Meningitis in your words

George Thompson's story

Location: England
Categories: MRF - Disease
Age: Teenager
Relationship: Self
Outcome: Recovery with after effects
After effects: Hearing problems

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Meningitis in your words
George Thompson

I had meningitis in March 2016. I was 17 years old and in my first year of 6th form at an independent boarding school in Kent.

I don't exactly know why I am writing this but I was just curious if there was a blog or something where I could read about other people's experiences. Tomorrow I have a 3 hour mock exam which I don't seem to care about as I have done no revision and I am not even tempted to cram. I just don't care but I am aware that I don't and I find it weird. It is not normal for someone where I am at school to not care about exams at all, it is immensely frowned upon. I guess it is bad of me to blame this on my illness, I have kind of let it get the better of me. Sometimes I forget that I even had it which is good but also horrible as I forget what can and can't do as I am still naive enough to think I am who I was before; physically and mentally.

My story of the illness is as follows:

I had little to no knowledge of the disease before contracting it, I am pretty sure I thought it was a gum disease, like one of the ones where you spit blood after brushing your teeth, like in those adverts.

Leading up to the illness my memory is fuzzy and horribly patchy, I remember dribs and drabs and then I have moments where people tell me things I did and I think I remember them but actually it is just me picturing it how they describe it.

As a result of this I have lost about 3 weeks of memory before I went into hospital. The things I do faintly remember are not a nice picture of myself as I was short tempered and very tired, along with a complete disregard for school and/or work.

"If I could have anything in this world it would be to have my memory back"

After staying in bed for as long as possible with the lights off and unwillingly going to lessons my body gave in and I spent the whole weekend in bed. It was here my parents took over and called the school and got a matron to check me over. After this she took me to the medical centre and put me in a room.

I then went home from school on the morning of March 7th after being told that I was just tired with a high temperature by my school's GP. It is from here where I literally remember nothing. I cannot emphasis that enough. I have no memories whatsoever. Which is the scariest thing I have ever experienced.

The next glimmer of a memory I have is waking up in London like 8 days later. But I don't even remember waking up or anyone telling me I had meningitis, I just remember it becoming the norm that I was in hospital. I couldn't put together what was going on and why all my family was there. I have a theory that if no one told me I had meningitis I would of never had known.

Memory loss is very scary thing, there is a large chunk of my 2016 missing and as a result the year just passed does not feel complete and I have been told it never will. If I could have anything in this world it would be to have my memory back.

George Thompson
February 2017