"It makes me very sad that I need so much help now."
Kim, 56, from Shirland in Derbyshire, was the fittest she’d been in years when she contracted meningococcal meningitis last October.
It’s left her with a range of after-effects and reliant on the support of others, as she tells us here.
“I retired in January 2025 aged 55 years as a police officer. I wasn’t ready to finish work and took a little part-time job in a cafe for Ashgate Hospice.
“I was physically the most fit I’d been in years, doing strength training and eating a high protein diet.
“I left work early due to feeling unwell with earache and a stiff neck. By the following morning, I felt terrible and took myself to a walk-in centre close by. They gave me a prescription for ear drops/spray.
Acting strangely
“I fetched the prescription, but by lunchtime I had started to act strangely. My husband recognised I was unwell and called an ambulance, and fortunately they recognised meningitis and injected me accordingly.
“The last thing I remembered was taking a shower. I then was put in an induced coma and when I eventually woke the hospital had prepared my family for the worst.
"I have been left with sight loss and hearing loss to the right side, and extremely poor short-term memory. I also suffer from vestibular issues and gait ataxia.
Think for both of us
“My husband now has to think for both of us. He manages my appointments due to short-term memory issues. He has to do all the tasks I was capable of before, but now either forget or don’t see need doing.
“I struggle as everything was in my memory before. Now I can’t remember if I’ve eaten or what we are doing that day.
"I am trying to adapt with memory boards and post-it notes but can read my memory board upstairs and have forgotten what it said by the time I get downstairs.
“I was so capable before. It makes me very sad that I need so much help now.”
