THE CANADIAN PRESS
HALIFAX — Two-time world champion curler and television personality Colleen Jones is recovering in a Halifax hospital from a bout of bacterial meningitis.
Jones, 50, fell ill on Saturday and raced to the hospital, where fast-acting doctors promptly diagnosed her condition.
Jones, who is still in hospital, told the Halifax Chronicle Herald that doctors are now trying to figure out how she got the illness to prevent a recurrence.
She says her doctors have told her she may have developed a leak of cerebrospinal fluid that allowed the bacteria into her brain.
Bacterial meningitis can cause serious damaging effects to the brain and can be fatal up to 15 per cent of the time.
Jones was due to begin play today in the provincial women’s curling playdowns in Greenwood in a bid for a 16th Nova Scotia women’s title, but now she doesn’t expect to curl again this season.
Ironically, Jones’s illness came to light on the day she was named to the Canada Games Hall of Honour along with Olympic speedskater Catriona LeMay Doan and builders Guy Rousseau and Jim Morell.
Jones, who earned Canada Games silver in 1979 in Brandon, Man., will be inducted at a ceremony Feb. 10 on the eve of this winter’s Canada Games in Halifax.
She is already a member of the Canadian Curling Hall of Fame.