My name is Rory, I am a junior and 16, nearly 17, years old. On November 19th of 2024, I suffered a serious concussion. I passed out in my anatomy class and hit my head three times on metal (kind of a pathetic concussion story I know.) For two months I struggled with severe dizziness and was unable to walk further than a quarter of a mile. I was unable to attend school the rest of the semester.
After Christmas I started to recover from my concussion. Then on January 11th I caught some flu-like disease, but never got tested for what it was. Slowly after that I felt myself worsening. It started with severe dizziness and barely being able to get around school then progressed into something worse. No one would have guessed how severe my condition was by looking at me, and lots of people were wondering why I kept cancelling plans, or not showing up to school or lifeteen. The truth is I was struggling to even walk anywhere.
At this point the doctors thought I had a concussion (this was January to the beginning of February). They started to treat me for my concussion by giving me medications and sending me to physical therapy. All of these things only worsened my condition and left me hopeless. Around Valentine’s day I was unable to even get from my bedroom to downstairs in my kitchen. It felt like some invisible force was knocking me over whenever I walked. I also had trouble speaking, I was slurring my words and forgetting things such as how to start our dishwasher, my siblings’ ages, or how to maintain eye contact in a conversation. I continued to decline to the point I could no longer sit up on my own and had to crawl around my house to get around. We thought I had a tumor or brain bleed.
On February 28th my parents took me to the E.R. since things had gotten so bad, and after 9 hours there it was revealed I had no tumor or brain bleed, but doctors didn’t know what was happening. I was unable to get into any doctors in Columbia until the end of April and felt hopeless. I missed around three weeks of school. Since I could no longer walk my parents got me a wheelchair for school; however, I could only stay sitting up for so long so was unable to get through more than two class periods at school. I was in such a low place not being able to run track, see my friends, and just perform basic day-to-day activities.
My parents managed to get in contact with two neurologists, a concussion specialist, a cardiologist, and my pediatrician. No one could agree on what I had. They suggested it was a chronic issue, a rare brain infection, brain damage, a severe concussion still, or Orthostatic Hypotension which was the best case scenario since it’s a temporary blood pressure condition where blood drains from your brain but it fades eventually. I felt hopeless at this point. I was at such a low point and wondering why God was allowing this to happen to me when other teenagers didn’t have to go through this. I wanted to give up completely on my faith.
I also got started on this medication that was supposed to help treat the blood pressure issue, but if it didn’t work after a few weeks the doctors were going to assume it was something more severe. After a week the medication wasn’t working, so we upped the dosage. After 24 hours it still wasn’t working and I was beginning to freak out. My parents were discussing putting me on a strong depression medication at this time due to how depressed and angry I had gotten.
That’s when Mrs. H invited me to Y Disciple on March 14th. She asked everyone there to place their hands on me and pray over me. Three hours later I was walking almost normally. Between November 19th and March 14th, there were only three weeks where I had been able to walk “normally” (normal as in I could walk a mile without falling over). The doctors were in shock because A) it meant that I didn’t have any of the more severe conditions but rather the Orthostatic hypotension and B) I recovered faster than I was supposed to from the Orthostatic Hypotension. Since March 14th I have been walking almost normally and am starting to make a full recovery.
— Rory