Medical file request

[Heavychunky1]

Well as of last week I requested my gp medical record for the period of April 1st 2021 to present, which coveres the encephalitis, got the file yesterday and its like a dictionary in thickness, requested this to fill in some blanks that I have on lead up to being admitted to hospital, its definitely interesting to see the transcript of what my partner and doctor , and at times nhs 24 were discussing , the progress of symptoms between the 8th April till 15th April when I was admitted which was a young dr that clicked onto something being not right , at one point I was classed as having covid which was the presumption till the test for that was clear , I have also requested my hospital record for the similer time frame again just to fill in some big blanks that I have , as their are a good few days I can't remember,

[HSE_Survivor]

Your medical record would definitely be interesting. Thank goodness you had a ‘young dr that clicked onto something being not right’. Encephalitis diagnosis is so dependent on the Dr . I saw one GP who dismissed my symptoms & sent me home undiagnosed . Then I saw another GP the next day who thought I was either having a stroke or encephalitis, and he sent me to hospital , and literally saved my life .

[Paula-38]

Hi Heavychunky1,

I can well imagine that people I've met who have had encephalitis say they can't remember getting the illness, and everything you are describing, who was there, what went on and/or when. I'm so sorry to hear you are going through that. It doesn't sound nice.

I had encephalitis the day after my first birthday party so my Dad informed me, otherwise I wouldn't have known. It even took me most of my life to even think about having something as severe as encephalitis, because of the things I was able to do as a kid, and the only information out at the time was either you're in a wheelchair with learning disabilities or you wouldn't have still been here, but I did not have any of those things, that were in my mum's medical book when I was 10, so I thought if it was going to hold me back then forget it and carry on with my life. It was 2018 when I first used the Encephalitis International helpline, and I learnt a heck if a lot more than I'd known about Encephalitis and it's after effects in my entire life, I have also learnt how different types of encephalitis and having it as a baby/child/teenager/adolescence/adult/elderly means it will have different after effects. I wish I had have known even half of this when I was going to school. This charity only came out when I became an adult. I have been suffering from profound complex Obsessive Compulsive Disorder-OCD and I still do to this day, but in some other ways I think I have improved and some of the staff here gave me more compliments than I've ever had, so that has helped my paranoia.

I wish I could explain to people I haven't met how getting encephalitis affected my brain. I.e I didn't have a life pre- encephalitis so I had nothing to lose, I just had to learn what was going on and what different things were for, like young children do. I had a developmental delay so it took me longer in the sense of knowing what I should have known when I was say 18 much later into my adulthood and learning them later but I think I know now, probably meaning my brain has fully developed and via Encephalitis International and my Dad I have learnt lots of new things I didn't know about and also because of my disinhibition which didn't help.

Anyway I shall stop going on. I just know that some people may not understand what I'm talking about because most people here seem to be the opposite to me. I read them as in listen to them and I use whatever skills I do have to help them.

I hope some of my story has helped you a little bit and that you get all the help you need.

Paula-38