When TikToker Ally (@allyrooker) was a child, she survived meningitis, and now, she’s talking about the importance of vaccines and disease prevention.
“I survived meningitis as a child, and I do not often talk about it because it was pretty traumatic,” said Ally.
“But the U.S. government has just taken the meningococcal vaccine off of the recommended childhood vaccine schedule, so I am going to tell you what it was like to be a child who survived meningitis.”
When she was 10 years old, and her sister was eight, they were on a family road trip, driving back home to Michigan after visiting their grandparents in Arkansas.
All of a sudden, they both started to get really sick. They vomited uncontrollably and were not able to make it home to Michigan. They had to stay at a hotel in Indiana.
Ally remembers puking all night long and having extremely bad headaches and neck aches. As soon as they got home, their parents took them to the emergency room. They were told that they just had the flu, so they went home.
Luckily, their neighbor, Tim, was a hospital administrator, so their mom asked him to come over and take a look at Ally and her sister.
After observing them for just two minutes, he immediately got on the phone with the hospital and instructed them to admit the two girls.
They were taken to an isolation unit and given spinal taps to receive a diagnosis. It turned out that they had meningitis, a dangerous inflammation of the membranes surrounding the brain and spinal cord.
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It is incredibly serious and requires immediate medical treatment. According to Ally, some types are fatal if doctors do not intervene right away.
Ally and her sister had one of the types that was not quickly fatal. They spent four days in the hospital getting scans and assessments done.
Ally’s case progressed to encephalitis, a serious inflammation of the brain.
During the week she was in the hospital, her 10-year-old brain and personality seemingly changed overnight. She became rude and mean.
She stopped socializing with her friends. She was in therapy for a year and kept a journal to express her thoughts. Not only did getting meningitis affect her physically, but it also had a negative impact on her mental health.
Now, Ally is 30 years old and doesn’t remember anything about fifth grade, except for being depressed. It took a long time for her to feel like herself again.
She has a master’s degree in public health and is encouraging parents to get their children the meningococcal vaccine so that they never have to experience a preventable, debilitating disease.
“I would never, ever, ever want a child to go through what I went through, surviving meningitis,” said Ally. “It changed my childhood. It erased part of my childhood. I don’t remember a huge chunk of my childhood.”
“The reason your child does not get polio, and measles, and meningitis is not because we solved a problem and we never have to think about it again. It is because we have prevented a problem, and the prevention requires continued effort….”
“It requires vaccination. It’s safe and effective. Do not let your child get meningitis that could have been prevented by a safe and effective vaccination.”
By Emily Chan
Emily Chan is a writer who covers lifestyle and news content. She graduated from Michigan State University with a degree in... More about Emily Chan
