I’m a parent now and I would never tell someone how to raise his child. And I don’t deny the estimate that there are 1.7 million to three million sports-related concussions a year.

However, I am sure that there is a middle ground, that we can encourage our kids both to be active and competitive — and to be safe. Research shows that concussion risks can be reduced by playing smarter and using the proper equipment.

When concussions do occur, it’s important to remember that brain injuries can be treated and healed like any other athletic injury — but only if the proper steps are taken, the right doctors are reached and the prescribed treatment is followed through to the end.

That treatment is not easy. I’d never been a gym guy, but I learned how to become one. My rehabilitation in 2016 was the hardest I have ever worked. I wasn’t told to sit in a dark room, the stereotypical treatment for concussion. That’s not how it works anymore. Instead, I was pushed mentally and physically through fine motor skill tuning, exhausting computer-based eye tests, and a lot of old-fashioned cardio. After months of work I could feel my brain, eyes, ears and body communicating properly again.

I also felt my life returning. The constant, dull feeling of fear lifted. I was smiling again.

Now, I tell my story to let people know they don’t have to silently walk it off. I tell it to my racing friends who confess they’ve also been suffering in secret and to many others who’ve never raced a lap. I’ve given out the phone number to my doctor, Micky Collins at the University of Pittsburgh, more times than I can count in the past few years. And when those people reconnect later to tell me that Micky and his team have given them their lives back, it feels like winning a race.

The advancements in brain science since my first major injury in 2012 are incredible. But all that science won’t mean much if those of us who are hurting don’t come out of hiding and allow it to be put to use.

I don’t blame my sport for my suffering. Neither do the other professional athletes I know who love their sport every bit as much as I love mine. And people hurt on the job performing other tasks are likely just as passionate about what they do.