MOSQUITO bites are annoying, but for Dylan Meyer they have been life-altering.
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The 22 year-old has spent more than four months on life support this year and been left with an acquired brain injury all because of a mozzie attack.
The Thurgoona heavy diesel mechanical apprentice was diagnosed with Japanese encephalitis, Murray Valley encephalitis and auto immune encephalitis after a camping weekend in March.
Referring to the Murray Valley virus on its own, Mr Meyer said: "I'm one of two to survive this thing, so the odds were very much against me.
"I don't do these things half-arsed."
Indeed mum Debra Meyer-Saunders and stepdad Brendan Saunders can testify to the trauma involved, with two nerve-wracking flights to Melbourne for hospital stays in addition to months in the intensive care unit in Albury hospital.
"It hasn't been easy," Mrs Meyer-Saunders, a full-time business student, said.
"Everybody keeps saying that I'm strong but there's a big difference between strong and pushing every boundary you could find and I'm one very determined mother."
That resolve was needed initially because it was more than a month after Mr Meyer's Victorian Labour Day weekend camping trip with a mate to the police paddocks along the Murray River near Rutherglen that his encephalitis triple whammy was diagnosed.
"He was put in isolation because they didn't know what they were treating, a lot of the discussion was sepsis and hepatitis and they were asking me where he's been, what he's done," Mrs Meyer-Saunders said.
That followed Mr Meyer being admitted to Wodonga hospital after his mother's alarm was triggered by him reporting constant migraines, vomiting and then vertigo.
Two days later, on March 19, as the brain infections took hold a deteriorating Mr Meyer was taken to Albury hospital.
"He wasn't very coherent, he didn't understand where he was," Mrs Meyer-Saunders said.
By 6pm that Sunday Mr Meyer was on life support and he remained ventilated until late July.
"Dylan was on it for so long, it made it harder for him to come off because his diaphragm muscles were all weak," Mrs Meyer-Saunders said.
"Normal people other than him, we can breathe on our own and our muscles are doing all the work for us, his muscles stopped working, his body was shutting down, as much as I hate to admit it, he was shutting down."
It was only in April, that test results determined Mr Meyer had encephalitis and then followed months of further assessment, various drugs, scans, body tremors and fears.
At one point, his parents were warned he might not survive the night.
Remarkably though he was able to have oxygen levels in his brain lift to a point deemed safe to remove him from life support, with doctors saying he had been added by being a healthy young man.
Nevertheless, Mr Meyer then spent eight weeks in Wodonga hospital doing rehab before finally being discharged on September 5.
He is now doing daily sessions with the South West Brain Injury Rehabilitation Service in Lavington with a focus on speech, physiotherapy and occupational therapy.
Motivating the fourth year apprentice is the chance to return to his job with Toyota Material Handling and service a forklift.
"I'm determined to get stronger and get back to work," Mr Meyer said.
"That's my one goal to get under that forklift, that's what I do in life, get under them.
"It'll do me a world of good."
Cognitive testing will determine when Mr Meyer will return, with his brain injury affecting his front temporal lobe which governs memory and understanding.
For Mr Saunders it is gobsmacking that some bites on an exposed leg can be so dire.
"All the years of me going camping, I never thought a mosquito could cause so much damage and just change everyone's life," Mr Saunders said.
He is doing extra shifts at the Woolworths distribution hub at Barnawartha North to cover costs, which include a $2000 outlay just for accommodation in Melbourne.
The family is telling their story ahead of the peak mosquito season to alert others to be wary.
"If we can save one or two lives this summer break that's an achievement for us," Mrs Meyer-Saunders said before Mr Meyer added: "It means I've done something right."
Mrs Meyer-Saunders opined: "There's not enough of a campaign out there for Japanese encephalitis and mosquito-borne viruses.
"If you get bitten by a mozzie it's not guarantee it's JEV it could be Ross River fever, it could be anything else, but with JEV there's a lot events that can follow and you don't realise how bad things are going to get.
"Everything snowballs and I don't want someone to be down the same road as we have been.
"If we can save one person from the trauma we've been through it will be good."
