Sydney Egendoerfer

 My name is Sydney Egendoerfer, and I am going to be a freshman at Marian University in fall of 2020. I always have had the dream of playing college soccer, I am a defensive player and I am known for always heading any ball that came near me. It was May of 2018, end of my sophomore year and I headed a shot inside the 6 yd box, it hurt, but didn’t seem like anything out of the ordinary. As days passed I noticed I wasn’t myself and I was having bad headaches and many other symptoms, so my trainer told me to go to doctor. So I went to doctor and was told I had a concussion, I thought I’d be back in no time, I had an ECNL college showcase in California at the end of June and I thought for sure I’d be able to play in front of some college coaches. Well 3 months went by and I spent 3 hours a day doing vestibular, physical, occupational, and speech therapy, it was beyond frustrating I couldn’t even walk for more than 5 min at times without almost being sick. Highschool season came around in August and I was cleared, but when school started I couldn’t perform well at school without feeling sick. But I continued to head balls and push through my symptoms as much as I could and tell myself I was fine. I was pulled from my highschool season 3-4 different times just because of my symptoms after heading balls. but I was able to finish out my junior year high school season, and my first scrimmage back at my club in early September I headed a random ball and it almost made me pass out. So I started seeing a doctor in Indy and he pulled me from soccer again, and I missed another ECNL showcase that was in Arizona, I was doing therapy again and brain exercises/scans and everything... still wasn’t getting better. I ended up missing my whole fall and spring season of club soccer my junior year. Fast forward to beginning of April 2019, I went to the UPMC in Pittsburgh to figure out why I was still having so many symptoms. so he gave me exercises to do, medicines, and techniques that would help my symptoms. On my fourth trip there which was beginning of August 2019, I was expecting to be cleared, but I couldn’t pass the tests, I was heartbroken because as a senior it was my last first home game that week and I had to sit the bench. After 1 year and 4 months of being pulled on and off the field, it was my 5th trip to Pittsburgh and I was finally told I was fine and was able to play full force again heading into the middle of my highschool season in the fall of 2019. I have grown so much from this whole experience, realizing that there’s more to my life than just soccer, and sitting the sideline for a little over a year definitely changed my perspective, I had to be the best teammate from the sideline, which took some getting used to. I am now a year and 9 months from my initial incident and I still have bad days where my I feel like my headaches are getting the best of me, but I continue to tell myself it’s just a mind game.
..although I do not have visible scars on my skin, I felt no one could “see” my pain, and no one understood just how bad I was feeling all the time, and the times I was in bed crying or didn’t want to go out of my room because I just felt hopeless feeling so sick because of my concussion. I definitely have scars that will forever play apart in the person I’ve grown to become today.