My vacation horror story:

Let me just start by saying before this vacation I was a perfectly

healthy 31 year old man.

Last year I went on vacation with my wife's family. The plan was to spend a week on the beach in Clearwater, Fl. Being from Wisconsin we capped our vacation off  with a visit to Raymond James Stadium for the Outback Bowl. Seeing Wisconsin take on Tennessee was to be the perfect end to our vacation before we got on our plane to

Chicago.

Most of the week was a perfect, beach vacation. We tanned,

read books, fished and just relaxed. I even got a chance to go to the Outback Bowl banquet and visit one of Outback's owner's home.

On New Year's Eve started to feel very ill. By the time my

wife got back home from a New Year's celebration I had a raging

fever. My temperature was around 102. When I woke up on New Year's

Day I was very ill. In fact, I had never felt that sick in my life. I

still had a fever and just felt horrible. We had tickets to the bowl game and an entire day to kill so I decided to go to the game. It was either sit in the bleachers or sit my car. Most of the game I just sat with my head in my lap and tried not to throw up.

When we finally got to the airport, we learned our flight was

delayed 2 hrs. We didn't get back to Chicago until about midnight. I

then had to drive back to Madison, WI. by the time I got home it was

3:00am and I felt absolutely horrible.

Over the next couple days my fever never broke. It was between 101

and 103. I went to urgent care and the doctor told me I had the flu

and gave me some pills for my nausea.

On Sunday night I went to bed. Shortly after, my wife heard a loud

thump come from the bedroom. When she came in she found me on the

floor having a seizure with blood pouring out of my mouth. Of course

she called 911. When I came to, a couple days later I was in the

hospital, surrounded by my family.

This is where things get a bit fuzzy in my memory. I know I had 3

spinal taps, a catheter, a MRI and a bunch of other horrible things

done to me. All while having many seizures.

When I finally regained full consciousness, I was told I had

picked up meningeal encephalitis . The doctors could not believe I

had gotten it in Florida. They told me it was a one in a million

chance. Lucky me, why couldn't have been the lottery? The next two

months I was in and out of the hospital multiple times. Including one  time when I had a seizure face down in my pillow. I suffocated myself and stopped breathing. Once again my wonderful wife found me and  saved my life. My heart went afib and my heart rate was near 200bpm. I was back in the hospital. Days later when my heart flipped back into it's normal beat I was hours away from getting the paddles.

Fortunately, this was the last time I was in the hospital for any

amount of time. Unfortunately, I've been left with a possible life

long seizure disorder.

Since the first of the year I've had approx. 30 grand mal

seizures, a handful of petite mal seizures, my short term memory is

awful, I'm now on multiple medications and I cannot drive. My life and my family's lives have been forever altered. All because I went to Florida. Florida sucks.