AN 18-YEAR-OLD Enniskillen woman is well on the pathway to recovery following her diagnosis with an autoimmune condition last Summer.

Caitlin Love spent two and a half months in a medically induced coma in the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast following a health scare that led to the young woman being diagnosed with Anti-NMDA Autoimmune Encephalitis.

Caitlin spoke to the Impartial Reporter following the marking of World Encephalitis Day this Monday, February 22.

Bravely describing her experience of the condition, she said: “The best way to describe it is inflammation of the brain. There is an infection somewhere on your body and it has transferred up to your brain.

“There are loads of different ways that it could have been caused. They still don’t know what mine was [caused by].

“The most common [cause] in young girls is an ovarian tumour; thankfully, I didn’t have that.

“They [the doctors] think I had an infection in my body that could have been lying dormant for a while, and then my body took a reaction to it and it then transferred up to my brain.”

The battle with the condition began in August, as Caitlin explained.

“My A-Level results came out on August 13, and I had a seizure that morning and I was taken to A&E.

“They [the medical professionals] thought it was stress-induced, with the exam results coming out, and didn’t know what was wrong.

“I went home that day and thought everything was fine; I wasn’t really myself for the next couple of days, but didn’t think much of it. I’ve never had seizures previously or anything.”

Caitlin and her family then travelled on holiday, but Caitlin became unwell again, having more fits, so her family travelled home and took her back to A&E.

Her father, Malachy, who works in the health sector, pushed for her to have a further medical examination. She then was transferred to the Royal Victoria Hospital.

She said: “I was transferred to Dr. Craig [at the hospital] and he figured out that I had encephalitis.

“The only way to test for that is that certain blood samples have to be sent to Oxford. They take up to four weeks to come back, but I was seizing all day, every day.

“They put me in a medically-induced coma for my safety, and they had me sedated for nearly two and a half months.

“Four weeks into that, they began a plasma exchange. The next thing I really remember is waking up, and it was Hallowe’en, and fireworks were going off!”

The recovery process for Caitlin began in November at Musgrave Park Hospital. She said: “I had to learn to read and write again, tie shoelaces, and [re-learn] normal stuff, like having a shower.

“I had to remember how to walk, and was just really unsteady on my feet.”

Caitlin returned home to Fermanagh to begin her recovery from home in November. However, recovery was frustrating for the young woman.

“Whenever I was with my occupational therapist, I was given sums to do, like adding the price of a loaf of bread and a pint of milk together – I wasn’t able to do that.

“I was hoping to go to Northumbria University to do a maths degree in September, and there was a frustration of not being able to do it [basic maths].”

Caitlin hopes she will be able to begin university in Newcastle in 2021. She is currently working with the Cedar Foundation to help her get back to education and work.

“It’s going to take weeks and months, not days and weeks, to be back to somewhat normal and somewhat yourself; it takes up to 12 months [to recover from what I’ve gone through].”

Caitlin is now in the process of raising money for the Encephalitis Society to raise awareness of the condition.

She said: “Encephalitis is more common than motor neurone disease, multiple sclerosis, meningitis and cerebral palsy, but 78 per cent of people worldwide don’t know what encephalitis is.”

To donate to Caitlin’s fundraiser, see https://tinyurl.com/hsyygyyd.

The condition was further explored in the 2016 film, Brain On Fire, which can be viewed on Netflix.