'This fog was over me': Athlone Town's Laurie shares experience of concussion in sport

Athlone Town footballer Laurie Ryan has outlined her experience of concussion in sport and said more work needs to be done to raise awareness of it at all levels.

Laurie, who is also a prominent gaelic footballer in her native Clare, lectures in the Faculty of Science and Health at the Technological University of the Shannon (TUS).

As captain of the Athlone Town women's team, she lifted the FAI Cup after the memorable win against Shelbourne in the decider in Tallaght last November, but the effects of the concussion she suffered date back to a club gaelic football game in May 2019.

Speaking during a debate about concussion in sport on RTE's Upfront with Katie Hannon on Monday night, Laurie said she felt the after-effects of the incident for many months.

"Basically I was playing the match and I banged into my own player. We were both just running for a football," she explained.

"We collided, and we both sat up. There was a third girl involved, from the other team, but they hopped up and I was a bit groggy. I wasn't knocked out in any way but the lights started burning my eyes immediately.

"My manager came on and was like, 'Are you ok to play on?' and I just knew I probably wasn't. I said, 'No, I don't think I'm ok,' so I went off to the sideline and I just kind of sat there and spoke to a few people."

She said her family had been in attendance at the match. "They remember how ghostly I was when I sat up after the bang, so it kind of traumatised them a bit more than anyone else."

Laurie said she was able to drive home afterwards, and because she hadn't been knocked out, the seriousness of the incident wasn't immediately apparent.

Later on, when she was texting her boyfriend and preparing for a drive to Dublin for work, he expressed concern because she wasn't spelling words correctly.

Laurie's boyfriend and her grandmother "made me get the train to work the next day and I actually had to leave work because I couldn't concentrate.

"I couldn't really sit there, and I was finding that everything was giving me headaches. I left and ended up not going back for the foreseeable.

"Two days later, I was walking up the stairs and I got a really bad headache and was out of breath. I was just constantly tired.

"I had this fog over me. I know that's something people say but when you live it it's really tough going. I was very easily agitated... the list was nearly endless at that point."

She said that despite seeing doctors about her symptoms, they were not improving at first.

"They were all telling me to rest, and that I'd get better, but I knew I wasn't getting better so I ended up going to a specialist who advised me to go to a physio after testing. That's when I started to see small improvements, but it took up to three months."

Laurie gradually returned to exercising again, but her road back to playing football wasn't straightforward.

"A lot of my exercises with the physio were just focusing on moving my eyes. That was my biggest problem. I couldn't sit down in a room with my Nana and my Mam and see them have a conversation, because my eyes couldn't handle moving between the two of them," she said.

"I went back playing three months later. I kind of felt under pressure to go back playing, because I was captain of Clare at the time, and there was kind of a guilt over me that I wasn't playing.

"I did get signed off by the doctor (to go back playing) but I ended up having to go to counselling a couple of months after it because it was all really playing on my mind. I was still very anxious and I was feeling that sadness still a long time afterwards.

"I ended up stepping back from Clare then for a while to kind of gather myself and work on getting myself back to 100% before I'd commit to anything again."

She told the RTE programme that the whole experience had been an eye-opener and showed her how severely concussion can impact one's everyday life.

"I probably wasn't aware of the impacts it could have on my daily life. I never thought I'd have to leave work, and not be able to work. I never thought I wouldn't be able to have a conversation with my family, either. So they were things I found really difficult."

She said her own experience helped raise awareness of concussion, particularly in GAA circles in Clare, but that more needs to be done.

"I think there's still a lot to be done, in terms of education (around concussion), for all the levels, up to senior level and club level," she said.

Laurie is one of the players who have re-signed for Athlone Town ahead of the upcoming 2024 season, and she also played for Clare in their LGFA Division 2 league draw against Roscommon last weekend.