Lindsey, from Fulham, had contacted meningococcal meningitis and septicaemia. She has been left with after-effects, as she explains here.
“I work in a nursery as an Assistant. On the Tuesday I felt really unwell, with an earache and headache. My friends said I sounded funny."
“I went home and went to bed. I went to the doctors on the Wednesday and the GP said I had an ear infection and gave me antibiotics and told me to rest. I went home but couldn't take my antibiotics as the pharmacy didn’t have them. I had to wait till late evening by the time I had my first lot."
“I was burning up, so I took paracetamol and went to bed."
“That’s all I remember. The next thing I knew was waking up in intensive care five days later."
Having a seizure
“My partner told me he had woken up at 2 in the morning with me moving. I was having a seizure so he called an ambulance and they came and took me straight to hospital."
“While there I had more seizures and the last one stopped my heart. They resuscitated me and put me in an induced coma, which I was in for five days. My partner said they took such good care of me."
“After I woke up I was in hospital for another week and a half."
“I came out of hospital with an intravenous drip in my arm and had to have a nurse visit twice a day to give me antibiotics. Six weeks later I came off the drip."
Back to work
“I went back to work just before last Christmas, but the meningitis has left me with no hearing in my left ear. Then in February I had to have a check up MRI where they found a hole in my skull behind my ear that the meningitis had caused. It was so aggressive I had to have brain surgery in April, which went well. I was in hospital for a week."
“I’m still deaf in my left ear and getting a hearing aid in January. It is affecting my balance and is very frustrating that I cannot hear when I’m out with people. I am also waiting for my first steroid injection, as my muscles in my spine have not recovered and made the discs in my back very weak. Some days I literally cannot move, as it affects my legs too."
“But I am happy to be alive as I now know what an awful thing meningitis is.”
