I had Meningitis. Bacterial. N.Meningitidis type B to be precise.

It almost killed me. I’m lucky.

I can still hear, I have all my fingers, toes, arms and legs. I’m lucky.

I think I lost a few brain cells, but even that is mostly good. I’m lucky.

But there’s still a few things to be said. Sometimes I feel driven to talk about the others who weren’t so lucky. Sometimes I’d like to comment on the lack of support for recovery. Right now, 3 and a half years after I was ‘cured’ I feel driven to talk about the after effects. Not because I can’t live with them – I’m lucky I could be dead, but because I’m sure others are also suffering, probably worse than me and maybe they need to hear that they are not alone.

It seems to be called “Neuropathic pain” and Lyrica (pregabalin) seems to help (sometimes), I describe it as:

• My legs feel like they are on fire
• My legs feel like they have  red hot steel skewers inserted down both sides
• My legs ache continuously

At first I just thought I was just tired all the time – until everything else went away all I was left with was the pain. Pain is an amazing thing. It can distract you, it can exhaust you, it can deplete your energy, enthusiasm and your ability to deal with things. I’ll probably talk about that too.