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My name is June and I live in a northern suburb of Perth Western
Australia. I am coming up to my 51st birthday, married to the
world's best husband (Allan) have 3 beautiful daughters all
married to wonderful men and 7 lovely grandchildren. I was 50
when my Herpes Simplex Encephalitis started around Christmas
2002. I had my mum staying with myself & Allan over Christmas
as it was her first Christmas without our darling Dad who had
passed away in July.
I went back to work after my Christmas break on Thurs. 2nd Jan. 2003 and as soon
as I got there at 8.15am I rang for an appt. with my doctor
and it was booked for 11.00am, by 9.00am I started to feel very
woozy so told my boss that I needed to go home, so he said that
was fine & don't worry about coming back until Monday.
I decided to call into mum's as she was only 10 mins. away from the doctors so
it was better I do that than go all the way home & then back
again. Mum wasn't home but as I had keys for her unit I let
myself in and then went really woozy again so layed on the floor
and that is the last thing I remember. Apparently I got myself
up & drove to the doctors and when I saw her I told her about
my bladder infection and she had told me that it was a nasty
one so if I felt any worse by the afternoon go to the local
hospital. Apparently when I left there I called into the chemist
and bought my antibiotics and got home and told Allan who was
still on holidays. I then went to bed & slept soundly for 2
hours. When I woke up I told Allan that I needed to go to the
hospital as I wasn't feeling very well. He took me up there
and they put it done to the same thing so they put me on a drip
with strong antibiotics and after 7 hours when the medication
had finished they sent me home. When I woke up on Friday morning
Allan told me that I was talking weirdly so he decided to take
me back to the hospital. Luckily the doctor on duty that morning
suspected what was happening so started me on the only antibiotic
that helps with HSE. They then decided I needed to have an MRI
but as it was late on Friday they don't do these on the weekend
so they needed to transfer me to Sir Charles Gardner Hospital
the next morning, this is our major public hospital.
I arrived there and was settled late Saturday afternoon and told Allan that they
would do the MRI early Sunday morning 5th Jan. When he arrived
that morning they were getting me ready for the MRI and that's
when all hell broke loose. I started off with a few small fits
and went into a large full blown seizure that I wasn't coming
out of. They then put me into an induced coma and into intensive
care unit. They then explained to Allan what was going on. Our
eldest daughter lives in New South Wales which is on the other
side of Western Australia so Allan rang her to let her know
so she booked a flight over and arrived while I was still in
ICU. Luckily I was only in ICU for 4 days.
I won't go on for much longer but I am still not back at work which is probably never going to change and my seizures have not been controlled as yet and my current memory is still bad although I am now going to Speech Pathology twice a week and I am really enjoying it knowing that I am not really as bad as I could have been.
Hope to hear from anyone else in "our strange world", thank you for reading this.
June
Perth, Western Australia

Posted: April 10, 2004
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