STORY OF DAISI

"This story about Daisi Pollard is disturbing, brutally honest and it is a powerful combination of things to fathom and comprehend." ~ Dawn Wolf, Keeper of Stories 


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February 2013 KickAss Woman of the Month

  Daisi Pollard Sepulveda-Low

If you are a loyal reader of KickAssWomen.com you will notice that this month’s KickAss Woman of the Month is not a fitness competitor or fitness model. However Daisi has kicked ass somewhere else besides the gym. She kicked meningitis’ ass in the hospital! I have gotten to know Daisi very well over the recent months and can tell you she is a great woman and true inspiration. I hope that you all can support Daisi as she is our first model to have an exclusive KickAssWomen.com photoset for sale with 100% of the proceeds going to her. It’s a new way we are supporting our favorite women and I know after reading Daisi’s story you will want to support her! – jd

Most of the women on this site are kicking ass in the gym, sports or on stage. You kicked meningitis’ ass. How does an LA actress and model get meningitis?

Wow, I am about to drop a bombshell but I believe it is for a good cause and will send an important message! I have never told my story in its entirety before. I was never as ready as I am now. I am in a good place emotionally to talk about this on such an open forum so here goes. I’ve always been very vague about the details surrounding my contraction of meningitis. I’ve kept my medical history rather private between my close family members because I know how assumptions are made, people get judgmental and there arises nasty stigmas. I believe as President of a national organization such as Meningitis Foundation of America, I have been gifted the opportunity to really touch people and educate them beyond the stereotypes of what we perceive to be true about illnesses such as meningitis.

I contracted meningitis in the summer of 2006. It was the week before Memorial Day Weekend. I had just turned 26. My ex-fiancé had just proposed to me on a romantic gondola ride Long Beach. We had a wonderful weekend and then I woke up with a blister on my labia and terribly enlarged lymph nodes in my armpits and groin. I had contracted an STD- Herpes to be exact. I immediately called my physician to schedule an appointment although I knew exactly what it was. I just wasn’t sure how bad it was going to be being I had never contracted an STD before. I definitely was not thinking it would end up turning into meningitis.

I confronted my fiancé about it. Of course, I was angry. He denied having herpes but I insisted he get checked. Upon my examination, my doctor had concluded that I had contracted the virus within the past 10 days and I was having an initial outbreak. She informed me that this was probably going to be the worst outbreak I would ever have provided I didn’t reinfect myself on another area of my body. She gave me a prescription for Valtrex and pain reliever; then suggested I rest for a few days. With my health in jeopardy and my relationship in shambles, a very supportive friend who also managed my insurances suggested I take a trip to San Diego to de-stress a little. I felt up to the trip being as I wouldn’t have to move around too much. I drove to San Diego and enjoyed a show at Sea World and lunch at a near by restaurant. I was in good spirits knowing that I had good friends that were there to help me through this tough time.

On my drive home is when everything changed. While driving on the 5 Freeway, I started getting a terrible migraine and my vision started to become blurry. My body started to get really sore and stiff. I got nauseous and pulled over to the side of the freeway. I vomited, cleaned myself up and tried to keep going. At some point I reached around to touch the back of my neck and found that I had a bump which felt like a blister. That is when I began freaking out! My inner voice said, ” How the hell does a herpes blister get in the back of my head?” I panicked all the way back to LA. To this day I don’t quite know how I made it home safely. That night was living HELL. I repetitively threw up all over my house. My fiance was still living with me at the time, we hadn’t completely split yet. I asked him to take me to the emergency room. The doctors examined me. They thought I was just having a worse than typical outbreak. They prescribed a stronger ibuprofen and sent me home. Through the day my symptoms worsened. I couldn’t keep any food down. I had diarrhea and vomiting. Everything was in pain and blurry. My temperature was increasing. My headache was worsening to the point of tears. That night I was in a cold sweat. I got out of bed and walked to the kitchen, vomited in the sink until I was vomiting blood. I was crying so much. I tried to make it to the bathroom. I went to sit on the toilet to catch my bearings. When I got urge to vomit again, I passed out and hit the side of my bathroom sink. My body must have skid on the floor. The thump was so loud; it woke up my fiancé. He picked me up and rushed me back to the emergency room. I was bloody, smelly with vomit, emaciated and probably on deaths door.

It took the doctors in the emergency room hours to diagnose me. They gave me catscans, mri’s, blood tests and everything under the sun. I didn’t fit the circumstances of a meningitis victim. I wasn’t an infant, wasn’t living in a dorm or in school. I hadn’t been exposed directly to someone that had meningitis as far as they could tell. It wasn’t until 12 hours later that the emergency room doctor that was attending to me recognized symptoms that would classify as meningitis. The give away? I was almost blind, I couldn’t stand any kind of noise and I couldn’t turn my neck left, right, touch it to my chest or extend it backwards. I’ll save you the graphics of what happened next but I given a epidural and a spinal tap which confirmed meningitis. I was of course, admitted into the hospital. Thanks to them, I am here today!

It is a very dangerous situation you were in. How did you beat it?

I didn’t know anything about meningitis. I had never heard the word. While I was sick, I didn’t know how bad it was or how bad it could have been. I think what largely saved my life was my naivety. I knew it was pretty serious for them to qurantine me and assign me a neurologist and infectious disease specialist. While in the hospital, I had a good talk with myself about how I ended up here. I made a few promises to myself. One, that I would be leaving this hospital alive and two that no matter how bad it was when I left, I would not give up. I would not fail myself again. The day I was released from the hospital, I began working on putting myself back together. I broke it off with the fiancé, Signed up with a therapist that was recommended by a close friend, made a list of things I still liked about myself and a separate list of all the things I had the ability to change. I began to execute that list. The first thing was my self-esteem. I had two things to deal with: the stereotype of having an STD (Herpes) and a disease that no one had rarely heard of, meningitis. I felt like a walking plague. It took a long time for me to get over this. Sometimes, that feeling still creeps up on me. - Story of...