Danger of meningitis is all too real for Chris

FOURTEEN years. That's how long it's been since I woke up in a hospital with random pipes coming out of . . . well, random bits of my body.

Now, what would you do at that point? I did the only logical thing - I started to pull them out.

It's amazing how 14 years disappear as you recall the sensation of dragging a pipe from the back of your throat, out through your nose.

There I was, on a vibrating bed (apparently to prevent bed sores), feeling like I had the mother of all hangovers, looking at this pipe I'd just pulled out.

I wasn't sure what to do at this point so I passed out. Problem solved.

Next time I decided to pop back to the real world, a nurse was there. This made me feel a bit better, so I passed out again.

All of which continued for a while until I finally managed to stay awake for a bit. Suddenly I started to see people I knew - Mum, Dad, Granny, some close friends, more nurses.

"Right", I thought, "this can't be good."

People tried to explain what had happened. Unfortunately, it took a while to get my head around it, mainly because I kept popping off for a wee hallucination.

I was more focused on the giant Scalextric race track coming out the wall and spiralling around the bed of the guy opposite. And I was well miffed they wouldn't let me have a shot! Between hallucinations I started to grasp the reason for my rather drugged-up state - I'd been a bit ill. OK, a lot ill.

It goes something like this:

Patient Person (PP): "You have been in a coma."

Me: "Eh?"

PP: "Yeah, you caught meningitis and as a result you fell into a coma."

Me: "Eh?"

PP: "You've been out for five days, you're very weak, your body's been fighting it off with the help of a lot of medication. You haven't eaten anything, and been fed liquids via a tube. That's why you feel pretty out of it."

Me: "Eh?"

It turned out I'd contracted meningococcal meningitis, with a bout of septicaemia thrown in. How's that for bad luck?

I remember a day where I felt really rough, was sick a lot, had a bad headache and didn't want to move. The next morning I was to travel to the Isle of Wight to teach climbing for the summer before starting university.

Instead, Mum found me at around 6am with a really nasty rash all over my body, and barely conscious.

My family knew what meningitis could do - I'd lost a cousin to it a few years earlier. My mum, June, realised what was wrong with me and that it wasn't very good.

She hit the phone, demanding a doctor. When they said someone would come at 9am, she said, "No, I need a doctor NOW". Good job she did, as without the shot of penicillin I got at 7.30am, I almost certainly would have died, aged 18.

Thanks, Mum.

At Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, I was pumped full of drugs and promptly slipped into a coma.

At my worst, I was 90 per cent reliant on life support machines. There were a few hours where it was touch or go as to whether I would survive or not.

My family say I went from 13 stone to seven in just five days. Apparently my body was fighting infection so hard but as I wasn't taking food or liquid, what muscle and fat I had was basically eating itself to provide the energy I needed. Nice.

Waking brought absolute confusion. The morphine gave me hallucinations, some really morbid - like the one where I saw bodies being carried out of the hospital in little bits.

I couldn't walk, couldn't even stand up and I couldn't remember much about my past either.

But I'd survived.

I'd always been fit, I was a winger for Portobello High and Portobello Rugby Club. But the first time I tried to get out of bed, I collapsed. The nurses tried to encourage me to walk, but I was dragging my right foot, my right arm and my right hand was numb.

I had neurological damage to my right side. Even today the pain receptors don't work properly in my hand, taking things out of the oven can be a dangerous business.

Thank goodness for my friends and family. They made me go through the physiotherapy to learn to walk again.

My mates would say, "Get up you lazy git. We can outrun you now." Sounds harsh, but I didn't need anyone being miserable, I needed people to make light of it.

They helped me remember my life too. I lost a lot of memory, a large chunk of my childhood has gone.

I revisited places in the hope it would help me remember things. Sometimes it worked.

My wife, Suzanne, and I went travelling a few years ago. We'd stop somewhere and something would just trigger a memory, it could be music or a smell, but suddenly I'd remember something that I'd forgotten.

Still, it took two years to get back to full fitness. That was one thing. The mental side of it, another.

I started to reassess my life, what was important and what wasn't. And I realised I'd been fairly self-focused, like most teenagers. I was immature, I thought the world owed me. I was an angry young man.

I started to realise I wanted to make a difference with my life. I wanted to help people.

I have a job now that I'd never have considered before meningitis. I'm operations manager at Spark of Genius, a small school in Musselburgh, working with young people who can't enter mainstream education. Some might be autistic or have ADHD, others might be school refusers. It's challenging, fascinating. I love it.

Three years ago, my brother-in-law Ed Henderson and I ran the Edinburgh Marathon for the Meningitis Research Foundation and raised around 4000.

It was tough. There was one point where I hit an emotional wall. I realised what I was doing and why. I cried.

Crossing the finishing line was fantastic, I felt jubilant . . . alive.

Earlier this year, my son Ethan was born. Meningitis made me a different person, now he is bringing another fresh perspective to my life.

At the time, the doctor said I was the only person he'd ever seen with such a severe case to survive without at least losing a limb. I've got a few scars, but it could have so easily been worse . . . much worse.

So I've a lot to be thankful for.

Although come to think of it, I never did get a shot of that Scalextric.

Students among most at risk from killer disease

MENINGITIS is an inflammation in the membranes surrounding the spinal cord and brain. It is most often caused by either bacterial or viral infection.

The viral version is less serious. Bacterial forms of meningitis, however, can kill within hours.

Each year there are around 2300 cases of meningitis and meningococcal septicaemia in the UK. So far this year in Scotland, there have been 51 cases - five of them fatal.

Childhood vaccinations can protect against some meningitis. But while advances have been made, no vaccine is available for Meningitis B, the most common form of the disease which accounts for 90 per cent of meningococcal cases.

Students are among the most "at risk" groups. Yet the Meningitis Research Foundation has revealed that 40 per cent of Edinburgh students don't know whether they have been vaccinated.

Around one in tenpeople who contract meningitis or septicaemia die and many more are left with after-effects, sometimes as severe as deafness, brain damage and amputations.

The onset of the disease is often non-specific flu-like symptoms occurring up to eight hours before symptoms such as stiff neck, dislike of bright lights and a rash.

Other signs of the disease are limb pain, cold hands and feet and pale, mottled skin.