"Come on, Kyle you got this," says my friend holding a vx1000 camera.

"This try!" my buddy says next to my friend with the camera.

I sit staring down the huge mound of snow that took days for the terrain park staff to form into the jump. I go through my usual weird motions that I think help, even though they don't. I knock on my board. I flip up my hood to avoid the cold wind hitting the back of my neck. Finally, I hold my left wrist for a few seconds and I go for it.

I rapidly approach the jump and huck my trick down the giant kicker. For a second, I see the landing and then it disappears. All I can think is This is going to suck. Smack. I catch my edge and then immediately fall backwards onto my head. Everything is black, but then it comes back. My friend sits their laughing not realizing the seriousness of what just happened. My other Panics and is making sure I know where I am. I feel dizzy and confused, but think nothing of it and continue snowboarding for the day.

Then the next weekend, I find myself doing my weird good luck motions at the top of the hill looking down at the huge jump. This frustrating trick, a front side 720, I just can't seem to land. I go for it again rapidly approaching the huge jump. Again I catch my edge and hit my head, but this time something feels weird and is different when I come to. My friends both run over to see if I know who I am, but that's not the problem. I don't know who they are.

I drive myself home and crawl into my bed not realizing the seriousness of what just happened and I attempt to sleep it off. After weeks of feeling nauseous and sick for weeks I finally go to see my doctor.

"Yeah, you got two concussions in a week," my doctor says.

After months of my doctors' help, I finally get cleared six months later. I was finally done with having memory problems, constant sweating of my hands and feet, and having to spend an hour just do to a simple 10 question math worksheet. Unfortunately, these concussions didn't just do damage to my head. They also did damage to my grades. A slight bit of advice to the people reading this, don't take a ACT or a A.P. test with a concussion because your results will not be to pleasing.

As I watched my GPA slowly decrease, I was suddenly inspired and given energy to save my grades. A 3.0, that is where I ended up. Now most kids would not be pleased with these grades and I can't really say that I am. In the end, I suppose I am pleased with the hard work and effort I spent into getting that 3.0. Staying after school every day to get help with the days lesson in every single one of my classes. Using my study halls to get more help from friends. I even retook my ACT to try and improve my score.

Getting concussions is no way a positive thing. However, it did teach me a great amount and really put things into perspective. While I did put my future in jeopardy, I worked as hard as I possibly could to improve my grades and retook every test that I was allowed to. These concussions were almost a blessing in disguise. They gave me a hurdle to overcome and prove myself. Just like in snowboarding, you're going to fall and its going to hurt. Also, you're going to get frustrated trying a trick for hours with no results. However, I kept trying and I did achieve my goals of saving my grades. With the combination of what my concussions taught me and what snowboarding has also, I can't wait to share what I learned with my friends and also as a freshman at UW- Milwaukee in the fall semester of 2014. By the way, I also put effort into my snowboarding and I did go back and land that trick.