Watch out - Knocked out ... Brain injuries are insidious! They can happen to anyone.

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I was talking with a longtime business associate on the telephone today. We were catching up. After talking about business, we talked about my stroke. Then we talked about my friend Mimi's son who suffered a devastating brain injury resulting from a blow to the head that caused permanent disability. York shared with me the story of his 17-year-old daughter.

York's daughter is an athlete, a soccer player and cheerleader. York mentioned to me that he and his wife were concerned about their daughter because she had suffered her third concussion. Her doctors were insisting on a significant amount of time off from sports to recover from this concussion. Sometimes, I wonder if people realize the long-term brain damage that can result from fairly simple injuries.

As a boy and young adults, I suffered at least for concussions resulting from being knocked out. First, I was a gymnast. I got knocked out twice! On the first occasion, we were standing in line waiting to do the pommel horse. We always did limbering up exercises while waiting in line. The guy in front of me went into a hand stand, only his heels hit me in the chin and knocked me cold. Many months later, I was working on perfecting my hand stand on the parallel bars, but on one of the handstands, my right elbow did not lock. Instead of just letting myself down, I tried for a couple of seconds to lock the right elbow ... oops... bad decision ... the right elbow folded and I went on my head, knocking myself out again.

In the gymnastics off-season, I was a swimmer and diver. I was doing a reverse jackknife from the high platform. I have to admit, I was kind of a mediocre diver. On this dive, I didn't jump far enough away from the platform, cracked my head, and knocked myself out. Fortunately, it made a lot of noise, so the coach got me out of the pool right away.

They say, three times, a charm. Fooled again! I was no angel in high school. Like the lines of that old rocks soong, I was smokin' in the boys room. Some bully walked in and grab the cigarette out of my mouth and broke it. Bullies are we like to pick on the little kid. He really made me angry. I made some smart remark to him. Then he started getting physical, like all bullies. Being a small guy, always one of the one or two smallest in my class I didn't wait for it to escalate. I had no interest in getting knocked around. Most of the jerks in school at lease knew that I was a gymnast, and usually just left me alone. But this particular jerk apparently was new. He started pushing me and shoving me and asking me if I wanted the fight. I just kept backing up. I just kept avoiding a confrontation. But then he made a fist, and cocked his arm, ready to hit me. That was it. I wasn't going to get hit. There was no more room to back up or to get around him and get out the door. So, very quickly, and I might also add, unexpectedly, grabbed him around the neck, put them on the floor and choked him. I guess I embarrassed them to. The next day, he walked up the hallway and approach me from behind, at my locker. I never saw him. He tapped me on the shoulder and KO'd me with a roll of quarters in his fist. I was out quite a while! I got suspended for a day. He got expelled.

Repeated head injuries, even those which seem minor at the time, can have dramatic, long-term effects. How many boxers ended up like Mohammed Ali? He only got knocked out a few times in his career. However, the cumulative effect could have easily precipitated the Parkinson's disease which he suffered not too long after his retirement. How many of us could be walking around with ticking time bombs locke up inside our skull? I will probably never know if those repeated knockouts in my youth contributed to the TIAs, and ultimately the stroke that I suffered, there is certainly a high likelihood of correlation.

If you or someone you love has ever been hit in the head and dazed or knocked unconscious, do yourself a huge favor. Learn it, know, and watch for the signs of stroke. Like the saying, you can never be too rich or too thin, you can never be too cautious or too overly concerned when it comes to worrying about head injuries.