Looking much better for her stay and with her appetite back to normal my wife was released from the hospital.

That's the good news. The bad news is that she is suffering from Lupus Nephritis Type 4, an autoimmune condition in which the body's defences attack the kidneys. She's put on 55mg of steroids daily and a visit to the day hospital is scheduled for a week later.

Over the next few days her mental health deteriorated. It started with her either not remembering what she had said or repeating herself. She was finding it difficult to sleep and soon lost track of time, getting out of bed in the middle of the night to undertake household chores. At one point she was convinced there were people in the house and asked why I had invited them, although there was no one of course. On another occasion she imagined a jigsaw puzzle was the picture of me with our first daughter who had died in 1998. She believed our two younger children belonged to her sister. Much of how she felt at the time became apparent only after her recovery but at the time she thought she was going to die.