Exactly one year ago, Storm Ciara was doing her worst, buffeting the British Isles. I was wending my way back from visiting a friend in Cheltenham, and it was a nightmare of a journey, with many trains delayed or cancelled, making what should have been around a 4 hour journey more than double that. I had a really bad headache by the time I finally got home, unpacked, and crawled into bed. Not surprising, eh?

Except it wasn't a bad headache. It was bacterial meningitis.

It's been a STEEP learning curve since then, trying to understand and cope with the after-effects of the disease. I still have lots more to learn, understand and cope with.

One thing I do know, is that if I had known more about meningitis and how it presents in adults, I would have got to hospital sooner, and I could have avoided some of the sequelae which are now part of my daily life and likely will be for another 12-24 months (or the rest of my life. It's a gradual at best, wait and see kind of thing).

Right now, I'm sitting on the chair that Access to Work funded me because of the problems with my neck and spine that endure since those pesky bacteria spent a few days gorging on my meninges.

Time is really of the essence once you have developed a bacterial meningitis.

The day after Storm Ciara, I still had a bad headache. This seemed weird as I hardly ever get headaches, but I thought a full day of healthy food, hydration and a good night's sleep would sort it out.

The next day, following that good night's sleep I got up and went to adjust the knob on my radiator. I span out with dizziness and carried on reeling as I stood up. I realised my orientation was out of kilter, as well as that headache being worse than ever. My whole neck ached now too, and was really hot to the touch.

I called my doctors and asked for a telephone appointment (hard to believe that those things weren't standard back then). It took a LOT of persuasion that I felt disorientated and unsafe to drive to actually get that appointment. When I had the phone appointment, as well as mentioning the symptoms above and recent travel to sub-Saharan Africa, meningitis wasn't mentioned and I was advised to wait until a friend could drive me to the surgery after work for an in-person assessment.

Now, if this is you. after you have read this, take your own temperature after you've experienced the other symptoms mentioned and get to A&E pronto.

By the evening appointment all of the above symptoms had significantly worsened, I was weak and able to eat very little. The heat and swelling was spreading and increasing and my eyes were now starting to hurt too. I attended the physical appointment and my temperature was recorded as being high. I was sent home and told to come back late morning the next day for urgent blood tests.

The next day, I could barely function or eat at all. All of the symptoms were much, much worse and I also was very sensitive to the light (even though it was winter, and gloomy). It was all I could do to crawl into my friend's car and attend the blood tests. The nurse said how ill I looked and not to hesitate to get in touch and not wait for the results if I worsened.

I was now going downhill markedly by the hour. I was lying in bed, with the blinds shut. the light off, my eyes shut, and the duvet over my head, and everything was still too bright. By this point I was really frightened that something serious was wrong and called my surgery to asked to be referred to the hospital. I was admitted later that day.

I will always remember a lovely lady called Brenda, who fought for me (entirely off her own back) to be put in a cool dark side room before I was transferred to a ward. It wasn't authorised, so a bay where one of the lights was broken was the next best option I got taken to.

It all got really scary really quick then and to cut a long story short, I spent the next 7 days in acute care. I'll probably tell that story another day, but the purpose of today's blog is to make you aware of the symptoms of meningitis in adults and when to get help.

If, like me, your current knowledge of meningitis is largely focused around babies/students/rashes that don't go away when you press them with a glass: well, you're right. But, I never had a rash, I'm definitely not a baby or a student, and I thank God that I trusted my instincts and was persistent, because if I'd waited much longer, I'd probably be an amputee, blind or dead right now.

In the spirit of making it easy to remember, and because I love a good pun/acronym, I've created something that's easy to remember, copy, paste, share, save and hopefully help you, or someone else, to recognise they might be developing meningitis and get help ASAP.

You just need to remember "TWO HENS"

T = Temperature (high)

W= Weak

O = Orientation (dizziness)

H = Headache (terrible and worsening)

E = Eyes (sore, light-sensitive)

N = Neck (painful, stiff, hot)

S = Swollen (around eyes, face and neck)

Next fortnight, I’ll be musing On Happiness (need it after that, I hear you cry)!

Please get in touch with any particular aspects of this topic you’d like me to write about.

In the meantime, you can check out the full meningitis series of videos on my personal Instagram @annapascoe in the April 2020 gallery entries and watch today's video which accompanies this post.

Happy Planning