We’re told to find what we love, something that gives us a dream to chase and shapes who we are. At a young age, some of us are lucky enough to find just that. For me, a young Canadian athlete, that love was hockey, that dream was the National Hockey League, and that identity was tied to never giving up, never taking no for an answer. The locker room loves guys who will sacrifice everything for the game and isn’t kind to those who decide it no longer serves them.
I was one of those guys it loved. At one point, hockey was the best thing that ever happened to me; it made me who I was. The problem was that it became me, and when I needed to walk away I couldn’t because at that time, I felt as if I had nowhere else to go. Later, I was forced to walk away, and by then it was too late. Like so many other young people, I got lost in the mindset of becoming my craft and believing that was all I could be.
Six years ago, I was just months away from my dream of playing Division I hockey when I suffered a Traumatic Brain Injury that changed my life forever. I didn’t know it then, but I would wake up with pain burning out of my eyes every second of every minute for the next four years. With this pain would also come nausea, vertigo, tremors, and countless conversations with doctors and coaches.
The summer after that life-altering injury, I received weekly phone calls from my new assistant coach. I had given my whole life to this sport and it was time for me to face a man who didn’t believe that was enough. I remember answering the phone one day in a room of darkness, so scared of letting him down that I felt like I had sunk three feet into my bed. I told him that I had suffered my third concussion of the year, expecting this to be the hardest part. I was wrong. His responses began to crush me. “Do you even want to play hockey?” “You sound fine to me.” “It’s a mindset you just need to get over it.” “I had multiple concussions when I was your age, but mine were bad. I was like puking but I got through them.” “Sidney Crosby had concussions he battled through.” I remember ending that call and feeling absolutely paralyzed. I remember feeling so incredibly weak and worthless that I didn’t know what to do. It was all my fault, I was giving up on my team, my sport, my family, my friends. Some of that night I have yet to come to terms with, but as far as I know I lost a big part of myself.
I spent the next few days trying to break my leg just so he and everyone else would leave me alone. The pain and damage going on inside my head was invisible to everyone else, and I just wanted tangible proof of my pain and disability. I remember hovering my legs off the side of a school near my house. My plan was to jump off the school and rotate my foot so that when it hit the ground everything would give out. I tried twice. I remember the second time I pulled my foot in and I hit the ground. I just sat down with tears in my eyes looking around. What was I doing? How did I get here? It was then in my weakest moment that I realized that nothing was ever going to be the same, but if I wanted to have a say in my future, I had to stand up and step away from the ledge. I told myself that day that I would go to university and that I would find a way.
When I got to school, that coach didn’t stop, and in front of my teammates and behind my back he tried to hang the reputation of a faker and quitter above my head. Did this coach really think I wanted to watch my roommates and best friends live my dream every weekend without me? Did he think I just wanted to sit in the stands close enough to see it and feel it, but never truly have it? Does that sound like the same guy who spent his whole life in and out of locker rooms and arenas? The same kid who just took 3 gap years and travelled across Canada to pursue his dream of playing college hockey? The answer is of course no, and I knew I wasn’t the first guy to feel this abuse and I wouldn’t be the last if I was too scared to speak up.
When I made this decision to show up to university I knew it wasn’t going to be easy. I wasn’t going to get to have the same freshman worries most normal kids had. My worries were a lot different. I had to worry about going to the library for 8 hours a day because I could only study 15 minutes on 45 minutes off. I had to worry about missing 95% of my classes because I needed to study in the dark. I had to worry about wanting to learn, take notes and participate, but not being able to look up at the board and then down at my notes without getting sick. I had to worry about classes I wanted to be in so badly, but just couldn’t take because I couldn’t handle the lighting. I had to worry about finding courses that didn’t rely on computers because they burned my eyes, and worry about getting by with textbooks and exams. I remember always hearing people complain about doing their school work, and I wondered what they would do if they ever saw that work from behind my eyes. I knew if I could see it from behind theirs it would no longer be work. Imagine an assignment you don’t want to do or a test you don’t want to study for, and now imagine lighting your eyes on fire and getting more and more nauseous and off-balance while that fire in your eyes grows every minute you do it, now do that every day for 4 years.
On top of the effort it took to just get through the day, I was also desperately searching for medical answers. I saw over fifty doctors across North America and begged them to release me from a torture chamber only I knew. I tried everything: eight different pairs of glasses, six different medications, three different types of injections through my neck, eyes and head, along with hours, days and months of physical therapy. I flew all over North America, but nothing worked. For almost four years, the medical community could not find a solution. At times it wasn’t even the pain that hurt the most, but the uncertainty and the reality that set in deeper and deeper every year that no doctor may ever hand over the key and that I could live like this forever.
