Becky's Meningitis Story

Our daughter Becky was a beautiful, outgoing, and vivacious 20 year old. She attended our local tech college where she would have graduated in June with a marketing degree and planned on going on to get a degree in graphic arts. She could flash a beautiful smile at any given moment as well as light up a room with her presence. She loved everything about life from her friends and family, to the sport of volleyball, animals but especially her precious dog, Rocky, who she trained and teased relentlessly and he loved her to death. One was never without the other.

On the morning of Feb 24, 2004, Becky got up complaining she didn’t feel well and we suggested that she stay at home, drink plenty of fluids and take ibuprofen. I called her around lunchtime to see if she was okay, she sounded pretty sick but I was sure she had some type of flu.

She had been fine the night before and had even gone out to eat with us. When I arrived home from work at 7:00 pm, Becky still did not feel well and said that she had been in bed all day. At 1:00 am, I found her lying in the hallway, moaning, and I asked her what was wrong. She said that she didn’t feel good. After she had answered all my questions to my satisfaction, I went back to bed and told my husband that I should probably take her to the clinic where I worked to have someone look her over. At 3:00 am, I now found her lying on the floor next to my bed, moaning.

By 5:00 am I found her again in the hallway and started in on a barrage of questions, none of which she could really give me a definitive answer. She complained of being very weak and that she couldn’t see! I flipped on the hallway light and when I saw that her eyes were rolling around in her head, we knew she was really sick. Sicker than she had led us to believe.

When we arrived at the ER, we were still convinced that she had some type of flu. The doctor came in and looked at her and said she had an ear infection but her blood pressure was very low. They told us that she was being transferred to the ICU and would probably stay there for about two weeks. Two weeks for an ear infection? Every time we asked what was going on, all they could tell us was they weren’t sure yet. By the time she did get to the ICU, symptoms started to manifest themselves.

The ICU doctor began to unfold what was going on. They needed to intubate her immediately. I explained to her what they were going to do and her last words were, “Okay, Momma.” The intubation was too intolerable for her, so he sedated her.

By 8:00 pm, he approached me with tears in his eyes and I said, “She’s going to die, isn’t she?” And he responded with a nod of his head. By 9:00 pm her heart stopped and she slipped peacefully away with about 30 friends and relatives around her.

God blessed us with 20 years of memories and not a single one will be forgotten. We will see her again when we are reunited once more in heaven.