philip smith

One morning about 8 years ago I woke up a different person, I had much to live for as I was expecting a new son & had just moved into a nice large council house’ this is very relevant to the story as it shows I was not down or depressed at the time, life was good.

I went to bed feeling really good after spending the summer afternoon & early evening gardening, the next day was a nightmare. I felt so unwell that I could not even crawl without falling over, it was an illness that I wouldn’t wish on anybody

I had no balance, double vision, vertigo, blurred vision, tingling, altered perception of my body & the world around me, involuntary moments & spasms. I suffered with this for just over three weeks & I lost 2 stone in weight’ after which I could not walk unaided for two months & had prisms fitted to my glasses to correct my vision.

Now you would think that my local health authority would have been really caring & helpful, how wrong could you be? I had two doctors call on me while my girlfriend struggled with me, the house & our children, they did nothing apart from giving me pills to stop my being constantly sick!

After the initial three weeks of my illness I started to move around again with the constant support of my family, my main problems were balance, perception & dehydration. Over the next two month period I would get relapses, one of these was severe enough to warrant calling out a doctor. He said that what ever had struck me down had rewired my brain’ & to seek medical advice as soon as I was able.

Now my own doctor was as much use as a chocolate teapot! You would never guess in a million years what she diagnosed me with? Only Labyrinthitis the Silly cow, now this condition gave me many relapses & I was finally referred to see a neurologist, one of many I might add. When I went back to see my chocolate doctor about her diagnoses of Labyrinthitis I was meet with an aggressive defensive attitude, & she even tried to say that it was not her but a stand in doctor!