John's viral meningitis and hospitalisation (2014)
story · status: told 12× · last event: retold (2025-08-12)
In early August 2014 John caught viral meningitis, was hospitalised and missed a video; Hank told viewers, and John made his next video still in pain. He returned to the illness for years after, recalling the fear and pain, his friend Chris's joke and Bill Gates's get-well orchid.
Told alongside: John: make a bunch of videos from his East Africa trip with Bill Gates (2014) · John: tell Hank about his helicopter ride with Bill Gates (2014) · Vlogbrothers in 2018 (2018)
About: meningitis, Twitter, Florida
| date | event | what | video |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2014-08-08 | told | Hank tells that John got viral meningitis last week (week of 28 July 2014) and missed a video; he is home from hospital, fine, but still in significant pain. | Who Owns a Monkey's Selfie? And a Song About Meningitis! 00:01:51 |
| 2014-08-12 | told | John tells of his viral meningitis: inflamed brain linings, a hospital stay and missed video, the worst pain of his life, the internet's Ebola rumour, and that he almost certainly caught it in Florida. | EBOLA! (...meningitis) 00:00:02 |
| 2014-08-19 | retold | John then rode in a helicopter with Bill Gates, which was terrifying and hilarious, and will tell Hank about it next week (week of 25 August 2014) unless he gets meningitis again. (playful) | Baby Names: Thoughts from Rural Ethiopia 00:03:49 |
| 2014-09-16 | retold | John argues most humans love metaphors because so much human thinking is symbolic, e.g. imagining a meningitis headache as a vice gripping the head. (hedged) | It's Question Tuesday! Cheesy Jokes, Paper Towns Movie, and Dinosaur Butt Brains 00:01:46 |
| 2014-09-30 | retold | John recalls that after the Ethiopia trip he got meningitis. | Keeping it EVEN REALER 00:00:32 |
| 2015-11-10 (happened 2014) | retold | John recalls getting meningitis last year (2014), after which Bill Gates sent him a get-well orchid. | It's a Pizzamas Miracle! (Pizzamas Day 2) 00:01:30 |
| 2018-04-03 | retold | John recalls missing a Tuesday video when he had meningitis. | On Punctuality 00:00:01 |
| 2021-04-27 | retold | The Anthropocene Reviewed is essays in the form of in-depth Yelp reviews, reviewing things like viral meningitis, a photograph and the first five minutes of Penguins of Madagascar. | What is my new book about? 00:01:27 |
| 2022-06-21 | retold | John lists the itises he has or has had: orbital cellulitis, eosinophilic esophagitis and viral meningitis, besides ordinary ones like sinusitis and gastritis. | On Disease 00:00:29 |
| 2023-02-28 | retold | John recalls that when he had meningitis he was rarely alone, except in his fear and pain, where he was always alone. | Empathy and its Limits 00:02:47 |
| 2023-05-23 | retold | When John was hospitalized with meningitis, his best friend Chris greeted him by saying he thought John had already had all the itises; hilarious from Chris, less so from a doctor. | Rough Week 00:01:50 |
| 2025-08-12 | retold | John says he cannot remember what having meningitis felt like, not in the acute way he remembers scents or sights. | On Balance 00:03:53 |
What is said about it
10 statements, by date (the events above are the turns of the thread; these are the details).
- 2014-08-08 · Who Owns a Monkey's Selfie? And a Song About Meningitis! — Hank has a head cold, but John has just come home from hospital with viral meningitis, so Hank will suck it up and try to entertain him. — 00:00:01
- 2014-08-08 · Who Owns a Monkey's Selfie? And a Song About Meningitis! — Hank tells confused viewers that John, his brother, got viral meningitis last week (week of 28 July 2014); he is home from hospital and fine, though still in significant pain. — 00:01:46
- 2014-08-12 · EBOLA! (...meningitis) — John: Last week (week of 4 August 2014) John messaged that he would miss his Vlogbrothers video because he was in hospital, then went back to being in the worst pain of his life. — 00:00:06
- 2014-08-12 · EBOLA! (...meningitis) — John: While he lay in pain, the internet 'diagnosed' him with Ebola: 'John Green Ebola' trended on Twitter and people he knew texted to ask if it was confirmed. (playful) — 00:00:14
- 2014-08-12 · EBOLA! (...meningitis) — John: Ten days before falling ill with what turned out to be viral meningitis, John was in Ethiopia, on the same continent as Guinea and Sierra Leone, where Ebola is spreading. — 00:00:31
- 2014-08-12 · EBOLA! (...meningitis) — John: In hospital, doctors worried he might have meningitis, malaria, typhoid or dengue fever, all potentially fatal, but were not worried about Ebola. — 00:01:04
- 2014-08-12 · EBOLA! (...meningitis) — John: It turns out John almost certainly caught meningitis not in Ethiopia but in Florida, in Orlando, the city of his youth. (hedged) — 00:03:31
- 2014-08-12 · EBOLA! (...meningitis) — announcement: John: Recovery will take a while, so John apologises in advance if he is not around as much in the coming weeks. — 00:03:41
- 2014-09-30 · Keeping it EVEN REALER — John recalls his amazing trip to Ethiopia in the last couple of months, for which he is grateful, and then getting meningitis. — 00:00:27
- 2015-11-10 · It's a Pizzamas Miracle! (Pizzamas Day 2) — John: After John got meningitis last year (2014), Bill Gates sent him a get-well-soon orchid, a thoughtful gesture John really appreciated. — 00:01:26