‘It’s like a hangover. I had a headache every day for nine months’
Shona Mccallin wants to raise awareness about concussion after her long road to recovery
Three weeks after being concussed playing for England in February last year, Shona Mccallin jovially posted video footage of the incident on her social-media channels, reliving the moment with thousands of followers.
“Top tip: don’t let a shoulder hit you in the side of your head. It really hurts and you might get concussion,” she wrote.
After being accidentally clattered in the head by an Argentine opponent, the Rio Olympics gold medallist fell to her knees. Within three seconds, she stood up and began striding towards the sidelines, serenely blinking away the shock as her team-mates played on.
Mccallin did not fully comprehend the enormity of the injury which would force her out of the game for 17 months.
“It’s essentially like having a bit of a hangover,” Mccallin, 27, says. “You’re just a bit sensitive to everything, you don’t feel quite right, you’re a bit agitated, everything can be a bit too much and when it gets too much you just want to hide in a dark room.
“The most frustrating thing is that you don’t know when it’s going to come. I could have seven days doing exactly the same thing every day, I would be absolutely fine, and then I’d feel awful. It can just come on, so in terms of planning and trying to live a normal life, it was impossible.
“There would be many times when I would plan to see a friend, but then have headaches and I’d be feeling really sensitive to everything and just need to rest.”
Mccallin made her return for Great Britain in a 22-player squad at an acclimatisation camp in Tokyo last month.
She played four games during the camp and returned injury-free – an all-round success considering she also had been battling a knee injury. As a result, she remains in
contention to be picked today for England’s squad for the Eurohockey Championships, which begin in Antwerp on Friday week. Victory would seal Olympic qualification for Mark Hager’s side after missing the chance to do so as part of Great Britain at this year’s inaugural Pro League competition.
“I knew I wouldn’t go out there [to Japan] and try to be the player that I was before the injury, that just wasn’t going to happen,” Mccallin says.
“It was just about keeping things simple and enjoying being back out there and not taking anything for granted. There’s a phrase when you’re coming back from injury, which is ‘Keep winning’. Don’t push yourself too far.”
Mccallin is not alone in experiencing concussion within her hockey circle.
Alex Danson, the England captain, remains sidelined after hitting her head on a concrete seat while holidaying in Kenya last year.
Danson later revealed she lost her ability to read following the incident. Mccallin now wants to raise awareness about concussion – irrespective of whether it is sports-related or not – and is determined to shatter the taboo that it is little more than a brief blackout and a bout of sickness.
“It’s not unusual for people to have that opinion of it,” Mccallin says. “I think what needs to be explored a little bit more is, with concussion there’s so many strands to it. It’s like classing every ankle injury as just an ankle injury, whether that could be a little sprain or fracturing every single bone and destroying every single ligament – you’d still class it as an ankle injury.
“The main symptom for me was headaches. I probably had a headache every day for seven, eight or nine months. I would get eye fatigue and facial numbness all down my left side where I got hit. Those were the ones that stopped me from doing stuff.”
While the management of concussion and mild traumatic brain injury remains an area of clinical uncertainty for most sports medicine professionals, there is conflicting evidence as to whether females are more adversely affected after concussion than males, particularly in relation to an athlete’s length of recovery.
Mccallin even watched videos of rugby players “getting smashed” on the pitch in a bid to try to categorise her own head trauma.
“My research has shown that the most lingering ones are the ones where you don’t get knocked out and you get hit on the side or the softer part of your head, rather than full on,” she says.
“There’s also a rotational aspect of it. Rather than just getting headbutted full on, when your head goes back and forth, and that’s it, you get hit on the side, which is followed by a swinging motion as well. I almost hit the jackpot, because I got all three of those.”
Should England fail to win the Eurohockey Championships, then Great Britain’s last shot at Olympic qualification will be a two-legged qualifier in the autumn.
Mccallin could yet feature at another Olympics after Tokyo – should Great Britain book their place – but overcoming concussion has taught the 73-time capped international that running out for her country, whatever the occasion, is worth its weight in gold. “Being out for so long has definitely made me appreciate playing international hockey,” she says. “It’s a cliche, you don’t know what you’ve got until it’s gone and that is certainly the case for me.”
‘You don’t feel right and when it gets too much you want to hide in a dark room’