I've Given A Name To My Pain, Bob

. . . and it is (or was) viral meningitis.

It usually goes away in 7-10 days. I guess I had a more severe form of it, since it stuck around for nearly a month. But at least I didn't have one of those super severe forms that cause life-long damage.

Since everyone knows I love to ramble about stuff, here's the lowdown on viral meningitis.

You have membranes and fluid in your body that surrounds and partly protects your brain and spinal cord--the part the doctors call the "central" nervous system. When any of those membranes become inflamed, it's called meningitis. Lots of things can make it do this--bacteria, parasites, fungus--but it's usually a virus.

Now any virus will do. It just has to get through the rest of your body and into that membrane and fluid and start doing its thing. So the symptoms can be widely different depending on what the virus was and how strong a presence it has. Usually all you get is fever and some dizziness. In my case, I got numbness and a couple of rather ungraceful falls. Which beats the worst case scenarios, which as you can probably guess are along the lines of strokes and seizures.

Is it contagious? Sort of. Remember, it's a virus. So it's just the virus that's transmitted. So you can get the virus, but that doesn't necessarily mean the virus will find it's way to your central nervous system.

Anyways, I'm glad it's over, and I'm glad to be starting a new year. We'll see what eventful stuff the new year brings.

Including (maybe?) me, back to this blog.