I’ve be waiting for this day! Our videos from the Listen To Your Mother Show are up on YouTube now. Here’s mine.
My Story from Listen To Your Mother OKC
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Tag Archives: cte
CTE is NOT a Laughing Matter
When I saw the logo for The Opening, I was stunned. Speechless is a state you find me almost never. But…
What can you possibly say about a group using a death skull inside of a football helmet as their logo? The Opening describes themselves as “four days of dynamic competition for the nation’s most elite high school football prospects”.
With all we currently know about CTE and what causes it, using a logo like this is a mockery of the truth of what can happen to youth football players whether they are elite players or the average kid who starts playing a collision sport at the age of eight or younger. Risk everything? Really?
Horrifying.
Sponsors of these events are Nike and Riddell. Speechless again. These are groups who know what is going on with concussion in football. Why would they choose such an image?
So I’m writing a blog post today when I really can’t even adequately express how I feel about the fact that large companies, who should know better, would chose such an image to portray their product.
We need to protect our children’s brains, not risk everything! Everything is a life or death issue. CTE IS life or death and it’s real and it shouldn’t be mocked or belittled. People are losing their sons and daughters due to collisions sports being played with no regard to the fact that a concussion is a brain injury and should be treated accordingly.
Be aware! For more information about concussion and CTE, visit StopCTE.org. Also, if you are a parent or parent group interested in stopping repetitive brain trauma in youth sports, please join the Save Your Brain Campaign.
Awesome engagement!
Snapchat is such a great platform to me. Although it’s my smallest network, it’s definitely my most engaged network. Yesterday, I had a lengthy discussion with a woman in The Netherlands about concussion and CTE. This morning, I had a new follower who coaches football for first and second graders in Texas. I talked to him about CTE and Flag Until 14. I even had one person who follows me be so interested that I was working against CTE that he googled me and found out I was a powerlifter as he is! So, anyway, I love snapchat. smile emoticon
Save Your Brain
I was honored to be included on a trip to Washington DC last week with the Patrick Risha CTE Awareness Foundation for Brain Injury Awareness Day.
I chose to work with this group because Patrick’s story is so similar to my son’s story and I felt drawn to them. It was wonderful to meet Karen Zegel and her husband, Doug. They are passionate about the issue of stopping CTE and concussion safety for youth athletes.
We all got together at the hotel the night before and I heard the stories of the collected women. Some had lost sons to CTE and some had lost husbands. It was all very sad and it made me even more sure that I was on the right path in my quest to inform anyone and everyone I come into contact with that it’s not “just” a concussion and that helmets do not protect the brain against concussion.
Debbie Ploetz’s story was one that made me realize that even if everything seems okay for now, somewhere along the line, the result of all the concussive and/or subconcussive hits, may take its toll. Greg Ploetz died from CTE. Here’s the video:
The next morning, we all met at the Cannon House Office Building for breakfast and to get to know each other.
Then it was on to the Brain Injury Awareness Fair. I walked around the room to see what people were there to showcase. I shared with each person my own personal quest and got some very good ideas of ways in which I can proceed and reach more people.
I was so happy to meet and speak with Mike Haynes. Mike is a pro football Hall of Fame corner back. The exciting thing is that he never played football until he was a sophomore in high school. Not only is he is in the Hall of Fame, his brain is okay!
I had a meeting with my Congressman’s legislative aide. In the end, we weren’t able to meet with the person we were supposed to meet with but we were able to share our concerns with another of his staffers. I’ll be following up with the Congressman, though, because this is too important to just leave to chance that he will hear about if from someone who isn’t me.
Some members of our group had really great and positive sounding meetings with their representatives. It became apparent that it will take us some time and that we must bring even more interested people with us as we continue to strive for a legalized standard of care for concussion in youth sports. While it may take some time, I know that we will achieve our goal blow by blow, one step at a time.
If you know of any parent groups that are interested in safety in youth sports, particularly with regard to concussion and brain safety, please have them join with us on the Save Your Brain facebook page.
The Akdar Shrine Circus
This past weekend, I was fortunate enough to be able to hang out in the Safety Station with Fire Marshall, Tom Hufford, and the Tulsa Fire Department.
There was SO much safety information to share and I was so happy to be able to share concussion safety information.
Over the four days, I spoke to so many people and it was gratifying to hear them thank me for sharing the information because they had no idea that concussions were so bad. My goal and my mission is to share with as many people as possible that a concussion isn’t “just a concussion”. The Safety Station was a great place for me to share this message.
The clowns were a blast, too!
Many thanks to Tom and the Tulsa Fire Department for letting me hang out with them at the circus!
Book Review: Concussion
Concussion by Jeanne Marie Laskas
My rating: 5 of 5 stars
Oh my goodness. When I saw the trailer for this movie, I knew I had to see it. When I saw the opportunity to read the book, I jumped on it. I couldn’t stop reading it and stayed up all night to finish it.
This book is about Bennet Omalu, the man who discovered Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) which he found in the brain of a former NFL player, Mike Webster, who played for the Steelers. Omalu, from Nigera, comes to America to work with Cyril Wecht. He admires Wecht’s work and works hard. As long as he gets his work done, Wecht doesn’t mind if he studies brains. Every brain tells a story, he thinks. He feels like he can tell what happened to the person by reading the brain. It is because of this he eventually discovers CTE. He’s eventually able to study more former NFL player brains and is sure of his findings.
The book is about Omalu’s fight to get the word out about CTE against an eight billion dollar entertainment entity, the NFL.
If you have a child who plays sports, are a coach or a trainer, I highly recommend this book. It changed my life. The one most important thing I learned in this book is that helmets do not protect from concussion! When I read this, I felt like a child abuser because I felt my son was always protected because of his helmet.
Excellent, excellent book. I look forward to the movie.