I will start with saying this, I should be dead. That isn't meant to scare you its just a fact one more hour I wouldn't be here to write any of this and also it's a dam good reason to have a tattoo - that tattoo saved my life @keiren I owe you.
We should have seen it coming but had no idea what to look for. After many years of not even a cold a cold came and turned in to the flu for a few we weeks then a chest infection then a lung one. We were beyond thinking at this point it could get any worse and I felt loads better then I saw a leaking washing machine and guess what ”I didn't”. I started getting hallucinations right there but to me I saw it I believed it and I swear to this day the washing machine did that. It didn't, this was the start.
The next week over Xmas I felt good but none of us knew I was getting worse, then new year I vanished for no one to hear from me until I was found by reason of a massive social media and police search campaign and some one seeing me falling over in a ditch which saved my life.
19 days in intensive care I came around under the uncertainty of whether I would be able to walk again, remember my family or even me? I lost over a year of memories and was so lucky everything else was just about there. I lost my business I lost a lot, but everything except what is important to me is still there and I am damn lucky for that.
The fact is I was fucking lucky, I have had months of doctors, consultants, ots, physios and more, and I am alive and I couldn't ask for more. I am basically still me and thank God for everyone who has been there for me - my mum is so God dam amazing and paula has taken so much I will never be able to reciprocate the care she has given me.
,Meningitis is for life, it can come anytime to anyone and is so underestimated, I was 36 healthy and strong and it almost killed me, it should of killed me.
All I ask is learn about it as it comes from nowhere one day it might be a cold the next minute you might be fighting for your life. I was Lucky, I beat it thanks to the people around me the next person might not be so lucky. All it would have taken would have been one hour more not being found and I would be dead, dead.
Just always keep it in the back of your mind whenever you see someone that might need help, just step up as it could be you who needs it next.
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paulacris
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It is so great to hear from you as in my muddled memory there are snippets that are ringing bells making me think I have read some bits before - did your partner/girlfriend/wife/friend post before?? Then I think you had been missing and once found in a coma.
My experience has some similarities (but not the going missing bit!). I too thought that I had just got the flu initially because the children had been off school in the days before with coughs and colds. As I was single parenting 3 children - 1 mine and 2 foster - I carried on somehow with the responsibilities of the day but seemingly getting more confused and unwell. How safe I did things I haven't a clue as it was after I had driven my car 6 miles to pick a child up from school that at that school things deteriorated big time! I ended up at the school in the staff loo with classic symptoms of meningitis - but they didn't recognize it and left me in there for about 3 hours apparently! It was my friends that I owe my life too as they became concerned because I had asked them to collect my son from school as I wasn't going to get there in time because of my illness symptoms and then they got worried because they heard no more from me. They came to a school that had nothing to do with our children and out of our home area and saved my life! They realized i was seriously ill and did think meningitis, they called the ambulance because the school kept saying I didn't want one, and by this time I am going into a coma with a GCS of 5.
I totally am with you when you say that if others hadn't been there and taken action you would have been dead dead dead because that would have happened to me if my friends hadn't intervened because scarily the junior school were not and that would have been my outcome too! I was so seriously ill with a GCS that dropped even lower when i got to the hospital that I was not expected to survive or would be severely mentally and physically handicapped. The extreme outcomes have not been the result but I have sustained a frontal brain injury for which I have experienced some improvement but ....... will never fully recover. This affects my life on a daily basis.
Think we were both made of very strong stuff that we survived defied the odds!!
Like I said at the beginning it is great to hear from you yourself having come through the meningitis ordeal. It is wonderful that having been so close to death that you are now joining us on here and speaking to us yourself. Am wondering if you have been left with any longer term effects??
hi, I did post here before. you were right he was in a coma.
you have similar stories, and I am just so happy that he shared his story.
I will show him your reply.
I just feel grateful that we got through this with just headaches... they are painfull and he has them every day, but hopefully eventually they will go.
Yup, I share a lot of similarities with my experience of TB meningitis. Towards the end I was seeing all kinds of things, giant Penguins in my back garden is the most memorable!
I was 32 and was told I would be dead in a fortnight if I ignored the consultant and went on holiday to Cuba as I was adamant I would.
The care of the wonderful hospital team and the love and support of my wife are the reason I'm still here.
I echo your thoughts, the lights can go out at any time - life is for living. Good luck buddy
hey guys all I can say is without my partner fighting for everyone to find me I wouldn't be here. we had helicopters, social media campaigns, exhaustive work through anyone I might know where I might go, to try and find me ultimately resulting in my tattoo that identified me and led my recovery. I am 36 and starting to relearn hot to life with th3se
I had MM 47 years ago I was in a coma for a bit over3 days my highest temp. Was 107.4. I have had headaches every day since then. But I became Trial Lawyer flown on the Concorde. I am now 70 and I am sure how much longer. But 47 extra years was pretty good. And so it goes.
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Meningitis @ Fort Ord 1964
'It was only viral meningitis' 
Bacterial meningitis sufferer 
Menigitis. Pls help someone?
