My daughter doesn’t recognise me
When Louise Read’s daughter Hannah survived a deadly virus, she thought her troubles were over – but they were only just starting…
When my daughter Hannah was little, the best part of my day was picking her up from nursery.
The look of excitement that spread across her face when she spotted me among the parents at the school gates made my heart sing.
It’s a memory I treasure all the more now because in August 2006, when Hannah was eight years old, we went away on holiday and everything changed.
The first day of our family holiday to Gran Canaria, I lay in the shade with our baby daughter, Elle, while my husband Andy splashed about in the hotel pool with Hannah.
I was six months pregnant with our third daughter, Mia, so it was lovely to relax.
On the second day, Hannah complained of a headache. She did seem unwell, so we called a local doctor , who put it down to a stomach bug and prescribed antibiotics.
That evening, our friends were arriving and Hannah was excited to see them.
But the next morning, she started acting oddly. She asked me to take her to the loo, but when we got there she asked, ‘Mummy, what are we doing here?’
We called the doctor again. This time, he sent us to the local hospital. They put it down to dehydration and sent us away with rehydration sachets.
But back at the hotel she became unresponsive and floppy. Andy scooped her up and raced back to the hospital, while I stayed with Elle.
When Andy called, he sounded distressed. Hannah had had a seizure and was being transferred to a bigger hospital 50 miles away. I left Elle with our friends and ran to be with my daughter.
When I arrived, Hannah was barely conscious. A doctor told me to ask her what her name was.
‘Arianna,’ she mumbled. We didn’t know anyone with that name.
It was a terrifying time. A foreign hospital, and we didn’t speak the language. There were scans and tests.
Eventually, it was decided Hannah had encephalitis, a swelling of the brain.
She was transferred to the intensive care unit, where she lay in a coma for four days, kept alive by machines. All I could do was whisper in her ear that everything would be OK. I had no idea if she could hear me, or even if it was true.
When she finally came round, she couldn’t talk. There was no recognition in her beautiful blue eyes.
Hannah loved musicals, so we played a CD of Mary
Poppins songs. Amazingly, she started singing A Spoonful Of Sugar.
For three weeks, I stayed with Hannah 24/7. It was like looking after a newborn. She was helpless.
When she was well enough, we flew to Southampton General Hospital.
That’s when we first understood the extent of Hannah’s brain damage.
My dad, John, came to visit. ‘ Who’s that?’ Hannah asked. ‘Granddad,’ I said. She looked at me blankly.
Then a nurse put a plaster on Hannah’s arm, saying, ‘Look, it has elephants on.’
‘ What’s an elephant?’ Hannah asked.
The doctors explained that Hannah had an ‘acquired brain injury’ and they couldn’t predict what her future was likely to be.
Desperate for answers, I contacted the Encephalitis Society. It was the first time we heard the term prosopagnosia – it means face blindness.
The society put us in touch with Bournemouth University, which has a research centre that specialises in face recognition. Hannah’s was the worst case of prosopagnosia they’d ever seen.
As well as faces, Hannah can’t recognise objects, from food on her plate to animals.
In the November, she went back to school.
It was heartbreaking. Hannah had been very academic, but now she didn’t know what a pencil case was.
Picking her up at the school gates was scary. She could so easily walk right past me. I was terrified she might get lost, or walk off with a complete stranger.
Saddest of all, Hannah lost all her friends. Before, she had been into fashion and music, but now she had nothing in common with them.
And her behaviour could be confusing – she’d take all her clothes off for no reason or hide in a cupboard.
In the end, we moved Hannah to a small private school near our home in Dorset. There, she thrived and made new friends. And we found ways to cope. Hannah memorised our car number plate so at home time she could wait by our car.
When we went anywhere crowded, I was more worried about losing Hannah than her toddler sisters. We bought a bright red buggy so she could keep track of us.
When she turned 10, we bought her a mobile phone. If she loses us in a crowd she can call us, and she uses Google maps to find her way around.
Over the years, Hannah has developed an amazing ability to recognise family and friends by the sound of our voices.
She’s never let her condition hold her back. At 17, she trained to be a nursery nurse, and she sings at weddings. She even entered Britain’s
Got Talent, but refused to reveal her condition because she wanted to be judged solely on her talent.
Hannah made a documentary on children’s BBC to raise awareness. A while after, we got a call from author Louise Jensen, who said the documentary inspired her latest novel, a thriller called The Date, where the main character suffers from face blindness. Hannah was delighted.
Hannah’s 19 now. Despite everything, she has blossomed into a beautiful young woman, and we are so proud of her.
‘I was terrified she might walk off with a stranger’