In this first‑person video, the speaker recounts the aftermath of a head injury that began with a seemingly minor impact (“a chair on my head”). They describe a cascade of severe concussion symptoms—including pervasive headaches, light and sound sensitivity, extreme exhaustion, and loss of hope—along with a striking decline in bilingual language ability, where both English and Spanish word‑finding were impaired. After being offered “SLO drops,” the speaker experiences gradual restoration of vocabulary, processing speed, and the ability to switch between languages. This cognitive rebound fuels renewed self‑esteem and optimism about the future. The testimonial concludes with reflections on coping mechanisms and strategies learned through the SLO program, expressing anticipation for further improvements.
Chapters
It was just a chair on my head, you know. No one thinks that anything's going to happen to you. No one knows. Like most Americans, we don't know about concussions. Okay, so my symptoms were massive headache, and my headaches went all over my head. Like, it was just everywhere. Light sensitivity, where my lights had to be off at all times. Exhaustion. I would go home and just Sleep and also sound sensitivity. I didn't know what was wrong with me. I had lost all hope. I didn't know why can't I do this job? It's like what I was meant to do. Excuse me. He said that I might be a candidate for SLO drops. So that was the beginning where I got some of my vocabulary back and my processing back. I was able to think of things and pull out the vocabulary, where before it was that, this, there, you know, very limited. When I was injured, I realized I'm bilingual and my family speak English and Spanish, just, you know, you just transfer over to either language at any given moment. And I realized I was having a more— a very difficult time doing that. Like, I couldn't think of words in English, and then I couldn't think of them in Spanish, not knowing if I was going to be able to speak the language as fluently as I had before. So I, um, I was down there and I was able to speak, and I was able to think in Spanish, and it came back to me. When you start, one of the biggest things when you When you start gaining all these things back, you start to feel better about yourself. And when you feel better about yourself, there's hope. There's a lot of things I can't do still, but I have a life now. And I'm able to see a future. There's things that I've learned mechanisms on how to cope and strategies to be able to function. And SLO has given me a lot of that, and I can't wait to see what's next. What's the next big improvement?
