Ana shares the story of her partner’s experience of autoimmune encephalitis at the My Brain: My Story: My Family event in Newcastle October 2024.

In April 2022, her partner, Jesus, began experiencing short-term memory loss and became increasingly disoriented over the course of a couple of weeks. Instead of visiting their families as planned, they had to get him hospitalized as he did not realize the severity of his symptoms. Thankfully, the diagnosis and treatment were relatively fast, and he was diagnosed with autoimmune encephalitis.

Ana says: This marked the beginning of a challenging period in our lives. I found the Encephalitis International early on in our journey, which provided me with a wealth of trustworthy materials and information on how to support him during his recovery.

Reading about other people’s experiences with encephalitis helped me gain awareness of the impact of this condition and helped me put things in perspective.

I have been a volunteer with Encephalitis International ever since, sharing our story and information about encephalitis whenever I have the opportunity. By sharing our story at the My Brain : My Story : My Family conference, I hope to help others feel as understood and reassured as I did two years ago, when I first discovered Encephalitis International.