovery.
In this first chapter I talk about my life preceding the accident, the concussion itself and the weeks immediately following it.

My brilliant guest interviewer on this episode is Associate Professor Tasha Stanton. Tasha is the Osteoarthritis Research Theme Lead for IIMPACT in Health at the University of South Australia and a National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia Fellow. 

Tasha is a clinical pain neuroscientist with original training as a physiotherapist. Her research focusses on pain and she has a specific interest in pain education, osteoarthritis, low back pain, cortical body representation, somatosensation and body illusions using virtual and mediated reality. In short though, she’s one of the leading pain researchers globally, and it was ultimately through meeting Tasha and learning some lessons from her field of pain science that helped me to find the final steps back to 100%.

Full transcripts and show notes are available for each chapter on the podcast website: storiesofrecovery.buzzsprout.com

Shownotes:

• 6:00 - Tasha asks me what my life looked like immediately before the concussion,
• 8:00 - The accident itself. A minor fall whilst wakeboarding (catching the front edge),
• 11:20 - 'Boom'/'busting' over the ensuing weeks whilst I was ignoring my symptoms.

Transcript

Robbie Frawley  0:25  
Welcome to Stories of Recovery. My name is Robbie Frawley and on this podcast I interview people who have experienced and recovered from brain related conditions such as stroke, concussion, chronic pain and traumatic brain injury. We'll discuss their story and highlight the things which have been most beneficial and most important in their recovery. This might be specific treatments or medical professionals that were most crucial. It could be books, knowledge or advice which they were given or which they found along the way, or even particular habits, attitudes, or practices that helped them the most. If you or someone you care about is struggling to recover from one of these or another brain related condition, the podcast was really made with you in mind, I want you to know that others have been where you are now and that they have gotten better. You can recover and hopefully in the interviews that follow, you will hear a thing or two which resonate and which help you to do just that. So who am I? Well, I'm a young man who grew up in country Victoria, Australia and I've had a number of concussions growing up playing sport. After the last one, which was over seven years ago now, I developed something called post concussion syndrome. I'd never even heard of this. But it left me with ongoing fatigue, headaches, nausea, vertigo, cognitive fog, overwhelm, and sensitivity to impact. It had a really dramatic effect on my life and it took many years, much effort and great assistance from others to fully recover from it. Now that I am back to 100%, and again, have some surplus energy, I'd like to help you in any way I can to get you back to good health. My hope is that we can provide some light at the end of the tunnel for you and also give you some useful tips and tricks that might help you along the way.

Robbie Frawley  2:20  
Now, one thing to remember is that the brain is a really marvellous thing. And you can and you will get better. I've left in as much of the context detail and information in these interviews as possible, which means they can be quite long, but they're split into key chapters to make it easier to listen. And to help you to focus on what you need to hear right now. And remember that you can pause and come back to the story in as many small bites as you need. Now, without further ado, let's jump into it.

Robbie Frawley  2:58  
This episode is a bit different, in that it is my story. And so someone else is interviewing me. I'll introduce her now. Associate Professor Tasha Stanton is the Osteoarthritis research theme lead for IIMPACT in Health at the University of South Australia and a National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia fellow. She's a clinical pain neuroscientist with original training as a physio therapist. Her research focuses on pain, and she has a specific interest in pain education, osteoarthritis, low back pain, cortical body representation, Somatosensation and body illusions using virtual and mediated reality. In short, though, she is one of the leading pain researchers globally and it was ultimately through meeting Tasha and learning some lessons from her field of pain science that helped me to find the final steps back to 100%.

Robbie Frawley  3:53  
Now I want to acknowledge upfront that whilst it took me over seven years to fully recover, and that that is probably not an enticing proposition for you, if I did know at the start, everything that I know now, I believe it would have taken me only a fraction of this time. And that's why I want to share these learnings with you. I hope that at the least they give you hope, and at the most help you recover. This conversation took place on the lens of the Kaurna people of the Adelaide plains, and I would like to acknowledge them as traditional owners of this land and pay respect to their elders past and present. I would also like to pay my respect to other Aboriginal language groups and other First Nations. I wish you courage and energy on your own journey forward. And I hope you enjoyed this long, sometimes tangential, interweaving conversation. Cheers

Tasha Stanton  5:05  
Ready to go? 

Robbie Frawley  5:05  
I'm ready. 

Tasha Stanton  5:06  
You're ready. All right, welcome there to all the listeners. You might not know who I am. I don't know who you are yet but my name is Tasha Stanton and I work as an associate professor at the University of South Australia. And I'm really excited today because I get to have the very wonderful opportunity to interview someone you do know, Robbie Frawley. And he, as you will have known has done other different interviews of various different people but he also comes to this with a really unique and powerful story himself. So welcome Robbie, thanks for letting me take over. 

Robbie Frawley  5:44  
Thank you, Tasha. It's fantastic to be here and fantastic to see you and to be speaking with you. 

Tasha Stanton  5:50  
Wonderful. So, Robbie, I think one of the things that you know, is really, really interesting and really powerful about all of these different things is hearing what people have gone through. But I guess before I want to go into that, can you tell me a little bit about, you know, who was Robbie? What was life like before, you know, you kind of underwent the experiences that you went through? 

