This mom brushed of her flu as a seasonal illness — 72 hours, she received a heartbreaking diagnosis and ‘forgot’ how to walk
A mild illness can sometimes hide something far more serious. In March 2024, Vicki Purdey, a 37-year-old mother, began feeling unwell with what she believed was a simple seasonal flu. She had a fever, severe headaches, aching muscles, and sensitivity to light. As reported by SWNS on February 16, 2026, she assumed the symptoms would pass in a few days. Instead, within 72 hours, her condition worsened drastically, and her life changed in ways she never expected.
Vicki Purdey from Wimborne, Dorset, was taken to Poole Hospital on April 1, 2024, after her symptoms escalated to vomiting and slurred speech. A lumbar puncture confirmed she had viral meningitis. “Never did I think it would be meningitis,” she told the outlet. After a week in the hospital, she was discharged but returned on April 15, 2024, with recurrent meningitis. By then, she had “completely forgotten how to walk.” Doctors later diagnosed her with functional neurological disorder (FND), triggered by the infection disrupting signals between her brain and body.
Vicki recalled how it began. “I was fit and well and at the height of my life,” she said. “So when I first started feeling unwell, I thought it was just the flu.” She believed she may have been exposed while sitting in the ER with her six-year-old son, Freddie, who had been sick days earlier. “It seemed like the only place where I would have been exposed,” she explained. Three days after her symptoms began, her mother, Julie, 75, noticed she was vomiting and struggling to speak during a phone call and called an ambulance.
At the hospital, Vicki was treated urgently as her body began shutting down. “When I heard meningitis, the words hit me like a train,” she said. During her stay, she noticed worrying signs. “I remember walking to the loo, and I just lost the coordination to walk,” she said. Doctors first thought weakness from bed rest was to blame. She also developed short-term memory loss and once failed to recognize her neighbor, which frightened her family.
After her second discharge, doctors told her mobility might return within weeks. Two years later, she still relies heavily on a wheelchair. “I essentially lost sensation from the waist down, and my independence took a severe hit,” she said. “I was virtually housebound for a year.” Once an active woman who loved hiking with her husband Ian, 39, she now attends physiotherapy regularly and manages brain fog and frequent eye spasms treated with Botox.
In November 2024, the charity Meningitis Now helped fund an electric wheelchair, which she says allows her to “now be a mum again” to her children, Lara and Freddie. She continues to experience flare-ups and must relearn movements at times. “FND has impacted my ability to coordinate and walk, and it needs more awareness,” she said. Though recovery remains uncertain, she hopes sharing her story reminds others to take symptoms seriously and understand they are not alone.