Dale Earnhardt Jr. on secret notes in case he died

I was doing that out of fear, you know, I was writing that just out of fear of what was happening to me, whether it was vision balance, sinus pressure, nausea, anger, ability to drive, memory. , when the symptoms were worst in 2014, what were you? experimenting and in 2014 the worst would be like feeling drunk like it felt like I had drunk it felt like I wasn't able to do the simplest tasks around the house or at home because I was drunk fasten a belt tie a knot in the cord of a shoe was a challenge like yours you know you couldn't put together a sentence because you couldn't remember a word if you had a word with like two consonants together like or even three like a coincidence or something simple you would have a hard time like sometimes saying those words your tongue would feel like it was a big balloon in your mouth my vision problems would be if I looked at something very close to me like your shoe and then looked at something outside in the yard, maybe my eyes would take a few seconds to focus on that object and then go back to your shoe very close to me.

I would take my eyes for a second. You know it's too slow. Why didn't you tell anyone, not even your wife? Yes, I was scared to death. I know I was really scared. I wasn't ready for everyone to know that was happening. I hoped it would disappear. You know, this may be wrong and it's a bad comparison, but I think if you had some kind of illness, you might know that you wouldn't be as ready to share it with people, you might need some time to process it before being open to it. respect and be ready to get into the details of what it all means in the future.

That's also what trying to explain this problem to someone who has never had a concussion or never experienced these problems. It's really frustrating and trying to tell even my wife that my eyes aren't working and this is what they're doing is just empowering. a lot of internal frustration is because you are frustrated that you have the right problems, you are frustrated that they happen, you are angry inside at yourself and now you are trying to explain it to someone who is not a doctor and is not really someone who can do anything about it . Even though she is my wife, I loved her death, it just doesn't do me any good to share it with someone who can't help me.

What was your reaction when you found out in 2014 that he had been hiding a lot of the symptoms from you? Part of it was a little anger. I was upset with him, obviously I want him to share everything and that's not something you hide, it's really stern and serious and he should have treated it first like he was hiding it and then I felt a little relieved. a little bit because I realized something was wrong, but I didn't know what it was, so now we finally had something to work on. What do you remember about the conversation when he first told you what was happening?

So I remember being a little confused and just asking a lot of questions, I had so many

notes

saved on his phone that it was easy for him to explain it to me, but from that moment on my only thoughts were: how do we solve this and to whom? Call, surely there is a plan here, what do we do? To what extent were you taking

notes

on your iPhone to leave a trail and say that something really bad ended up happening? I felt compromised, you know, in my head I felt delicate and if I was having another random, rare, high-impact accident, that could seriously injure me, so seriously that I wouldn't be able to communicate properly.

I wanted someone, I wanted there to be some kind of documentation of what had been happening to me and what I was doing. I've been looking at whether that would serve any purpose other than just people who have some knowledge, I guess, but that was a conscious decision you made, yes, you asked yourself. I was doing it out of fear, you know, I was writing that. down just afraid of what was happening to me you know I'm not you I'm afraid you know I was having these simple little accidents that were giving me problems why and why can't I deal with with these accidents that everyone around me can face and that I used to face, so let me write this and that way it was your own newspaper and I could say, "Okay, it's Thursday, I'm getting ready to fly." Sunday at the race track I can see it was really bad Monday Tuesday getting better and better clear Thursday feeling pretty amazing Friday you know it was just a way to plot a timeline of my improvement or progression through each incident and in that way, if my doctor was helpful at any point, at any time, if I ever needed this information because I wasn't going to be able to remember, you know, be able to remember it accurately, it's a little crazy, but I think he's very myself. thoughtful but the ability to analyze, especially when you're not feeling well, like why did all those things blow me away, definitely not something I would do and then seeing him put together like that was also really scary, this was around the It was a time when there was a lot of talk about CTE and I think that was part of what prompted him to write everything down in

case

he forgot in

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it got somewhere he couldn't control, obviously we wouldn't have known. look it up, I think all those things just made him want to be very careful and cautious and write it all down at the height of his symptoms in 2016, what was the worst?

The bills, you know, to get out of this chair and turn around and go to the door was terrible every time you got up or stood up you felt like you knew you were going to get dizzy you knew you were going to have to hold on to something that you knew was going to make you dizzy. make you feel sick to your stomach when driving on the driving down the road if you know there's a road sign, we're driving towards this barbecue at a road sign on the interstate, try looking at the road sign, my eyes just bounced and I couldn't keep my like while I'm driving towards this traffic sign, my eyes just bounce all over the place and if I was looking at cars coming towards us, my eyes couldn't stay still and look at an object and watch the object go away.

Stop by and watch the traffic sign go by. You know my eyes are bouncing all over the place, so your eyes are joined together when you look left, they both go left, right, when you look up they both go up, but my eyes didn't work. we work together and at this point you can't drive yourself you can't run a grocery store by yourself or it wasn't a chicken hill I can drive anywhere go do something like that and I had these symptoms first for months until they started getting better