What does Meningitis do to you?

It caused extreme pain in the neck first. She also had headaches which she described as 'like a candle (going up her back)with a flame (inside her head) . The head aches were not initially like this but one afternoon she went to sleep and woke up saying the pain in her head had changed. You don't necessarily develop a rash but she did, eventually, only on her torso which soon disappeared. She became increasingly gradually not herself ; worrying about things that would not previously have worried her. She lost her ability to understand even very simple maths, she stopped reading newspapers because she misunderstood things and was upset by what she thought it meant. We did not understand what was happening - she gradually became more confused.

The neck pain was so severe she was admitted to hospital overnight twice and given morphine . The pain continued a long time and she definitely shoud have had stronger medication again but she was scared of hospital and morphine. She was not diagnosed at this stage. In fact despite our desperate trips to doctors she was not diagnosed till 11 days before she died. I think the neck pain was replaced by headaches.

Other symptoms she described included at one stage not being able to lift her legs up and feeling dizzy and collapsing- though I'm not sure if that was caused by meningitis or not eating - as all food tasted disgusting, she said. We found out later that this was because that part of her brain had been damaged.

So in answer to your question, what does Meningitis do? It kills you - over about 3 months, eventually she appeared to feel no pain - at least from her facial expressions we thought she didn't - she was too weak to speak or swallow then she died.