Chavaune Brown's story

I have always been a healthy active person as my job requires mental and physical health, I work full time as a chef.

I remember going to work and feeling fine until I got home. It was at about 10pm and I was in severe pain with a fever. My muscles in my thighs were cramping severely and I had this unbelievable pain in my chest (it felt like a heart attack).

At this point there was a flu virus going around so, of course, I thought I would just suffer a few days and it would be done. So I took some painkillers and went back to sleep.

When I woke up in the morning I felt like I had been hit by a ten ton truck. I could not walk as I just kept feeling very faint. So I phoned my boss and told him I wouldn't be making it to work. I was in so much pain, so I called the GP and made an appointment for the afternoon.

By the time I went to see my doctor I was so pale and my partner had to try help me to stand and I had a red splotch on my foot, The doctor thought I had leukaemia so he told me he wanted to do blood tests first thing in the morning but if I got worse that evening then he wanted me to go to the hospital.

As the day went by I kept getting more red marks on my legs and when it got to about 10.30 I told my partner I wanted to go to A and E. We waited for about an hour and about an hour after that I was sent to ICU.

I remember being hooked up to a drip and having my blood taken and one of the doctors suspected meningitis so I was put on antibiotics and we hoped for the best.

I woke up and my arms and legs were completely covered in the angry purplish red "rash".

I remained in ICU for 5 days, hospital for a month and a care centre for another month. I was diagnosed with meningococcal disease and septicaemia type C, an extremely rare combination of meningitis and septicaemia.

Luckily for me I was left only with scars on my arms and legs. My nerves are still affected. I can’t stand for very long and I suffer from stabbing and burning pains in my feet. It also left me with an under-active thyroid. It has really made life painful and difficult. I can’t just walk to the shop or do normal things without being in pain. I take so much medication every day and I have to do physic every day.

I’m on the home stretch of recovery and I thank the doctors and the Arch Angel Michael that I saw when I was dying that I am alive, God is most certainly real.

Chavaune Brown
April 2018