Australian radio legend Karen Tighe on her battle with a ‘bizarre’ neurological disorder that changed her life

Australian sports broadcasting legend Karen Tighe has opened up on her battle with the “bizarre” neurological disorder that left her fighting for her life. Tighe told The Sunday Times she could barely remember the initial stages of being hospitalised in March by a rare form of viral encephalitis caused by a dormant herpes simplex virus. One of the most brilliant minds in Australian sport, she still cannot remember the names of luminaries such as world No.1 tennis player Ash Barty, national cricket captain Tim Paine or the doyen of her industry, Bruce McAvaney. The ABC Grandstand icon, married to another sports broadcasting great Glenn Mitchell, has temporarily stood down from her post as host of the popular program this summer in the hope her condition will improve to the point of regaining her full memory. “My optimism has turned around and I’ve accepted that I have to be patient, but it’s been quite bizarre,” Tighe said. “I visualise inside my head that there’s a locked door and occasionally something will sneak out underneath, but it’s kind of like I don’t have the key for the door.” Tighe had, in mid-February, been in Sydney to accept a Sport Australia Lifetime Achievement Award for her career that has spanned more than three decades. “That came out of the blue,” the widely loved broadcaster recalled. “When I got that phone call I just thought, ‘I’m not in the company of those other people’.” Then just days later after returning home to Perth, Tighe began to feel “a little bit off” and was struggling to eat because of a strange feeling in her stomach. After driving herself home from her regular Sunday radio commitments at the ABC’s East Perth studio, she lay down on her bed and when her nausea became worse over the next day, agreed to go to the doctor. By the Wednesday, she had become seriously ill and could not remember her date of birth, home address of the past 18 years and later her 14-year-old son James’ name. It got so bad she also forgot who her husband was. “I said to her, ‘Do you know who I am?’,” Mitchell explained. “She had a smirk on her face and said, ‘Of course I do, you’re 60 Minutes’. In the initial stages, they (doctors) were saying it was fairly dire.” It took some time for doctors to diagnose her medical issue, but after ruling out a bacterial infection, concluded it was likely to have been activity from the herpes virus triggered by stress. The condition causes an inflammation of the brain and can lead to permanent brain damage or death. Doctors worked to reduce the swelling as quickly as possible and Tighe was in hospital for nine days on a medical drip before a further 12 days of daily intravenous antiviral treatment at home. Her older sister Nicole made a mercy dash to Perth from her Sydney home. Tighe, who had become so weak she had to sit in the shower and lost large clumps of hair, said not being able to remember her address had been the source of great frustration as she searched for initial answers to her illness. She also dropped weight from 60kg to a worrying 51.5kg. “Nothing was in my head to say it and and that really upset me because I was thinking, surely I must know my address,” she said. “Then it was the name of the hospital that wouldn’t come out and I became more upset and even said quite a few prayers. It was just so weird.” Six weeks after her hospitalisation, Tighe suddenly started to feel some “energy”, but her rollercoaster ride was far from finished as she was still suffering severe nausea attacks up to 10 times a day. Then she was hit in July, almost in an instant, by overwhelming anxiety. “I’d go to do breakfast radio and she would take James to school, but she couldn’t come back home on her own, she had to go to a cafe where there were people around,” Mitchell said. “If we were inside, Karen would lock all the doors.” He said it came to its most extreme when the pair were walking near Subiaco and she pushed close to him rather than walk around a bus shelter because she did not want to be “separated”. “I’ve never had it before, but it was like preparing for an exam and feeling the butterflies ... I had this churning in my tummy,” she said. “I started feeling really nervous about being on my own and I couldn’t have a shower if no one else was in the house because I was so scared someone would walk in. I’d drop James to school and for two weeks, every day, I’d just stay in the car for a while.” Tighe, whose voice has been part of the soundtrack for summer sport in Australia for decades, is now taking a low dose of antidepressant medication to help calm her anxiety. But the lack of memory, mainly for names including the coronavirus, is still an issue. “If I saw a picture of the Prime Minister or our Premier, of course I recognise them, but I can’t tell you their names,” she said. “I would recognise the Australian cricket captain (Paine) and I know he’s a wicketkeeper, but his name won’t come to me or any of the names of the current men’s or women’s teams. But I know (current coach) Justin Langer or (former captain) Allan Border. “I’ve had the pleasure of interviewing Australia’s world No.1 tennis player (Barty) and if I saw her name written down and mixed in with lots of other names, I could pick it out. But I can’t say it even though I can say Lleyton Hewitt or Pat Rafter.” Doctors have told Tighe the memory lapse is not uncommon for her condition and that time, up to a year, was the only antidote. She was hopeful that recently being able to regularly remember the names of her ABC colleagues such as Russell Woolf, Nadia Mitsopoulos, Clint Wheeldon, Brett Sprigg and Corbin Middlemas was a positive sign. But she also thought she’d been sitting next to former tennis star Liz Smylie at Cathy Freeman’s 400m victory at the 2000 Sydney Olympics, when it was netball great Liz Ellis. Mitchell said it had been humbling to be cast in the role of carer for his wife after she did the same for him a decade ago during a well-publicised nervous breakdown that took him to the brink of suicide. He has continued to shine a light on mental health issues, particularly in the bright lights of sport. “I hark back to what Karen did for me and I feel like I’m repaying her,” he said. “It’s certainly been an interesting time and James has been a really good support to Karen, too.” Tighe said she felt a deep gratitude to her doctor Caroline Chin and other medical experts, including a psychologist, who had helped in her fight for her health. The ABC had also given her uncompromising support along with her big circle of friends. Her nausea had eased in the past three weeks, she was back to regular exercising and was adamant she would return to the airwaves next year. With her weekends free, she was looking forward to having time to watch her son play district cricket in the coming season and was optimistic about being able to travel for a family Christmas in Sydney with her ageing father Mike. “I’ve been lucky through life that I’ve never had any major health issues,” she said. “But I will never take my health for granted again because you know how quickly things can turn.”