It’s your worst nightmare – waking up in agony, with your face swollen and throat closing – but imagine if, up to that point, you were a perfectly healthy 17 year old without a medical worry in the world.
That was Hazel Keenan a year ago, was told she had everything from the mumps, to a brain haemorrhage or tumour to Multiple Sclerosis and Bechet’s Disease – until tests finally established she had contracted meningitis.
And now the Oranmore teenager now wants to tell her story to raise awareness of the illness – something she has taken very much to heart through her voluntary work with her local charity ACT for Meningitis.
Hazel remembers the drama that began on an ordinary Monday morning; “I had woken up and the left side of my face was all swollen,” she says.
As the pain progressed through the day, her father, Ciarán, called their local GP and she was squeezed in for an appointment. There, she was diagnosed with a case of the mumps.
“I was just told to take Nurofen, avoid fizzy drinks and stay in the house for the week,” Hazel says.
The GP advised to go straight back in if she started to suffer a headache – by the following Friday, her pain had become unbearable.
“I woke up with an excruciating headache and a very stiff neck. I got up out of the bed and felt extremely weak.
“My eyes started becoming extremely sensitive to the light,” she says – so sitting under the fluorescent lights of the waiting room was agonising.
With a progressive and unyielding headache, extreme weakness and sensitivity to light, Hazel’s GP sent her straight to A&E.
“I was made wear a mask and put straight into isolation in the A&E Department. At this stage I was vomiting, the headache became absolutely unbearable and I was shaking with the cold even though I was wrapped in loads of blankets.
“My neck was barely moveable and I had to ask Mam to turn all the lights off and pull the blinds down in the room as even just a small beam of light was causing pain in the eyes.
“The pain, I honestly couldn’t put it into words, I thought my head was going to explode. You can actually feel your brain swelling – it’s horrific!” she recalls.
Meningitis is an inflammation of the meninges – a collective name for the three membranes that envelope the brain and spinal cord. It can be caused by several different organisms – some bacterial, some viral.
Bacterial meningitis is less common but can be very serious and requires immediate medical attention and treatment with antibiotics. Viral Meningitis is less serious, but cannot be helped by antibiotic treatment.
Viral and bacterial meningitis present similar symptoms and so hospital tests may be need to be carried out to differentiate the two.
Anything less than an immediate response can result in lifelong suffering, as Hazel well knows – having suffered four relapses in the space of six months, the hospital is considered her “second home”.
On that first visit, Hazel waited over three hours in A&E with her mother, Michelle, before spending another few hours waiting on a trolley.
When a medical team came around to see her they insisted she have an immediate lumber puncture. This was to prove another source of trauma – because the local anaesthetic didn’t take.
“It was so painful I could not lay still, so the doctor could not draw any fluid from my spinal cord,” she says.
Hazel was put on the emergency list for theatre, where she had the lumber puncture under general anaesthetic. The results were back within the hour – meningitis.
However doctors did not confirm whether she had contacted bacterial or viral meningitis, and they weren’t taking any chances. “Straight away I was given antibiotics through IV,” says Hazel.
It was a battle that required a two week hospital stint, on a double dosage of antibiotics per day.
Leaving hospital a fortnight later, she thought the spell had passed – but she was in for another rude awakening.
“Since suffering meningitis I have been hospitalised four times in the space of six months with severe headaches, bleeding from the ears, leg weakness and loss of sight in my right eye,” she says.
In fact, she has lost a staggering 73% vision in her right eye.
Hazel is resigned to the fact that she will live with the side effects of meningitis every day – but she has decided to turn a negative into a positive.
Her role as a Volunteer Fundraising Coordinator with ACT for Meningitis has provided her with a platform to turn a “traumatic experience” into something positive – helping many others along the way.
“I am so proud to be working to help make a difference to those affected by meningitis and to create a greater awareness around the signs and symptoms of the disease,” she says.
ACT for Meningitis offers a wide range of free support services to people affected by meningitis. “One in three people who survive Meningitis are left with life term side effects,” they say.
Children up to the age of five are most at risk, signs to look out for include; babies being irritable, refusing to eat, (excessively) high pitched crying, rapid breathing, bulging soft spot on head and cold hands and feet.
ACT for Meningitis is currently running ‘ACTion Teds National Pyjama Party’ in crèches across the country during February and March to raise awareness of meningitis and funds for the charity – and to ensure parents know that meningitis is the largest killer of children under five in Ireland.
For further information visit their website, checkout their Facebook page or contact the office on (091) 380058. To support the ACT for Meningitis, text ACT to 50300 to donate €4.
And the ACT for Meningitis annual 5k run/walk andd 3k/16k/3k Duathlon are now open for registration; supported by DFS & Co Accountants Galway and Educogym Galway, these time chipped events take place in Renville Park, on Sunday, April 3, with all funds raised going directly to ACT for Meningitis.
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