Kevin Kolb still suffers from concussion symptoms

Former Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Kevin Kolb, who is now retired, penned a column for The MMQB on Tuesday regarding two different scary situations in his life. One involved surviving Hurrican Odile during his family's recent vacation in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico. The second situation, however, is not one that passes like a storm. Kolb wrote about how he is still suffering from concussion symptoms that he sustained while playing in the NFL.

With concussions, sometimes you don’t know what is a symptom and what is not. But some symptoms are impossible to ignore. The ringing is like someone shooting a shotgun right next to my ear, every second of every day. It doesn’t go away.

The sensitivity to light also has a profound impact. I’ll be in a business meeting indoors and have to politely ask to put on my sunglasses before the headaches and double vision start.

But I can deal with those symptoms. The short-term memory loss is more difficult. Sometimes I don’t know if I’m just busy with a very full schedule and that’s why I can’t remember everything, or if it’s a concussion symptom.

Kolb, who turned 30 in August, suffered at least four concussions during his NFL career: one in Philadelphia, two with the Arizona Cardinals, and the one that ended his career during his time with the Buffalo Bills.

It was a strange career with an abrupt ending for Kolb. It seems like forever ago that he was supposed to be the future in Philadelphia.

Kolb made a lot of money during his short-lived career so it's not like everything went terrible for him. But I'm not really sure a dollar sign makes his concussion symptoms, which he will have to deal with for the rest of his life, any less sad and terrifying.

Kolb writes that his faith has helped him through tough times.

Even with these issues, which I know I will have my whole life, I can truly say my life after football doesn’t feel incomplete. That starts with my relationship with God. I believe there’s a purpose to everything that has happened to me. And I’ve gotten ample evidence of that throughout the course of the first year in my life without football. Just when things could have gotten tough, I had to dig deep and ask, OK, where is He taking me now? So many good things have happened to me, it’s impossible for me not to think I’m taken care of.