JUST over a year ago, Sarah Hill had a promising career ahead of her as a ward councillor, housing spokesman for the Labour Group and a youth worker in Pendle.

In August 1998, she took a group of young people to France for 10 days, with one week in the Alps, as part of a youth exchange.

During the trip Sarah, 43, was bitten near her right eye by a tick or mosquito. She started to feel tired and ill but put it down to the stress of the trip and the death of her mother shortly before the trip.

Forty-eight hours after arriving back in Colne, she collapsed at work with terrible head pains and became paralysed down her right side, believing it was a stroke.

Sarah was allowed home after a two-day stay in Burnley General Hospital but was later diagnosed with encephalitis by a consultant neurologist.

Within one week her life was turned upside down. She later resigned from the council and was off work for six months.

She said: "I had very serious head pains for about six weeks and when I initially came out of hospital I was like an old lady.

"I felt as if somebody had taken my brain and kicked it around like a football and put it back in again. I also knew it was going to take years to get over it and that it was a turning point in my life.

"That is when I resigned from the council, which was a very difficult thing to do. "I suffered loss of balance and coordination, memory loss, vertigo, light sensitivity, my eye sight deteriorated and I was very week down the side which had been paralysed, although the feeling had come back after two or three days.

"I was very lucky because some people go into a coma or even die. I have been having neuropsychological assessments which have confirmed substantial brain damage."

Sarah, ward councillor for Horsfield, Colne, went back to work in January but still has a problem with her short term memory.

She has difficulty remembering numbers and faces and cannot remember new information.

She said: "It has been very frustrating and I get very angry sometimes. I get very depressed because I can't do what I used to do.

"It's a case of accepting it and finding strategies to deal with it. I am having to rebuild my life in a non-stressful way. "You can't explain how different you feel. It changes your personality completely and my staff say I'm not as much fun as I used to be.

"I am much more withdrawn and I do have mood swings but since I got in touch with the Encephalitis Support Group I know someone else knows what I am going through.

"Any kind of virus or stress can trigger it off again and it can return like glandular fever. You don't know from one day to the next.

"I'd love to go back in to council but at the moment it's enough just to cope with work and life generally."

Sufferers like Sarah aim to educate people and to get the medical profession to take another look at understanding what encephalitis is about.

The Encephalitis Support helpline is on 01653 699599.

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