When sophomore Annalese Funk was in seventh grade, she suffered a major concussion in her middle school gym class.

Funk was bored so she began to do box jumps in class as a distraction. She said, “I was waiting for coach to start practice and out of boredom, I decided to do box jumps with a few friends. Little did I know it would lead to worse things.”

When Funk was doing her box jumps, her foot slipped which caused the fall. She said, “When my foot hit the edge of the box, I knew it wasn’t on all the way then my ankle slipped down and I fell backwards and blacked out for a second so I went to the nurse and she called my mom and sent me home.”

Luckily, Funk had a few people around to help her get to where she needed to go without making her injury worse. She said, “My coach and three of my friends were able to help me get to the nurse’s office because I was very disoriented and didn’t know if I could make it there on my own.”

Funk’s concussion caused her to miss several days of school. She said, “It took me out of school for about six school days. All I did was sit in the dark and eat because all of my assignments were marked as exempt, so I didn’t have to do them.”

One person who helped Funk get to fast recovery is her mom, Suzanne Funk. Suzanne said, “Annalese was back in school about a week later but she was still sensitive to the light, so she couldn’t do much but she still went back.”

In previous years, Suzanne said her daughter experienced other concussions so it was not a new feeling for her. She said, “Annalese has had at least four other concussions in the past but this was by far the worst. The others, she was able to go back and look at screens after only a day but this one she was out of school for six days and couldn’t look at screens for 10 days.”

Suzanne grieved for Funk because she was in so much pain. She said, “My daughter, Annalese was so miserable and it killed me to see her like that. She just really wasn’t herself and wasn’t for a whole two weeks.”

Funk has had other concussions but is praying this one will be her last. She said, “I am going to be more careful especially when it comes to volleyball so I can continue to play.”