My name's Becky, I had encephalitis when I was 16 in May 2012 and if you're wondering who this is,
this is my incredible 19 year old cat, who is of immense comfort. I was in the middle of my A levels
I was pretty good at school and everything was going smoothly. I had 6 massive seizures in
the middle of the night, and after 11 days in hospital I came home. I had viral encephalitis
but they never identified the virus in my case. I've got epilepsy, and partial seizures
do hit, and certainly the memory loss is a disadvantage at times but with my notepad, and
I am lucky enough to have a very good camera as well, I write down what happens and I take photos
and generally people tell me I write down a very amusing account of what happens, and it's
far, far more than they would have remembered themselves from the day. I haven't done any
academics since I left school, but the travelling has helped enormously I have learnt I can
do these things on my own. I've been on a month long trip across America, I've been to Morocco,
Peru, the Trans-Mongolian Railway. I always have my notepad with me now, I generally have
the camera as well. It's certainly a challenge at times, things just like remembering names
is difficult, it takes a while and generally I write a name sheet with descriptions of people
I always have my explanation card with me so I don't have to attempt to explain to people what
encephalitis is. I find my cousin really helpful I can call her whenever I need to really and
she has been through far more than me so when I'm in complete hysterics and
absolutely crying my eyes out I can pick up the phone give her a call describe things and
it gives you the difference between sympathy and empathy - and there is a quite a big
difference. It's helpful when people treat you like a human, like you're not a brain-damaged
imbecile because some people do treat you like that. I'm very proud of what I've achieved,
I think my relative's remark of "you've achieved so much more, only differently"
is a fabulous one when I remarked on how I'd felt absolutely crap at one point,
because I was looking at pictures of everyone with their university degrees being held up on
social media that remark has always stuck with me and I'm very, very proud of all the travelling
I've done I know I'm very lucky to have been able to do it it gave me a huge amount of confidence
that I could do all these things on my own and the volunteering that I've done gives me the confidence
to interact with other people and that you can you don't have to sit there and sit on your own
you can get going and you've just got to talk to people. It's been volunteering rather than a job
I've been chopping vegetables and cleaning out chicken houses but certainly a proper job
is never going to be a possibility for me now I'm never going to be able to go back to my rather
academic self but nowadays I have my notepad I've done a heck of a lot of arts and crafts
felting cat fur, making a rug, I've carved my own elephant. You can do what you want,
it's just adapting to your new self. The advice to someone's who's had encephalitis -
you're going to have to adapt, you're going to have to adjust, and you're probably going to be
a new self but, you'll get there, "Keep Calm and Carry On" and by the time you've managed it and
you find a way of dealing with the problems, you will have achieved one heck of a lot, and
as someone did say to me once - you have achieved far more, only differently.