Sarah Konoski

And I said, no, no, no, it's all good.

We've actually had the water changed over.

And he said, no, no, look at all the algae and, yeah.

So very clever man.

But, of course, me being me and a bit silly and knowing also that perhaps I could hold my breath for long enough to get the take, maybe even longer, I'll, you know, just show off a little bit.

Yeah, I went under and some of the water from that pond went up.

into my nasal cavity as water does, you know, when you're swimming and holding your breath for a couple of minutes.

And we got the shot, but I got quite sick about a week later.

And I should say it's speculative that it was the NGV wishing pond because they can't really trace meningitis.

You know, I was also at the time swimming at the swimming pool every day and doing laps underwater there.

So...

Yeah, I was just violently vomiting and became very sensitive to light, very sort of sore, stiff neck, just classic symptoms.

So yeah, I spent a couple of days in hospital and then came home and slowly recovered.

And within a couple of weeks, I was like, oh, you know what?

Maybe I can go back to the pool.

So I tried it out and it was horrendous.

Like I realised that I would possibly be living with the after effects of viral meningitis for some time.

It felt like a relapse, like the neck became very stiff again, the light sensitivity.

It became apparent that, as with long COVID or some post-viral complications, that you can't just return to your normal way of being.

I couldn't swim every day anymore.