A mum-of-two who went to bed after feeling under the weather woke up two weeks later with 20 years wiped from her memory.
Claire Muffet-Reece, 43, started to suffer from "cold-like symptoms" in March 2021 after picking up a virus from her son, Max, and decided to rest up.
But when her hubby Scott tried to wake her up the following morning, she remained unconscious.
Telling their story on Steph's Packed Lunch, Scott recalled: "She was getting more and more lethargic and she went to bed the night before Father’s Day and in the morning I couldn’t wake her up."
The terrified husband called an ambulance and Claire was rushed to the Royal London Hospital. Once she arrived, she had several seizures and was put on a ventilator for a week.
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Claire, a freelance journalist, was put into an induced coma in the hope her body would start to heal - and thankfully, she woke up 16 days later.
But although she was conscious, the mum wasn't the same - and couldn't remember the most basic facts about her own life.
Claire, from Braintree in Essex, said: I could remember the faces of my family but I was asking about our cats - one of which had been put to sleep a couple of weeks earlier and another three years before."
Although she recognised Scott, she couldn't remember his proposal, their wedding day or the birth of their children.
“I couldn’t remember holidays or anything like that. I couldn’t remember 9/11, Covid or lockdown," she said.
Although the mum joked that "fortunately" she'd forgotten about homeschooling the kids.
Scott recalled the horror of seeing his wife in a coma - with no idea of what was wrong with her.
"Initially I thought she had suffered a stroke and when they first took her into hospital they thought it was a bleed to the brain but that was ruled out," he said.
"For the first week they didn’t know what was going on."
Eventually Claire was diagnosed with a virus called encephalitis that had attacked her brain - and Scott was relieved when his wife woke up.
However, he described the heartbreak of realising she couldn't remember the last 20 years of her life.
He said: "She was talking about dead family members in the present tense and I had to break the news they weren’t alive.
"I had to sit down and tell her who had died and she grieved a second time.
"The most important thing is having her around and we are trying to make new memories, by watching films and looking and pictures to see if memories ping back or so she can relive it again."
Recalling the moment she opened her eyes, Claire said she was hallucinating - and even began telling people Phil Collins was her cousin.
She also thought the ceiling above her hospital bed was infested with wasps.
Claire has spent the last year in recovery at home with Scott and the boys, but her memory is still in tatters.
"I can myself in photographs but have no memory of ever being there," she explained, adding that people often ask her if she can remember them.
She said her neurologist has told her she should have been able to remember things by now - but the memories haven't come.
"It’s really made me focus on the future and if I can’t get memories back I will make new ones," she said.
Have you ever suffered from encephalitis? Send your stories to jessica.taylor@reachplc.com
Claire also has a tough time with her short term memory and has had to give up driving as she recovers from encephalitis.
She said: “Its just as serious as meningitis but people don’t know about it.”
Despite having their lives turned upside down, Claire and Scott try to see the funny side - with Scott joking he'll wrap up Claire's expensive handbags and "re-gift" them to her to look like "the best husband in the world."
