Meningitis is a word that frightens every parent. Basically, it's an inflammation of the membrane surrounding the brain and spinal cord. In most cases, it is caused by a viral infection, but it can also be brought on by a bacterial infection. Meningitis can improve without treatment but it can also be life-threatening, requiring urgent and intense treatment, it can have a devastating effect on the lives of those who survive it and on their families. 

This is Sam's Story; one mother trying to help her son cope  with his illness.

An attractive woman in her late forties, Samantha was sitting waiting for me when I arrived for our prearranged interview.

She had carefully chosen a table far enough away from the other expats who were enjoying a late afternoon drink outside Bar Rio in the village of Benamargosa. Sam is a private person, our interview had been somewhat foisted on her at the suggestion of a mutual friend. Initially shy and reserved but when I asked her about her son, Kainan, she spoke intensely and lovingly but also sadly.

Kainan is twenty-eight; he was a one-year-old baby when Sam and he moved to Spain from the UK all those years ago. Sam was and still is a free thinker and a free spirit; she smiled as she remembered the Journey travelling in an old Bedford van to escape Thatcher's Britain, a Britain that was no longer as tolerant of the nomadic lifestyle of the travelling seasonal farm-worker. Travelling through France, she moved from village to village stopping wherever and whenever she could find work.

Like so many of her contemporaries during the early nineties, she was attracted to Spain and settled in the countryside around the tiny village of Benamargosa. Working hard at labouring jobs, she took on any employment that came her way. Sam can turn her hand at anything; gardening, farm labouring, cleaning, even construction. She built a home for herself, her partner, Kainan and his new baby brother Arran.

The years passed, some good some hard, her partner passed away leaving her on her own to care for her two teenage sons.

In 2002 Kainan moved back to Summerset in England to find work in the construction industry, he met a girl, found a job and was enjoying life like any other fun-loving twenty-seven-year-old young man.

Sam and Arran missed having him around but were nevertheless happy for him.

Their happiness was shattered the night in September 2017 that Sam received the phone call telling her that Kainan was in a hospital and had been diagnosed with bacterial meningitis. He had been ill for a few days, suffering from fatigue, loss of vision, stomach and joint pain, he went to his doctor and was hospitalised.

Sam immediately flew from Malaga to Bristol and found a totally changed Kainan. The inflammation of the membranes surrounding Kainan's brain caused him to suffer severe cognitive impairment. His speech, balance and short-term memory have all been affected, while he can remember things from years ago, he can't remember yesterday.

Sam worries about Kainan, "what hurts the most," she told me, "is knowing that because of the memory problems he simply can't remember yesterday — he doesn't remember the names or faces of the staff that cared for him yesterday or even where he is. Every day he wakes up in what to him is a strange and new place, so really he is very lost and alone. It would be different if we had family in England that he remembers but we don't. We have no one."

"The only memories Kainan has are of Spain, Arran and I and the life he led before he got sick. I'd love to be able to visit him more often — but I just can't." She said.

Kainan is currently housed in the Frenchay Brain Injury Rehabilitation Centre near Bristol, Sam, of course, has visited him there but she has been told that he may soon be moved — to where she doesn't know.

Sam explained her Catch-22 situation; she can't move back to England as she wouldn't qualify for social housing or be able to find work, "At least in Spain, I have somewhere to live and can eke out a living." She Said. "But if I were to go back to the UK I'd be homeless."

Together with the brain injury, Kainan also has a much-reduced mobility and balance; he requires constant trained medical supervision and help. Sam admits that it will be a long time — if ever — before he could be moved to Spain where she could care for him, this, however, doesn't stop her from hoping and trying to alter her home to cater for him if that event ever is allowed to happen, but at the moment the doctors all say no.

As Sam showed me pictures of Kainan on her mobile phone and told me about the fun-loving disposition he once had I could see her eyes light up briefly only then to again be replaced by sadness; the sadness of a worried mother who can't care for her son.

Sam and Arran have been trying to visit Kainan every three months or so, they need to. However it's becoming more and more difficult and expensive — the whole situation, finding Kainan in a coma, the change in him, the worry and stress and not being able to visit her son has left Sam desperate; that's why they are asking for help.