By Luke Voogt
Imagine waking up deaf – Belmont mum and meningococcal survivor Renee D’Offay experienced that firsthand on a Sunday morning in 2002.
“I woke up unable to hear myself speaking,” the 34-year-old said. “It’s almost like I was standing on the outside looking in.”
Renee relived the experience as she urged teenagers to get vaccinated for meningococcal.
“There’s absolutely no harm in having every single (vaccination) to prevent your friends, kids and babies from getting sick,” she said.
The State Government expanded its vaccination program to target year 10 students last week, after eight cases of meningococcal in Victoria so far this year.
Renee said nothing could have prepared her for her brief but near-deadly encounter with the disease, which left her naturally deaf.
The then-19-year-old apprentice hairdresser had virus-like symptoms including headache, stomach pain and aching joints on Friday night, and her mum took her to a clinic on Saturday.
“It’s certainly a blurry time,” she said.
The doctor ran tests and advised the family to keep an eye on her but her symptoms progressively worsened over the weekend.
“The Sunday morning was when I woke up and I couldn’t hear,” she said.
“I felt empathy for my mum and my sister because I could tell how upset they were. I just had their concerned facial expressions to look at.”
Her family rushed her to the ER after calling the doctor.
“It wasn’t until the Sunday evening I got the diagnosis,” she said.
Renee communicated via a whiteboard as she recovered, until she received a cochlear ear implant which returned her hearing three months later.
She has since written a book, Time to Soar: When Loss Becomes New Beginnings, and campaigns for meningococcal vaccination and awareness.
“I could never have prepared for the challenge and change I experienced,” she said.
