Meningitis is a word that strikes fear into the hearts of parents everywhere. It's one of those nasty diseases you hear about and pray you never encounter. My family did encounter it though but we were lucky.
The first time I had really heard of meningitis was when I was at my cousins house. I was listening to a conversation about my cousin's friend. She was in her late teens and her parents were away. She was spending the day with her boyfriend but had a headache so sent him home. He phoned her that evening but got no answer so went round to her house. He found her dead in her bed. It all happened very quickly. She had meningitis and she died. That was all the information I knew. She had a really bad headache and died.
Jump forward 6 months to December 1990. My sister was 18, working at Waitrose on a Saturday an had d just started going out with her boyfriend. They went to a pub after work and my sister made 1 drink last all evening. A few days later she had an eye infection. It didn't hurt but her bottom eyelid was swollen and her eye was dripping.
My mum was a firm believer that if you weren't being sick then you could go to school so off to school my sister went. ( Where we lived you did A levels at the school you did your GCEs at). My sister chased her friends around trying to drip her eye on them as it seemed like a good game to play. Her home economics teacher wasn't so amused by the dripping eye and sent Helen home from school. This annoyed my mum but my sister found amusing.
The following morning Helen woke with a headache. She and I shared a room and I was just at home reading. There was nothing particularly out of the ordinary. Helen had a headache and a temperature just like we all had had a million times before. Mum came to check on her and we all sat laughing as normal. Then mum did something really unusual. For only the second time in my life my mum phoned the doctor and asked for a home visit. This was unheard of. The last time she had done that was when everybody in the house, apart from me, had got he mumps. I don't know why she did and mum never could say why she did either.
I stayed in my bedroom that morning reading. We were waiting for the doctor. Helen slept. Mum took her temperature and asked me to look to see if I could see a rash. I couldn't. A locum doctor arrived and came up to look at Helen. She didn't wake up when he looked at her. He was in the room no more than 5 minutes. He looked at mum and said ' I don't want to alarm you but I'm going to phone for an ambulance' He went downstairs and made the call.
The doctor's surgery was at the bottom of the road. He asked if I could walk down and collect a letter from the surgery and give it to the ambulance men. I don't know why he didn't write it there and then, maybe her doctor needed to sign it. I know he left by car and I walked down to the surgery. My sister's friend's mum was the receptionist on duty. She looked white when she gave me the letter I needed. I ran home and arrived before the ambulance.
Mum was with Helen but went to wait for the ambulance when I got back. She showed me the rash on my sister's body before she left the room. Two ambulance men arrived to collect my sister. When they tried to get her she started screaming and hitting them. Looking back it was a funny sight as these two burly men were being beaten by a screaming banshee. Mum couldn't watch. They decided they needed to restrain her and one left to get a stretcher/wheelchair.
My sister was still in bed and the ambulanceman asked me if she was decent under the covers. I didn't know the answer. They pulled back the covers and she wasn't. Whoops! They asked if I could get her dressed. 2 minutes earlier she had been a screaming banshee with flailing fists but she was my sister so of course I would put some underwear on her. I searched her draw for her lucky knickers as I knew she would need those. The men had left the room but came back in. Helen had gone quiet by now so they got her out of bed into the chair where they strapped her on and carried her to the waiting ambulance. I watched them load her in and I watched my mum get in to. The doors closed and they drove off.
As they were closing the doors my neighbour was driving down the road. She stopped the car and got out. I remember her asking if everything was OK. I remember shaking and telling her I had to wait for the ambulance to be out of sight. I couldn't cry until mum and Helen were out of sight as they were relying on me. When the ambulance vanished I told 'auntie' Jenny what had happened. She was supposed to be going out but cancelled her plans.
I sort of switched from tears to bossy mode. Granny had phoned when the ambulance had turned up which is why mum wasn't in the room. Mum hadn't told her it was expected meningitis as Granny was 84 and very easily distressed. She did know Helen was going to hospital though so I sent auntie Jenny to Granny to make sure she was alright.
