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| Carole |
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My name is Carole and live in Bedworth Warwickshire, UK. I am 29 years old and was 28 when
I contracted Herpes Simplex encephalitis.
I will start from the beginning; I am a nursery nurse working in a nursery class in a
primary school with lots of problems and the school were in"special measures" after
failing their OFSTED inspection so the stress was unbearable. At the end of the summer
term we had had local nursery inspectors in and they rearranged the nursery. We moved
lots of furniture around which resulted (so I thought) in a bad back for my summer
holidays. This back lasted from July until I returned to school in September and I only
lasted for 3 days before I visited my Doctor and was given 2 weeks on the sick. After 2
weeks of so called rest (how you rest with a 4 year old boy I'll never know) I revisited
my GP who gave me different pain killers and another 2 weeks off work.
The following day I took my son to school and visited my Mother-in-law and took her to
fetch my son from school "just in case she needed to know where to fetch him from." I
returned to her house for some lunch and didn't eat it as I felt a bit off and decided to
go to my Mum's house to visit her. When we got there I fell asleep in the chair, woke up
and felt "unwell" so decided to go home.
This is where my illness became apparent. I live approximately 3 miles from Mum's and it was from then on that I remember nothing until waking in the local
hospital 4 days later. Apparently, I cooked the dinner for myself and my son and a meal for husband for when he returned from work at 8 o'clock. I
put my son in the bath and than put him to bed at about 7 o'clock. My husband came home at 8.10pm and I was on the telephone to a friend, she was
chatting away to me and noticed I was talking funny and began shouting at me to get my attention. My husband came downstairs to find me having an
epileptic fit in our hall. He put me in the recovery position (which I didn't even know he knew) and phoned for an ambulance which duly arrived.
I was taken to intensive care and had 2 lumbar punctures, a CT scan and placed on a life
support. The excellent nursing team monitored me and didn't know what was wrond with me
until my temperature raised significantly and they placed me on the appropriate drugs.
Whilst in the intensive care ward I had a very unusual "dream" about my Grandad and
husband's Grandma, who are both dead. I dreamt they were sitting on my bed talking to me
all about themselves. After taking ill on the Wednesday, I finally came round on the
Saturday night and it was decided to transfer me to a side room on the medical ward on
the Sunday. The staff on the ward were brilliant and for the first week I was not really
with it at all. My poor family went through hell whilst I was ill and were very relived
to see me come out of the "coma" and to come home.
I still get quite a lot of headaches but I can cope with them as they are nothing to
compare with what I could have been like. I returned to work in January and found it
very tough indeed and know feel, I went back too soon. I feel that I am pretty much back
to the way I was before my illness and thank my lucky stars that I have made a full
recovery and my life is more or less back to normal.
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Carole
Bedworth Warwickshire, UK
Posted: November 17, 2000 |
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