"Only after his post-mortem did I find out it was meningitis."
Denise’s husband Vinny was 63 when he fell ill with a severe headache. In fact he’d contracted pneumococcal meningitis and died just a few days later.
Denise, from Liverpool, helps keep his memory alive by raising money in his name, as she tells us here.
“Vinny got up in the morning and had a headache. He took paracetamol and we went about our day.
"We were at a funeral that morning, so we went to the church and crematorium. He didn't feel up to the wake, so we came home. He said his headache felt like a migraine, so he was going to bed.
“I went about my day and checked on him later that day. He was still suffering but wouldn’t let me call the doctor. He just wanted to sleep.
No answer
“I tried to get hold of him the next day but there was no answer. I just assumed he was sleeping.
"He had been up and about, but I was too late. I found him passed away on our bedroom floor.
“Only after his post-mortem did I find out it was meningitis.
“I have kept Vinny’s memory alive by raising money for Meningitis Now in his name.”
Read more about Denise’s fundraising, from zip wiring the longest zipwire in Europe to creative crafts she has made and sold with students, on Vinny’s Forever Fund here.