Next I tried to contact Dad. It was Christmas and he was at a Christmas lunch. His office didn't know when he would be back. I phoned his office 3 times. On the last call I his boss answered and asked what the problem was. I told him Dad needed to go straight to St Heliers as Helen was ill. I wrote Dad a note and left it on the kitchen table and then got in the car and drove to the hospital. I hadn't been there since I was born and wasn't exactly sure of the way but knew roughly here it was!
I found Mum in the waiting room. Helen had been taken for tests. Whilst we were sat there she was wheeled past us. She looked terrible. They took her for a lumbar puncture. We sat waiting for ages. Dad arrived whilst we were waiting. He'd gone straight home from his lunch and found the note on the table. As an ex policeman he knew exactly where to go for the hospital. Eventually we were taken to the relatives room. Helen was on a life support machine in intensive care. We were warned she was going to be all wired up and was in a coma so wouldn't be able to communicate with us. We were also given tablets to take, antibiotics, to stop us getting it too.
That evening Mum and dad sent me home. I phoned Granny to let her know what was going on. Nobody had told us about the side effects of the tablets. They turned your wee bright orange. Dad came home later that night.He had had a nasty experience in the public toilets whilst using the urinals. Bright orange pee in front of an audience was something he would have preferred not to happen! We had forgotten Helen was supposed to be going out with her boyfriend too! He called to find out why he had been stood up and dad told him what had happened. In the morning we phoned the hospital to check. There had been no change. They had however let her boyfriend in to sit with her as he had turned up at the hospital at midnight with his parents.
Dad went back to the hospital in the morning. Meningitis is one of those diseases where everybody who has been near it has to be told. Dad asked if I could phone school as he didn't want the health authority contacting them before we had. I remember phoning and asking the secretary if I could speak to the Head teacher. They were busy and would phone me back. 2 hours later I phoned again. They were still too busy to speak to me. 1/2 hour later the phone rang. It was Mrs Batterley, my old French teacher. When she said who it was I wanted to stand up and say Bonjour madame but resisted the urge. The health authority had just been in contact with the school. Mrs Batterley was head of sixth form and was phoning to apologise for not returning our calls. She wanted to know all the details and could she keep phoning for updates.
I went back to the hospital then. We were told the first 24hours would decide if she would live or die and the next 24 hours would decide how much damage there was. Dad took mum home whilst I was there. She had survived 24 hours so that was good. Mum wanted to locate my older sister and get her home. She was away at the time and we didn't have contacted details. Now nobody in my family is allowed to go away without giving every detail possible! I remember talking to Helen and playing New Kids on the Block music to her. When mum and dad came back I went home. School phoned again for an update.
Helen came round after 48 hours. There was no obvious side effects at the start. She was still very poorly though. When I went to visit her I told her I'd put her in her lucky knickers. She looked at me in horror. Apparently she'd failed every exam she wore her lucky knickers in! When she checked though I had put her in the wrong knickers so they became her knew lucky pair!
I remember having to collect her friends from school and take them to visit her. It was Christmas so they had Christmas and get well presents for her. Every evening when her boyfriend finished work he went to the hospital and stayed with her. They'd only been out once! It was Christmas Eve when they let her out of hospital. Her boyfriend came to visit every day. In the end he was given a bed in the spare room to save him travelling . He sort of moved in then and is now her husband. They bought the house from my Dad after Mum died so basically have lived there together since 1990.
The only side effect she was left with was an extreme tiredness. She can fall asleep at the drop of a hat. In fact she has been known to fall asleep in mid telephone conversation, even when she is the one talking!She is one of the lucky ones. We nearly lost her so the fact she falls asleep talking to us is something we are all happy to put up with.
We don't know why she caught it. Apparently the meningitis germs can live dormant in your body with no trouble. Helen is convinced she caught it because she left her drink at the pub standing for so long without drinking it. She thinks the germs in the air got in her drink over time and that's why she got it. I think that's just an excuse to down her drinks fast and drink more.
I know I have seen a meningitis rash. I know to look out for a headache and a temperature. I also know that her eye infection was part of the meningitis as it can often start with an apparently unrelated infection.
