Beccy H

On the 15th August 2017 I fell down the last 6 stairs at home, I didn’t really hurt myself but couldn’t understand why I’d fallen. A couple of hours later I developed a strange kind of headache at the base of my skull. That night I was awake most of the night with intense back pain. Around 10am the next morning I started shivering violently & vomiting. After a few hours I managed to stop it with prescription anti-sickness medication & paracetamol but I felt so unwell & weak I stayed in bed for the rest of the day.

The following day the headache was worse, it had spread all across the back of my head & neck & I just didn’t feel well, I called my GP at lunch time & they suggested I go to A&E to be checked out. I didn’t as I thought it was a bit extreme, but that evening for some reason I decided to drive myself there. I assumed I’d be driving myself back a few hours later but that didn’t happen. The nurse took me into triage & found that I’d got a fever & my heart was racing so they took me through to majors to keep an eye on me. I was admitted over night & sent for a CT scan of my brain around midnight.

I spent the night thinking they’d discharge me soon. By 8am the next morning it was as if someone flicked a switch & I suddenly became critically ill, I was shivering violently & vomiting again, my fever was 40 degrees, my heart rate was 170bpm & I was so scared I was begging the nurses not to leave me. Luckily the doctor realised immediately that something was seriously wrong, they told me I had some kind of brain infection, possibly meningitis & straight away put up fluids & IV antibiotics. I was transferred to a proper ward. The team of doctors came to see me & immediately had me put in a side room. I had to have fluid resuscitation as my blood pressure was so low & my fever was so high.

The doctors tried to do a lumbar puncture but due to a curve in my spine they were unable to get a needle into my spine. By now my bloods were showing my CRP to be over 300 & they knew I had sepsis. A couple of days later I had a guided lumbar puncture, where they use X-rays to guide the needle in & it was found that I had meningitis & the meningitis had caused the sepsis. (Sepsis and Meningitis) For the first week my partner was told, she is critically ill & this could go either way. He said it was terrifying thinking he could lose me.

I have vivid memories of the first day when I became so ill as it was really traumatic but very few other memories of that first week. I was in hospital on IV antibiotics, fluids & oxygen for 2 weeks. When I came home I was so weak & continued to get pain in the back of my head & spine from residue inflammation. I also suffered with flashbacks & PTSD for a few weeks. I’ve been home 6 weeks now & am just grateful to be alive & very thankful to my local hospital for spotting the sepsis so quickly. It was definitely that that saved my life.