Robbie Frawley  6:12  
Yeah, absolutely. So I grew up in southwestern Victoria on a sheep and cattle farm and so I lived a pretty active outdoor life. Always working after school on the farm and playing a lot of sport as you do in country areas. 

Tasha Stanton  6:29  
What type of sports did you play? 

Robbie Frawley  6:30  
What did I play? You name it, anything to do with the water I love, so surfing, water skiing, swimming. But then football, cricket basketball, no I didn't like cricket, I toyed with cricket and didn't keep going. Football, hockey, basketball, a little bit of boxing, snow skiing, running. You name it. Yeah. It's a big part of country life. And so then I had gone off to university and I'd studied civil engineering and I was working back in Warrnambool in a regional centre as a civil engineer. Yeah, just making the most of every moment. So I was loving surfing, I'd wake up before work and run down to the beach and go surfing and on a particularly good day, I could get in a surf before work, surf at lunchtime and then surf again after work. I'd be riding, I think I had just been training with the Warrnambool football club and a very vibrant social life and heading to Melbourne to catch up with mates down there. And heading up to the farm to help Mum and Dad or to see my family and catch up with friends. Yeah, it was very filled. But it was it was a good time.

Tasha Stanton  6:56  
It's a beautiful area as well. Very good choice. Tell me a little bit more than what what happened with your injury?

Robbie Frawley  8:05  
Sure. So it wasn't actually anything too spectacular. I'd had quite a number of concussions, maybe five or six growing up. They were all very mild. I hadn't actually lost consciousness with any of them. They had been from... strangely I didn't actually have any in football. They had been waterskiing or wakeboarding, snow skiing, surfing, boxing. And this one, I was wakeboarding. So it's behind a boat. So behind a speedboat kind of like waterskiing, but it's like the snowboarding or skateboarding equivalent. 

Tasha Stanton  8:42  
You do all those crazy flippity flips?

Robbie Frawley  8:44  
Yeah, that's right. And so your feet are strapped in very, very tight. The tighter you can get them the better because you want to have a really responsive board. And so that turns out that's not ideal for, you know, other things. But yeah I really loved wakeboarding and on this particular day, I wasn't trying to do anything special. I was there with some friends and just cruising along, and I think I did something really basic like a bunny hop, and sort of switched my stance, so instead of left foot forward was right foot forward, and I was trying to do it over something and got a bit distracted. Instead of going all the way around, I only went halfway around and then landed, and so caught that front edge. And the effect of that was, was to kind of whiplash me into the water. And I mean, that's pretty common with wakeboarding as I said, particularly if you have really tight bindings.

Tasha Stanton  9:43  
I've definitely done that snowboarding, so completely understand about catching an edge. 

Robbie Frawley  9:47  
Yeah. But for whatever reason, on this particular day, that didn't respond well. So I sort of came up and I was a bit thrown and a bit like.... Something about it sort of made me a little bit nervous so that I climbed back into the boat, instead of putting the board back on and keeping going like I normally would. I climbed into the boat and said, I'm done. And then we went home. And I was a little bit out of it, I was aware that I was a little bit out of it. And so I didn't actually drink even though I had friends over that night, I made sure I didn't drink alcohol, just because I had some awareness of background with concussions and so I sort of just wanted to do the right thing. And anyway, I went to bed. Next day, I was feeling pretty good, so I got up and my friends headed off and I went surfing. I was surfing tiny surf, surfing a mini mal and I did a late drop, dropped into the wave late. And I don't know how I did this, but I effectively caught an edge again. And so again, kind of whiplashed into the water. I think I came out of that and was sort of very slow. Yeah. And then basically sat up and had a very quiet day and had a very quiet couple of days. I think it was a long weekend. So I didn't do too much, just feeling a little bit ill and groggy. And I just thought I just need to chill. 

Robbie Frawley  11:12  
I went back to work on the Monday or the Tuesday after the long weekend, and then pushed through to the end of the week and then was just knackered. So I made it to the end of the week, I had headaches and was not feeling very good. But that's quite common with concussion, you obviously feel pretty rough, you know, in the days and the weeks after, and then you normally just sort of start to improve. So I was aware of that and I wasn't concerned about it. But I was just kind of pushing through, and then I'd get to the weekend I just slept, which wasn't standard behaviour for me. And then I'd get to Monday again, and it was like 'Alright, I'm ready to go', and then push through the week kind of grinding, and then get to the weekend, and I was just cooked. I think I actually went back to my parents place and basically went to sleep, and was in bed and pretty much did nothing. 

Tasha Stanton  11:15  
That must have been quite concerning for them I imagine or were like, oh, maybe he's just tired? 

Robbie Frawley  12:17  
I'm not sure I don't have a great memory of it. They probably were a bit concerned. But I'm not super sure. Anyway, on the Monday I think they said 'you know, I think you may be better to just keep resting'. I was of course terribly stressed about (all of the work I needed to do) and said but hang on, I've got these things to do at work... like they have to happen. I can't not go back. And I remember talking to my boss and said 'don't worry about it, just take it easy'. Anyway, I took off the week and just rested. And again the next weekend I thought 'I'm good to go'. And anyway, after a few cycles of that, very boom-bust, I went in and saw my GP

Robbie Frawley  
That's the end of chapter 1. In chapter 2 you'll hear about my initial treatment, useful management strategies and about neuroplasticity.