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| John |
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This story is from what I have been told happened in 1973 when I was three years old.
I started to get very sleepy, I could not get up or out of bed, bright light hurt my eyes, I was taken to the doctors who said I had the flu. My condition worsened over the next few days, and I was taken into hospital for tests, where they could not find any thing wrong. I was there for sent home.
My condition continued to slowly worsen, four weeks later I was back in hospital with a fever, the doctors brought my body temp down and I was sent home. Three weeks after I came home, I started to have convulsions at home. I was then rushed into hospital as my body temp was so high. They had a large fan, and were placing damp towels on my body to cool me. My body temp went up to 107F and I then went into a coma. I was not thought to survive the night and was baptized in hospital and given the last rites. After six weeks, one of the nurses heard me say the word "Pin". This was the start of my recovery. When I awoke from the coma I could not move any part of my body, and I had also lost all memory. I had to learn everything again from scratch, how to walk, talk, and feed myself. I was also back in nappies as I was unable to go to the toilet by myself.
My first memories start when I am eight, before that is a complete blank. I cannot remember going to school in the Isle of Man, or my grand parents there. School was very difficult for me as I was just put in the remedial class and forgot about. I was diagnosed with dyslexia and dispraxia at school. I now realized that these are a result of the encephalitis.
I still have very violet mood swings where I can have four or five moods in my head at once, or the moods can change every 45 seconds. Some times I get a combination of the two and I feel I am going mad. I have really bad short term memory. When I discovered the Encephalitis society it was better than winning the lottery, here was somewhere that described all of my symptoms, I realized I was not on my own with this problem.
I still have very violet mood swings where I can have four or five moods in my head at once, or the moods can change every 45 seconds. Some times I get a combination of the two and I feel I am going mad. I have really bad shortterm memory. When I discovered the Encephalitis society it was better than winning the lottery, here was somewhere that described all of my symptoms, I realized I was not on my own with this problem. I have made some good friends though the socity, it is really good to talk to someone who understands what you are going though, because if you try to explain to someone who has not had E, then they just look at you as if you are mad. I am now working with adults with mental health problems, and at the end of the day who can understand that better than all of us.
Thanks for taking the time to read my story.
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JOHN ERIC QUAYLE
Isle of Man.
Posted: June 26, 2007 |
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