Excerpt
I wasn’t tired, but as soon as I stepped off the ice, I started to feel dizzy. I was standing at the front of the bench, when all of a sudden I felt an incredible amount of pressure in my head and a sharp pain behind my left eye, going all the way around to the back of my neck.
“Oh, my God,” I said to a teammate who was standing closest to me. “I got like the worst headache I ever had in my life.”
It got worse from there. It hurt so much that it froze me to the spot. I didn’t know what it was, but it was so intense that I thought for sure I was dying, and I immediately looked around for my mom in the crowd. When I didn’t see her, I wanted to cry, but for some reason no tears would come. Instead, I was aware that I was making some sort of sound, a sort of involuntary moan. A couple of my teammates glanced over at me, but I couldn’t say anything to them and they turned away. It was so strange because no one seemed to notice anything different about me. They were all watching the game.
What is this happening to me? I wondered.
I was really scared. Then I saw two of my coaches, Henry Sherman and Jim Hopgood, waving at me, calling for me to get back on the ice, but I couldn’t move.
Coach Henry came over and placed a hand on my shoulder.
“Come on, Jamie,” he said. “Go.”
I tried to take a step forward. My legs, however, did not want to cooperate, and when upper body shifted and my feet remained stationary, I lost my balance. The next thing I knew I felt myself falling to the ground, and there was nothing I could do about it. I couldn’t stop myself or even put my hands out to break my fall. I struck the bench on my right side and slumped to the ground.
When I tried to get up, nothing happened. I couldn’t move. It was like I was stuck in a nightmare, but I was wide awake. My teammates were looking at me again, and I could hear every word they were saying. They all seemed to be waiting for me to get up or say something, but I couldn’t do either.
“What’s the matter, Jamie?” Coach Stimpson asked, standing over me.
Why am I like this? were the words I tried to form, but I could hear myself say something else that was totally incomprehensible.
My head still hurt a lot, and I started to wonder if maybe I got hit in the head by the puck. Considering all the hockey that I played through the years, all the falls I had taken, the frozen pucks flying all around, and never having been seriously hurt before, maybe my luck had run out.
“You’re okay, Jamie,” Coach Stimpson said as he knelt down beside me and helped me onto the bench. I couldn’t sit so he eased me gently down onto my back. “Don’t worry. We’re going to take care of you.”