My Recovery From a Mountain Bike Brain Injury
The last thing I remember on October 18th, 2023 was taking off on a group mountain bike ride in the Coler MTB Preserve in Bentonville, Arkansas. I was going out with the USA Cycling national MTB team. A large group of us showed up, and the route was not especially technical. We climbed onto our bikes and took off.
“Peter — do you have any memory from yesterday’s accident?” Wait…what? No, I had no memory of the previous 24 hours. That period of time had been permanently erased from my brain. My friends explained that I had been in a mountain bike crash, knocked unconscious (snoring even) for 5 minutes and taken by ambulance to the hospital. In my entire life, which has been filled with dangerous activities like skiing, climbing and surfing, I’d been lucky enough to never suffer a concussion. Until now.
First of all, I want to thank my friends Sean and Shannon Scott, who were in Arkansas with me to ride bikes but also for business meetings. They took a couple days away from their work to look after me and get me to the airport for my flight home. Sean told me later that he was following me into the bathroom at our Airbnb, because I was wobbling from side to side and he did not want me to fall and hit my head again. I am also grateful for my friends Jelaani Davis and Brad Huff, who both came with me to the hospital after the crash. My friend Tim Johnson, who first took me to Bentonville five years ago, was around and helpful. I’m lucky that all of these friends were in Bentonville with me, and happy to have them in my life in the first place.
I flew home a couple days later and week by week I felt a little better. The two obvious symptoms I felt were 1) my left-right balance was a little off, and 2) my memory for names, places and businesses had gotten worse. I normally have a very good memory, so this part was really obvious. USA Cycling Chief Medical Officer Dr. Michael Roshon called me a couple times to check in. To make sure I was taking care of my injury, I went to see a neurologist experienced with sports-related concussions. He took me through a series of cognitive tests, and I’d clearly lost some of my brain ability. But I could feel over time that I was gradually improving. My balance had gotten back to normal. By my second visit, about 3 months after the crash, the neurologist said, “Your cognitive results are nearly back to normal, and you’ll have a full recovery. You’re good to go.” This was a relief and I went on my way.
Over the course of last year, however, it was clear that I had not fully recovered. I felt the most off while driving at night, where you have a lot of sensory inputs: the rear view mirror, cars around you, exit ramps off the freeway, lots of headlights, etc. I just felt overwhelmed by all of this. Then on two separate occasions in the first 6 months of the year, I was in fender bender car collisions that were my fault. I had maybe had one of those in the previous thirty years. I was wondering, am I just getting old? Whatever the reason, it was clear that I was not functioning well cognitively. The concussion crossed my mind as a reason for this, but it wasn’t obvious to me. Although it probably should have been. Even with lots of expert help, my traumatic brain injury was not fully healed. After a concussion, you might not just “get better.”
In late September, I went out with Sean to do the Montrose group ride in Pasadena on a Saturday morning. While there, we connected with my friend Shari Stillman-Corbitt, a clinical psychologist and founder of the Awakenings mental health treatment facility. On the ride back to the car I shared my TBI symptoms with Shari. She immediately said, “Peter, those symptoms are not normal. You may need more treatment. At my place we use a modality, neurofeedback, that is very effective for brain injuries. Why don’t you come by and try it?” I said, “Sure, why not?”
So a few weeks later I found myself in Shari’s office getting wired up to start my neurofeedback treatment protocol. This methodology monitors EEG brain waves and sends feedback to the brain (via audio or visual cues) that tells you to process things differently. After an initial lengthy questionnaire, the neurofeedback process started. For me, this included about 30 minutes of watching visually stimulating (lots of moving geometric shapes) videos on the Brain Paint software system while my brain waves were being measured.
After my first visit, I went outside to get in my car for the 20-minute drive home. It had gotten dark while I was in my appointment, and I was now starting my drive when I otherwise would have felt really overwhelmed. Within 5 minutes of getting in the car, it was clear that something had changed. I felt totally focused, calm and present. Had the neurofeedback really made that much of an impact in just one visit? Well, maybe. Given this promising start, I starting visiting Shari’s facility every week for more neurofeedback therapy. Since then, my brain functionality has felt better and better. And I’m still doing the neurofeedback with Shari. I now feel more on top of my mental game than ever. Clearly, I spent most of last year living under a TBI-induced brain fog without ever realizing it. That’s one of the weird things about brain injuries: you may not even understand that you’re suffering symptoms. Brain issues are complex and sometimes vague. There’s no x-ray that shows you how your brain is broken. My TBI symptoms were invisible to even my wife. And yet, after a few months of neurofeedback, I feel like I’m operating at a higher level than even before my crash. That’s anecdotal, and hard to measure, but I really do feel that good. Because of that, my self esteem is better, my time management has improved and the work I do is of higher quality. So the brain health builds on itself.
I’m so grateful for Shari’s treatment and to be feeling back to full strength. In hindsight, 2024 was a hard year, with a lot of problems to solve: recovering from a TBI, I also had a herniated disc in my back, work was hard. It felt like everything in my life was an uphill struggle. I’m looking forward to going back to the Coler MTB Preserve in Bentonville with all of my faculties next month and staying upright.
