Emotional

[Taisey]

Hi guys

I was diagnosed with bacterial meningitis on 30th May (day before my 30th birthday!) and was in hospital for 11 days. I also had 7 month old son at home which was so difficult to be away from him. I couldn’t really have visitors, just my husband as an exception for an hour, and had severe headache, eye and neck ache and vomiting as well as just being exhausted.

Since then I suffered headaches and back aches but is slowly easing. I do however find myself being triggered by random things and getting upset about it all even though I was so lucky to come out relatively unscathed. So then I feel guilty that I get upset. But I can’t seem to shake that traumatised feeling and is frustrating that I never know when or what will trigger my emotions.

Has anyone else gone through this? Im not sure what to do. I feel like I have been quite good at communicating these feelings to my husband whose been so supportive but I don’t want to keep talking about it and bringing up a traumatic time when I’m mostly ok now.

[morethanks]

I understand how puzzling the emotional side of this can be. The fact is, our brains are very complicated AND of course no two of us are alike. When the meninges become inflamed the brain is experiencing TRAUMA !I certainly do not have all the answers but my 5 years of recurrent VM flares has taught me to: 1) Keep a journal so I can recognize patterns of the state of my mind, body and spirit. It was affirming to me to read recently that many besides me feel anxious, tense, irritable just before a flare.

2) Use the knowledge of these patterns to help regulate and maximize wellness steps such as paying attention to my nutrition (for example limiting caffeine), cutting back on commitments to allow myself extra rest, explaining to my family that I’m not feeling well and do not mean to be grumpy,

Quite some journey we are on with this disease eh?! Hope you feel better soon

[shorty52992]

Hi Taisey,I have been apart of this community for 4 years. April 2017 I fell ill with bacterial meningitis while 11wks pregnant with baby #2. An ear infection, turn sinus infection turned into flu-like symptoms. My husband found me on the floor sitting up with my eyes open but clearly not conscious. I have no memory of this. But I was taken by helicopter to San Francisco’s stroke hospital ICU. I had 2 mini strokes, a blood clot in my brain, pneumonia, severe sepsis and a high fever. After 2 days of being intubated my fever came down (the large body ice pack on me probably helped). I saw double vision for awhile and had a droopy eyelid. I was discharged after 11days. My eye finally returned to normal except I was left with a blind spot in my vision. Recovering from the illness was a roller coaster bc I was pregnant. 2 doctors in the hospital also advised we terminate the pregnancy. I’m glad we didn’t bc in Nov 2017 we had a healthy baby boy. I was on blood thinner injections twice a day from the time was discharged up until 6wks postpartum. I struggled with recovering bc I’d ask myself constantly why did this happen to me? Honesty, it took time to heal. Also, writing about and talking about my trauma helped me. I still get some sort of feelings when I see a Reach helicopter. The rescue helicopter that took me to the hospital. Although, no memory of it. Even on my 4yr anniversary of meningitis I had my husband retell me his point of view of the events. It will forever be apart of us. It is a trauma. But maybe find ways to release some of that off your shoulders. I visited the SF hospital 2 years after and met some of the staff that cared for me. Let me tell you - that also allowed me some closure.

Sending hugs,

Ashley