Concussion, part two

                I watch too much television. I turn the tube on all of the time and then sit down to do other things, like write on my computer. The TV in the background helps me to tune out the world so I can concentrate. Occasionally, something from the tube penetrates my brain and I stop writing and listen for a bit. Yesterday, I watched a slice of a new show on CBS, “Person of Interest.” In it, our main character was bashed on the back of the head hard enough to knock him unconscious. It would have been a pretty serious concussion, especially since this was a second head injury in only a few days, in the show’s timeline.  Eventually, he wakes up in the back of the cop car of a corrupt cop, about to be shot and dumped in the boonies. He is frisky enough to disarm the cop and totally outsmart the gang, killing one bad guy in the process. He is able to think far enough in advance to use the corrupt cop’s gun, forcing the cop to deal with the corpse by hauling it out to the boonies, and making the man his bitch.

                The problem is, I had a mild concussion last month; I was only knocked out for a few seconds. It wouldn’t have been bad enough for me to have stayed unconscious if someone had loaded me into the back of a car. It’s been over a month and I still have pain and balance issues – I can’t stay upright if the lights are out. My head still hurts. I made bad decisions for days after the injury. I’m a smart person and I couldn’t have outsmarted the cat (and she is far from the sharpest tool in the shed) in the days after my injury!

Why is it that, when someone gets a concussion on television or in movies, it is bad enough to knock the hero out but he is up and at ‘em as soon as he needs to be, with only mild discomfort? No one on television pukes from their concussion, a typical reaction for normal humans. Or staggers, unable to walk straight. I joked with my doctor that it was a good thing I hadn’t been stopped at a sobriety checkpoint, because I couldn’t touch my nose with my eyes closed. It’s also a good thing I’m not a television hero.

                If someone has surgery on TV, they are able to walk out of the hospital. They looked good in the bed before they had to go. When I had my emergency surgery, my hair was so matted it took me two days after I was discharged to get out the snarls. I smelled bad, too. And I left in an ambulance – I couldn’t walk because all of my abdominal muscles had been cut. You NEED abdominal muscles to do almost anything! When characters on TV are shot in the abdomen, they, too, would need a colostomy. It’s not pretty and it takes months to recover, plus additional surgery.  Yet, the main characters are back to normal the following week.

                I’m tired of television getting reality so wrong. It really ticked me off to see this silly show get something as common as a concussion so stupidly incorrect. But, it’s easier to move the hero and the plot by cheating, “knocking him out.” If real people had as many concussions are television heroes, they would have permanent brain injuries. But who would watch a show whose main character was in a persistent vegetative state?

Jack and television

I tried to limit the amount of television that Jack watched when he was a kid. I didn’t subscribe to cable, as we had acceptable reception for the original three major networks plus PBS, and my budget didn’t allow for unnecessary expenses. Sometimes, the reception was snowy and sometimes, the C5A's that were landing or taking off from Westover interfered, but we just didn’t watch much TV on those days.

                It was cheaper to purchase one video a month than to subscribe to a cable service, so we built up a substantial collection, first of tapes and later, of DVDs. I had a collection of Pokemon and other kid shows. I also had all of the science fiction and old television series that I liked, as well as a number of programs that I used in teaching. Still, I limited the amount of time that Jack could spend watching either TV or videos. Jack was not allowed to watch videos in my office, where I had a small TV with a built-in VCR, and he was only allowed to watch a total of one hour of TV or videos per day.

One day, as I cooked dinner, I suddenly realized that Jack was both quiet and no where to be seen. This was a bad sign and a dead giveaway that he was doing something that he wasn’t supposed to be doing. On that particular day, he had already used up his allotment of TV time watching Pokemon cartoons after school; he was supposed to be doing his homework before dinner. I pushed open the door to my office and caught him, sitting on the floor, watching a video on my little TV. I started to scold him, but suddenly realized that he was not watching Pokemon, he was watching one of my Monty Python videos (I had purchased the complete set at Costco). He was giggling madly at the “Ministry of Silly Walks.” He looked up at me. I watched the full range of emotions cross his face – beginning with mirth from watching the show, then worry as he noticed me and remembered that he was sneaking a forbidden treat, then back to glee as he realized that I wasn’t going to yell at him. My own face must have been a sight, beginning with irritation and ending in utter perplexity and my own amusement.

Unable to scold him, I shrugged and returned to the kitchen. My eight year old had discovered Monty Python and he LIKED it! There was hope for the next generation!