Montreal, in January 2018.
I’m on my bike to join a friend for brunch at a nice little restaurant on Parc Avenue.
I am well, happy and in great shape.
It’s nice and warm, the cold of winter makes me vibrate!
I am riding fully aware that it is winter in the city and that it is freezing. So I’m very careful with my studded winter tyres, even though I’m on a well-defrosted bike path on Rachel Street W. I slowly turn north in the one-way direction of Avenue de l’Esplanade.
Suddenly a white SUV backs up at high speed, it doesn’t see me?
How come? Yet I’m wearing brightly coloured clothes and a fluorescent yellow helmet! I try to get off the street quickly… On either side of the track, there are mounds of ice and parked cars…
And then… nothing more…
I’m on the floor, alone with a man talking to me and apologizing…
I don’t hear anything… I get up, get on my broken bike and ride to the restaurant. My helmet is cracked, my shoulder and collarbone are recessed, I walk in and my friend looks at me helpless; I don’t understand but I think I must look a little shaken.
The adrenaline is going down and I don’t understand anything anymore. Her lips move but I can’t hear. My arm hurts and I can’t sit up….
So she takes me quickly to the hospital!
They tell me to rest, that I have a concussion… No more… Without instructions or follow-up.
A few days go by and nothing goes right.
I go back to the emergency room. They tell me to rest, that it will pass.
I move in with my mother and old grandmother…
I’m still not well after 3 weeks. I can’t walk without having to hold the walls; the light, the sounds, the noise, my mother talking to me, the food, etc….
Everything is unbearable!
Angry outbursts, and a headache that is hard to describe.
A return to the hospital by ambulance is necessary because the headache is getting stronger and stronger. I feel nauseous, I shake and repeat the same sentence over and over again. My relatives are worried.
Now they tell me to take antidepressants and tell me that it will pass… I refuse to take them and understand that I will have to cope with this concussion on my own or take my life!
When the accident happened, it’s a good thing I was wearing a helmet, because my head would have been much more injured; in fact, I could have lost my life…
I have nevertheless had a head injury that was serious enough to completely turn my life upside down over the last few years.
I can’t wait to wear a helmet!