The Sunday Read: Miranda Shetzer comes back from concussion to close out senior soccer season

FREMONT – For Miranda Shetzer, the memories conjured include the immediate pain, the enormous pressure inside her skull, as well as the thought that horrifies any athlete: Please don’t let my career be over. Not like this.

John Shetzer can recall the play in vivid detail. From the elbow crashing down, to seeing his daughter down on one knee recovering from the blow. To the fear and anxiety of knowing it was happening again.

On Sept. 6, 10 minutes into Fremont Ross’ girls soccer game at Toledo Central Catholic, Miranda Shetzer suffered the second confirmed concussion of her career. Shetzer challenged for the ball when her opponent from Central Catholic swung an elbow that crashed down on top of her head.

“We saw her go down to one knee and we knew right away,” John Shetzer said.

Miranda, who suffered no memory loss from the blow, knew too.

“If you get bumped in the head or you take a header, it’s usually just a pain where you got hit,” she said. “This was all-around pressure in your head. This felt like your brain was just being squeezed.”

The athletic trainer at Central Catholic asked Miranda an extensive list of questions to assess her responses. Strongly suspecting a concussion, Miranda’s parents took her out of the game, triggering the first of a series of enhanced emotions she felt in the wake of the impact.

“I was crying the whole way home,” she recalled. “Because I knew, I’m a senior and I’m going to be out a long time. And I was sad about that and angry at them because they made me leave. The only thing I felt right away was the headache and the intensified emotions.”

On the mend and on the sideline

Part of Miranda’s frustration with her injury was the scope it’d have on her life off the field. The prospect of missing the rest of her soccer season was bad enough. But she is also president of the marching band and trumpet section leader. The day after the game at Central Catholic, she was scheduled to take the ACT test.

Miranda visited Dr. Michael Stump, a sports medicine specialist at Blanchard Valley Rehab/Sports in Findlay. On the doctor’s order, she missed band performances at two football games. While she returned to school the day following the Central Catholic game, Miranda was under strict orders not to strain herself mentally and her ACT test was rescheduled.

“I’d sit down to do math homework and I knew I couldn’t finish all of it. I just couldn’t concentrate on it enough to do it,” Miranda said. “I was getting headaches. It was definitely intensifying the more I tried to do work. My brain was scattered. I felt like I was in a fog.”

Miranda’s class was the first to undergo concussion baseline testing at Fremont Ross. In May of her eighth-grade year, Miranda, and other prospective athletes about to enter high school, underwent an online IMPACT test, which measures the speed and accuracy of responses to various tests. After a suspected concussion, the athlete can re-take the test and the scores are compared to help determine if a concussion occurred.

While Miranda isn’t the first Ross athlete to suffer a concussion since the IMPACT testing, hers is the first time an athlete’s physician requested the information in order to have her re-take the test.

After retaking the IMPACT test, Miranda was diagnosed with a mild concussion, which only confirmed what she already knew.

“When I took it right after my concussion, I knew right away it was very low. Very, very low,” she said. “It was like school work, I couldn’t concentrate to do it enough. My memory was messed up. A lot of it is memory and reaction time and those were both slowed down.”

A physical game

It wasn’t Miranda’s first concussion. That came when she was 10. She became tangled with an opponent and hit her head on the ground which was particularly hard from baking in the summer sun.

The dangers of soccer, particularly for girls, are becoming more prevalent.

In March, the American Academy of Orthopedic Surgeons released the findings of a study revealing high school girls have a significantly higher concussion rate than boys, with female soccer players suffering the most concussions.

Researchers used injury data from 2005-2015 covering nine sports: football, soccer, basketball, wresting and baseball for boys and soccer, basketball, volleyball and softball for girls.

Among the findings, the study revealed girls experienced significantly higher concussion rates than boys, 12.1 percent, in gender-matched sports.

From 2010 to 2015, the concussion rate was higher in girls soccer than football and, during the 2014-2015 school year, concussions were more common in girls soccer than any other sport.

One of the study’s lead researchers, Wellington Hsu, a professor of orthopedic surgery at Northwestern University, told the Washington Post one theory to explain girls’ higher risk of concussion may be physiology.

“The neck muscles of girls just aren’t as developed as boys are,” Hsu said. “So if girls experience an impact, it makes sense they might be affected by it more than boys if they don’t have the muscles to cushion that impact.”

Ross girls soccer coach Phil Collison knows the sport carries with it a higher risk of concussion for girls but doesn’t know if there is a good solution to ease the problem.

“I don’t know that there is really anything that can be done, to be honest with you,” Collison said. “It’s a competitive game, it’s an aggressive game. It happens.”

With so much yet to be understood about concussions and how to prevent them, John Shetzer is happy to know Miranda’s eighth-grade sister, Morgan, won’t be following in her sister’s steps onto the soccer field, but rather is a diver and plays in band and orchestra.

“It’s not secretly relieved, I am openly relieved,” John Shetzer said. “Soccer is a vicious game.”

The Comeback

Despite the dangers of the game, and the fearful unknown about what a third concussion could do to her health, Miranda desperately wanted back on the field.

Her headaches abated and before long she was able to begin the slow, deliberate process of getting cleared to return to the field.

In order to do so, she had to clear a concussion protocol first for Dr. Stump and then, when he gave her clearance, again for Ross athletic trainer Joe Hershey, as required by OHSAA rules.

“First day is jogging and running to see what happens, if the raise in blood pressure creates a headache,” Hershey said. “If that’s OK, the second day is more of a speed run.

“The third day is sport-specific activities, pretty much playing the sport but no real contact. Next day or two is usually full-go, full-contact, full-play as long as they’re headache free.”

Miranda was close to returning, had cleared all the hurdles until the final task. Heading the ball. She did so at practice without incident, but that night experienced headaches at home. While she’d hoped to play the following day, against Findlay, the headache delayed her return.

Last Monday night, however, she got her wish. Headache-free, Miranda returned to the field in Ross’ 2-2 tie against Bowling Green, her first game in 33 days and after missing eight full games since her injury. She played in Ross’ final three regular season games and is expected to suit up again for the Lady Giants’ district tournament game Thursday at Clay.

“I thought just, ‘Finally,’” Miranda said. “I’ve been sitting out a month. I’m just glad I can play the last couple of games.”

Watching Miranda return to the field is a double-edged sword for her father.

“It wouldn’t break my heart if she didn’t play again. This is a struggle for me,” said John Shetzer, who doubles as the P.A. announcer at Lady Giant home games. “One side of me wants her to finish those last (few) games as a senior, but the other side of me says it’s really not that important.”

Hershey echoes that sentiment, particularly when he sees parents anxious for their kids to be sent back into play despite whatever health risks doing so may incur.

“I wish kids and the parents wouldn’t push so hard because, seriously, it’s still just a game,” Hershey said. “I’ve looked at that a hell of a lot differently lately. I don’t think whatever your future is, is worth anything to do with injuries.”

Miranda Shetzer said she understands the risks of playing the game and she too is scared of the long-term ramifications of another blow to the head. However, as she plays no other varsity sport, the importance of being able to end her athletic career on her terms – and not watching on the sideline – made returning to the field a risk worth taking.

“I’ve been playing soccer for so long,” she said, “and I wanted to give it one last go with the teammates I’ve been playing with for years.”