This past April, I experienced something that I never had. Something that changed my entire summer and changed my lifestyle overall.

I was in my friend’s dorm room in A Complex on a Friday night playing NBA 2k15 on the Xbox 360 because as some people might know, I’m a huge New York Knicks fan and I played basketball since longer than I can remember.

I’m decent when it comes to playing video games, and at one point in this game, I was ahead by only a few points.

I guess you could say I was pretty excited.

I had gotten up from the wooden desk chair that I was sitting in and went to take a sip of the Baja Blast Mountain Dew (which is my favorite and an addiction) that I was drinking.

I was still going crazy because I was winning and I went to sit back in the chair and I sat right on the edge in which the chair came out from underneath me and I hit the back of my head on my friend’s roommate’s closet.

I don’t remember about a minute after I hit my head, but all I do remember is sitting on my friend’s roommate’s bed with my hand behind my head and my friend was sitting next to me asking if I was okay. According to my friend, I was staring straight ahead with a blank look on my face and it looked like I had no idea what I was thinking or doing.

I didn’t think it was a big deal so I just kind of blew it off.

I had a few friends visiting from another college that night so we all went out to a party, danced and had a good time.

I felt perfectly fine and I totally forgot about what happened beforehand.

On Saturday morning when I had woken up, I started to have really bad headaches and migraines.

They were so bad that I had to lie in bed and shut my eyes for a while before they finally started to go away.

When the headaches continued on Sunday, I knew that something was wrong.

After my Monday classes, I had my friend take me to the emergency room to get my head checked out.

After about 45 minutes in the waiting room, and another hour or so in the examination room, I was told that I had a concussion, and I was going through post-concussive syndrome (PCS). The doctor did plenty of tests like taking my pointer finger, touching the tip of my nose and slowly take the finger away from my nose while I’m still looking at it.

Once I got back to school, I wasn’t able to drive, text, watch TV, play video games or use my laptop.

All I could do was not go to class, lie down in bed and do nothing. For a week, that’s all I did.

If I had to go out in the sunlight, I had to wear sunglasses. If I decided to go to class and I felt well enough to listen and pay attention, I had to wear sunglasses indoors.

I won’t forget the weird looks people gave me when I was sitting in a classroom with my sunglasses on.

I could barely eat anything because when you have a concussion, you sometimes lose your appetite.

My friends came up to my room to bring me snacks, water and to help me out with homework.

Since it was the end of the semester, I wasn’t able to take finals so I had to take them at a later date.

The entire summer, I was experiencing headaches and I wasn’t able to work as much as I did.

I had been working at a water park in New York for the past four summers and I couldn’t work during the day this past summer because of my concussion and my ability to be in the blistering sun.

I only worked night groups from 6:30–10 p.m. when the sun wasn’t strong.

I gained 10 pounds from not being able to exercise and work out.

The concussion limited me from doing things that I loved and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t escape from the pain.

To this day, I get headaches once every two or three days, but they are finally starting to dwindle and I’m getting back to normal.

I can obviously look at computer screens, TV screens and all of that, but I need sunglasses whenever I walk outside in the sun or the headaches will come back.

I’m not sure how much longer these frequent headaches will last, but I’m hoping that I can learn from this and be more careful when I’m at college, even if I’m winning in a video game.