“Blunt honesty.” He lifts the tablet again, pressing buttons. Behind him, a wall panel opens up, revealing a screen that has to be as large as the one in my living room. Spinning in his chair, he rises even as he throws up images as fast as I slap pucks. “I’ve reviewed every image you’ve had since your misfortune. Four hospitals—including ours. Four sets of MRIs.”
“Yes.” My adrenaline spikes as he recounts the play-by-play of my medical journey up until now.
“It’s not unusual for people to seek out second or third opinions based on diagnoses due to specialists coming to the table with different strengths. We train differently, utilize different technology. But it’s rare at our level of expertise you’re going to be diagnosed with something drastically different.”
The last bit of hope I had shrivels inside my chest. This time, with this doctor, it feels irrefutable.
Final.
Game over.
I force myself to focus as Moser speaks. “This last concussion caused more disruption than your previous ones. The swelling has receded, yes. But what worries me and my colleagues most are the microstructural changes. These shearing injuries.” He gestures to areas on the screen, but the shapes are just blobs to my untrained eye. “They’re no longer healing cleanly. Because of your repetitive head injuries, they’re accumulating.”
“What does that mean—accumulating?”
He spins away from the monitor to face me. I think I see anger flash briefly before he masks it. My confusion must be evident because his blunt edge softens. “Have none of my colleagues spoken with you why they won’t clear you to play, Brennan?”
I shake my head, the nausea churning in my stomach having nothing to do with the concussion I’ve been recovering from these last few months.
“Right. I’m going to give you complete transparency. Are you ready for that?”
I brace myself mentally.
“What I see on these imagescouldplace you in a higher-risk category for long-term neurological complications if immediate steps aren’t taken. Things like mood instability, impulse control issues, and memory problems.”
“So, how do we fix it?” Before he can answer, I barrel on. “Medication? I have no problem with that.”
Moser sits back down and rubs his hand across his forehead. “No. I mean, yes. There are therapies if you show signs of individual symptoms but…”
“But what? Why can’t I be cleared to play?” I demand.
“Because what I’m seeing on these scans are precursors I’ve studied in humans whowouldhave potentially received a diagnosis of Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy—that is if it could be diagnosed in a living person. Because it can’t.”
My breath sticks in my throat. My already battered and bruised head pounds harder. No, none of the other specialists had laid it out this bluntly. They told me I couldn’t play; that I had to give up pro hockey. But Moser is giving me the missing piece—the why the other three doctors skirted around.
The question is, whether or not I’ll survive hearing the news.
He leans forward. “As a professional athlete, I can’t begin to imagine what hearing this news means to you. If you continue to take significant hits—checks, falls, even body-to-body collisions—there’s a real possibility you won’t bounce back. You could end up with permanent cognitive changes. Personality changes. Things even I can’t undo.”
A cold weight settles in my chest. “So, that’s it?”
“Clearing you to play—at any level, even recreationally—would be reckless.”
“What about the rest of my life?”
“For the most part, you can lead a normal life. I recommend you to take precautions—like a helmet—for activities which might result in injury. Things like that.”
“But you can’t clear me to play with that same device?”
He shakes his head. “It would go against every ethical standard I have. I’m sorry.”
I open and close my mouth to deny his words, but I can’t speak. Then the moment of realization hits, knocking the air out of my lungs. I can’t fathom a life where I’m not playing with a Kings’ jersey on.
Everything I’ve worked for, everything I’ve fought through—it all slips through my fingers with one conversation.
Including the reminder of what I threw away.
All I can do is sit there, trying to breathe through the reality that the sport that made me might be the thing that destroys me if I don’t walk away.
