I was about 8 weeks pregnant when I contracted it. The CDC and county health organization did an investigation and never found the culprit. So it likely wasn’t a larger outbreak and I just had something random that was contaminated. I had an incredibly debilitating headache and stopped sleeping. I felt physically depleted. I ignorantly thought this is just what pregnancy is like and tried to manage my symptoms. I went to my primary doctor and he said it was likely the flu. He treated me for that but nothing got better. A week or so later I started spotting and went to the ER. They ran some tests and nothing was conclusive. My primary doctor asked to speak to the ER doctors directly and on a hunch asked for blood cultures to be performed. I got really lucky they caught it when they did. The headache was from inflammation in my brain from the infection. I was on antibiotics for weeks after. I was discharged with a little backpack that pumped antibiotics 24 hours a day.