Well 2020 went well, let’s try again....

Thank you for taking the time to visit my JustGiving page, 2020 marks 10 years since I overcame meningitis. This is my story...

Meningitis... an illness most people have heard of, but how many people are actually aware of the infection and the signs and symptoms to look out for, or the life changing after effects of something that can kill an otherwise fit and healthy person within hours?

I wasn't, but in 2009 I would find out. What seemed like a fairly random feeling of flu would soon turn into a battle for life and the most important 24 hours of my life. 

It all started a few days before Christmas with a headache and feelings of flu, an aversion to bright light and a stiff neck. Initially told by a doctor that its a migraine and flu, turns out it was something a lot, almost unthinkably, worse.

Fast forward a day to Christmas Eve and another trip to the doctors, but this time a different doctor who suspected it was much more than the initial diagnosis and gave me some tablets and an instruction to take them and if I feel better within a few hours, then take the others, but if I didn't feel any better then to contact him again ASAP. A few hours later and I was being rushed into hospital and undergoing a series of urgent tests and scans, followed by 9 lumbar punctures and over a week on a constant intravenous antibiotic drip under supervision from doctors.

The next few weeks and months were difficult and involved plenty of visits to the hospital consultants, it would be many months before I would make a full physical recovery, even though the thoughts each time I have a headache of "is this really a headache" remain, as does the lower back pain from the lumbar punctures and some slight concentration issues, but I made an almost full recovery from this, others haven't been so fortunate, even those who make a recovery, may never really fully recover, the physical and mental scars can last forever.

Meningitis can strike at anytime, often without warning and with devastating effects. 1 in 10 cases of meningococcal meningitis are fatal, with 1 in 5 of those who survive suffering permanent disabilities. Raising awareness and giving people the knowledge of what to look for and act quickly can save lives, and hopefully in the future we can live in a world free of meningitis. Meningitis is usually one of the last things considered, due to the symptoms resembling that of flu, and misdiagnosis occurs far to often due to this.

I was lucky, I survived, with only slight after effects and if your donations make it possible that another person is fortunate enough to survive this horrific illness, then that's surely a step in the right direction.

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