I finally built up the courage to tell the school administrators what had happened and what was happening, but when I did they just looked away. They had no help for me. They didn’t want to hear me or see me. I thought confiding to the administration would be my finish line. I had this fantasy that if I came forward the next guy would be spared. That’s all I really wanted. To help the next guy. The damage was done for me, it was too late, but this was no longer just about me. I realized that day and in the days that followed that change and help often don’t come easy. Sometimes people see other people’s pain as an inconvenience, rather than a call to action.
Even though I felt completely alone at the time, I knew I wasn’t the only one that was struggling. Thankfully for me, I had the opportunity to take action, to speak to and meet some of the people I was fighting for. So instead of giving up and throwing in the towel I put my head down and kept going, because at the end of the first speech I ever gave and every speech after that I made a promise to the next guy and girl that I wasn’t going to give up and I was going to show them what they could do no matter the circumstance. After every speech I gave I found more and more kids, way more than I would have ever thought, just like me who were lost and in pain, who didn’t recognize themselves and didn’t know what to do. Until I started sharing my story I always felt alone. Seeing these kids and other people suffering in silence the way I was gave me inspiration and a commitment to the bigger fight. Kids everywhere struggling with concussions, injury, and mental health were being forced aside without answers. I never thought I could find all the answers, but I left every one of those interactions inspired, thinking that I was going to keep fighting to show them and everyone else what we could still do and who we could still be.
The roller coaster didn’t stop for me though. Doctor after doctor week after week I would tell myself that the next kid needed me, the next kid needed me. I tried all kinds of experimental treatments. I remember having a doctor try and freeze all the nerves around my eyes. I was convinced this would be the solution for the constant burning in my eyes. I remember after getting the injections he told me to go out for a walk and see if I would experience intense pain when using my eyes. He told me to come back in a couple of hours and let him know if I essentially had my life back. It took me an hour and a half to build up the courage to even use them. I remember being so nauseous that I threw up. The fear that I was still trapped and this was another treatment that wasn’t the answer was so overpowering. I tested my eyes. I remember standing at an overpass and looking down at the cars. The pain was back. However, so was the voice that the next kid needed me.
I forged on with my medical journey. The next doctor suggested that I stretch my neck to relax the nerves at the base of my skull. At first I could actually feel the relief. So I started pulling harder. My symptoms relaxed more and more and I thought I was getting closer to a solution. I pulled on my neck for a month and a half until I could no longer lift my arm. It didn’t matter to me though. If I could alleviate the pain in my eyes and my head, I didn’t need my arm. However, it turned out by stretching this hard I was tearing a nerve in my shoulder and I wouldn’t be able to properly use that arm for years to come. The relief I was feeling in my eyes and head also wore off as the stretches just seemed to be relaxing nerves for a small duration after they were stretched. I was back to square one except without the use of my arm. Luckily, the goal of helping the next person became so powerful and important to me that these almost routine setbacks and disappointments didn’t stop me.
Outside of the doctor’s office, I focused on the things I could control. I had received perfect grades at Brown and secured my dream job at Goldman Sachs covering healthcare. Due to my intense symptoms, however, I knew I wouldn’t be able to perform the job and deferred for a year to try and buy myself some time. I was extremely hard on myself to manage the things I had control over and to never let the barriers I was facing become bigger than my will to overcome them. I wanted to put myself in a position to set an example and to give back. If I wasn’t doing everything I could to be the person that helps the next kid, I didn’t feel like I deserved the help myself.
Three years after I started university I dropped out. The pain was so bad, every second of every day, and no doctor had gotten me any closer to my old self. I moved back with my parents and I would go on to try a number of treatments that my mother continued to research and find for me. My mom and dad drove me around Florida and gave me the space to try another year of treatments, diets and exercises. After 1,487 days something clicked. My brain started responding to some of the treatments. I’m still not completely sure which treatments that year started to alleviate my symptoms, but I got my life back. Goldman honoured my internship when I returned and I later went on to speak at Brown’s graduation. Through it all I was lucky to have the support of my family, friends and teammates.
I am now in a position where all that fighting can finally mean something. I can help that next kid find help and that’s what Galea is for. This platform is for the next kid who is exhausted, all alone and thinks that no one understands. This platform is for that kid to know that their road won’t be easy, but that it’s worth walking, and they won’t have to walk it alone.
– Braedan Russell
Major in College: Economics
Current favorite music artist: Brett Young, Bryce Vine
Favorite movie & TV show: Happy Gilmore, The Office
Favorite city: Toronto, Ontario
Something you can’t live without: Wilburs Mexicana
Role model: Father
Travel destination: Nairobi, Kenya
