After two years away without posting to this blog, this will become a catchup post and I hope I still have some subscribers.

The cause of the pause

In mid-2023 I became ill and had little enthusiasm for anything much, so much so that the SOTA activations at the end of 2022 described earlier in the blog were my only recent activations for some time. After many tests to see what was going wrong, with no outcome resembling a diagnosis or cure, I started finding that I had what my wife called brain seizures. These became progressively more serious from May 2023 and by September I had experienced more of them. On medical advice I stopped driving my car and was driven everywhere by my wife. Eventually this let to an accident at home which resulted in hospitalisation and some concentrated attention to my condition. A diagnosis of autoimmune encephalitis evolved over the next few weeks and eventually medication was used to control seizures and handle the underlying cause.

Encephalitis causes seizures, in which control of the body is unreliable, resulting in loss of balance, judgement, ability to control a motor vehicle, outbursts of emotion, erratic behaviour.

Monthly infusions of immunoglobulin were prescribed and this together with anti-seizure medication have controlled the condition since then. In June 2024 I satisfied the state licensing authority that I could safely be reissued a driving licence, which has made a lot of difference to my enjoyment of life. While without a driving licence I have been walking or using the bus service in Canberra.

Impact on radio activity

As can be imagined, during the licence free period, this meant none of my previous activity like driving off to summits, close or distant from home. I did get offers of help with this and I am grateful to my friend Andrew VK1AD for his help in getting some activations achieved in the period when I could not drive myself, basically July 2023 to June 2024.

Since resuming my own driving in mid 2024 I have been free to go and activate summits, usually by driving to the base of summits and walking up from there.

Prognosis

As I have been assessed positively by both my general practitioner and my neurologist, with good indications so far, I have hopes that eventually I will not need the continued medication.

I don’t know what triggered this disease in my case. There were minimal apparent causes and the usual sources of medical advice seem somewhat vague as to how this disease is triggered. One possibility is an infection from contaminated food. A different form of encephalitis is caused by mosquitoes of a specific type and occurs in specific parts of the world, none of which I have been in.

This kind of event can be life threatening and I count myself very fortunate that I have been able to resume normal life, continue family life and enjoy seeing and interacting with my children and their children. Going through an experience like this is very shocking and especially when reading how serious a disease like this can be.

However, all things being equal, I can now look forward to continuing in the usual activities and interacting with family and friends as before.

I thank my close family and friends who have helped and supported me during this time of extreme need.