I was immediately admitted to hospital where I just got worse and worse.I had lots of tests and a lumbar puncture but in the end I couldn't do anything - move, speak or see -the only sense unaffected was my hearing!

After some weeks I got a tingly feeling in my legs and gradually I got some movement back. The worse thing for me was that I was a flautist and I had always dreaded anything happening to my hands to stop me from playing. I had never dreamed that I wouldn't be able to use my hands at all! In fact, it took about a year before I had enough strength in my hands to hold my flute and then about 6 years before I could play again due to my lack of co-ordination! I had to re-learn everything- how to crawl and then to walk, how to jump,feed myself, speak, write-everything.

After 2 months in hospital I went home because there was nothing else they could do for me. I had lots of therapy of all kinds, in fact, so much that I had to miss a year of school. For years afterwards I had to go for check-ups until finally I was told that I had got as better as I was ever going to and I would always have a weak left hand and a speech defect.I was left-handed but because I couldn't use my hand properly I had to learn to write with my right hand.

I went to teachers training college but because I couldn't shout or write or move quickly enough I didn't qualify even though I passed all of the academic side. Then I got married and was told I could never cope with having children, so I had 2! Because my husband is in the RAF we have moved around a lot but I always worked in education, mainly with Special Needs children who seemed to accept me better because I have problems like theirs! Now though, mainly out of convenience, I have a job with the Civil Service working at the local RAF camp which lets me walk to work.

I don't tell many people what has happened to me and I wonder how much in fact they notice-I think that through the years I've probably been much more self-conscious than others-I have been mistaken for a German! My daughter and son say that they don't notice my speech as that's all they've ever known. 5 or 6 years ago I had to go on medication to stop the tremors which were preventing me from sleeping, so now I take pills every day and always will. I think that now, after 26 years I am as 'normal' as I ever will be!