For about two weeks prior to being admitted to the hospital, I had episodes of a gurgling feeling in each of my temples. Each would last only seconds, but when it stopped, I felt confused and somewhat disoriented. At first, I thought this might be due to stress, as I work about 50 - 60 hours a week as the director of a leading national social services agency. Stress is my middle name! When the episodes continued, and in fact, worsened, I went to see my doctor thinking that this might be a new kind of migraine, or cluster headache, as I have had both since I was a child. She thought it might be temporal arteritis and ordered a SED rate test. This was on Thursday.

On Saturday I awoke with what I thought might develop into a migraine, but it never really did. The pain was less severe and I can't remember that I experienced a real aura that day. By evening, however, the pain worsened, and my speech was thick and slurred, my mother who lives with me tells me. She didn't mention it that night thinking that I would just think that she was crazy. I took some more pain killers and went to bed as usual. Around 2:00 a.m., I couldn't sleep so I came down stairs to lie on the sofa and listen to the TV.

I lay on the sofa all day on Sunday. Though I couldn't eat or drink anything, I continued to throw up. By that evening, I couldn't get off the sofa. I was drifting in and out of consciousness by the time that the ambulance arrived. My brother tells me that I asked him four times in ten minutes what time it was. I don't remember anything until Tuesday afternoon. I'm told that I couldn't speak and the first thought was that the normal pressure hydrocephalus that I have, had gotten worse. Tests showed that not to be the case. By Tuesday, the working diagnosis was menangitis, but the speech problems did not fit with that, so my doctor decided to test for encephalitis. Sure enough, the herpes simplex I virus was there, alive and very active. They started IV treatments of acyclovir immediately and by Thursday I was already starting to feel better.

After a week and half in the hospital, I was transferred to a skilled nursing unit at a nearby nursing home. While there, the IV treatments continued. Between treatments, I was permitted to leave the unit and go out to lunch, shopping, my office, etc. for two hours at a time, and to even drive my car. I was discharged from the SNF after anothe week and a half.

Last week, I worked just a couple of hours a day. More than that and I was just unproductive and disruptive to my office's routines. This week, I have returned full time, but am finding that it is too much and will be shortening my days again starting tomorrow.