When he was a teenage lacrosse player, Dr. Brandon Cornejo suffered a mild concussion. He was awake during the trip to the hospital in his parents’ car. And he painfully recalls the resulting cognitive and emotional side effects that messed him up academically, socially, and psychologically.
The worst part, though, was that he spent 16 years not even knowing he had suffered the traumatic brain injury, because he had no memory of it. He wasn’t aware of a ”before” or “after” the injury, so he didn’t know that his struggles were caused by the concussion. Instead he blamed himself, floundering in anger, confusion and depression.
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Lacrosse sticks.
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Now a chief resident in psychiatry at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, Dr. Cornejo told his story at the annual meeting of the American Psychiatric Association to impress upon his colleagues the challenges of helping patients with traumatic brain injury, especially athletes.
“These mild injuries can have profound effects on your self-concept and your experience as a human being. They can change the course of your life,” he said.
In 1991, he was a straight-A student in his junior year at a college preparatory high school and the son of proud Latino parents who had never attended college themselves. He and his family were looking forward to him getting a scholarship to finance college.
After the concussion, his grades tanked. He barely got by with Cs and Ds. His girlfriend dumped him. He became very emotional. He remembers 6-9 months of bad fights with his parents. “The likelihood is pretty high that this was related to the loss of consciousness,” he said. “For years, I considered myself `not good at’ certain things because of my academic performance in my senior year.”
His behavior frustrated and shocked him. One time he exploded in “road rage,” which embarrassed him even though no one was there to witness it. Another time when he was ordering oatmeal in a restaurant, he could not recall the words for brown sugar.
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