George Thompson's story

I had meningitis in March 2016. I was 17 years old and in my first year of sixth 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 three-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.

I had no knowledge of meningitis

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 three 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.

I have no memory of it

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 emphasise 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 eight 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 have never 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.

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