This story is about my granddad. I was always really close to my grandparents even as a toddler. They looked after me after nursery and if I was ill and my parents couldn't stay home. My granddad used to take me out for sweets and ice cream, seeing as I was the only grandchild they spoilt me rotten! We live in Staffordshire, England.
My Grandparents had gone away abroad before and always called us whilst they were in a cafe, on the beach, in a bar etc. One night around nine o'clock we received a phone call from my grandma. Expecting it to be about their Portugal holiday we were full of questions, however when my Mom was on
the phone she stopped dead and began to cry silently. When she put the phone down she told me straight away that granddad had gone into hospital.
My grandparents were flown back home in an air ambulance and my granddad was admitted into the local hospital. The doctors carried out many tests
and it was finally clear that he had encephalitis. The first time I went to see him in hospital I was really shocked at the state he was in, he
had lost a fair amount of weight and looked exhausted. It was unusual because even though he didn't know who any other member of the family, he
recognized me and called me Petal (a nickname he used to call me) and said that I still looked beautiful, like he hadn't seen me in years!
When my granddad finally came out of hospital he moved back home with my grandma who looked after him and gave him his medication for about a year, this just got too much as he didn't know his house, he thought his wife was his mother and every day he was a different age, 7, 24,15....etc
Gradually he forgot who I was and he didn't remember the rest of the family. He got stressed very easily when he wanted to go for a drive in his car (obviously he couldn't) or when he couldn't remember the way to the bathroom, small things.
After 3 years of moving him to different care homes he is now still no better, only stabilized and has still a lot of weight to gain back. My granddad is still in a home and we visit him once a week, though he forgets we've been as soon as we walk out the door! I still think about how it used to be, before he got the virus (we are still not 100% certain which type it is only that it was probably from a mosquito bite) and only feel thankful that I have the rest of my family still well and that my granddad didn't die from encephalitis.
