The devastating brain illness encephalitis affects up to 4,000 Britons a year. It can strike anyone at any age and is commonly caused by the herpes, or cold sore, virus. Three years ago Simon Rycroft, an economic development officer with Bury Metropolitan Council in Lancashire, contracted the illness. The legacy for his family - Kathy and their children, Hazel and Daniel - is life with a man who often cannot remember what happened five minutes ago. Here, they tell their story. . .
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I've had several vaccinations even for things like rabies, I never once thought I could get encephalitis for something as safe as a vaccination. I guess there's a price to pay everytime you go against nature's way.
Nor have I gotten to the bottom of my diagnosis, I'm still emptying that barrel. One positive though is that I'm well-informed on medical literature, now forced to be a researcher of my own condition, looking for answers, i'm almost on a mission you could say. People tell me to just forget it and live your life, I tell them that life isn't worth living in this state, maybe i'm too idealist but I'd rather go down swinging than with a wimper.
Idealists, we are, living on the inside, with maybe too much hope. Now I have an image of a fellow idealist emptying out a barrel - I see us as 2 monkeys, scratching our heads - no different to the doctors trying to figure out wtf the human brain is all about!
I pulled out an old dvd on friday night 'pink floyd the wall' which I sat and watched with Anthony with a new perspective, it has brought a new light to my condition as it deals with post war trauma and obviously breaking through a wall! and flashbacks...I wont be watching it again for another 10 years but it has certainly opened up a few new pathways for me at this stage of recovery.
No, i cant stop being that idealistic monkey, searching for new answers but what the Wall has brought me to is that I need to find peace in the life I have been brought back to.
Well, all I can say is i'm now on the right track, remembering to take the doctor's words with a grain of salt and shoving evidence in their faces if they're clueless on treatments that might work.
Hmm..not sure why you only watch it every 10 years, for nostalgia?
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Knowing what you know now, back then....
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