Aussie fitness influencer Khiana Smith fights deadly bacterial meningitis in Bali hospital

An Aussie influencer is fighting for her life in a Bali intensive care unit after being struck down by a deadly brain infection.

Fitness creator and online coach Khiana Smith has spent more than a week bedridden in hospital with bacterial meningitis, with pneumonia and fluid on her lungs adding to the medical nightmare.

She went from travelling the world and living her dream life to being unable to get out of bed, suffering memory loss and desperately wanting to return home.

“Life is so precious, one minute I’m healthy travelling the world, living my dream life and the next I’m bed bound in ICU in Bali with a brain infection that could have killed me,” she told her TikTok followers.

Smith said she had no idea how she contracted the infection or why her condition deteriorated so quickly.

“I don’t know what happened, like I seriously don’t, I just woke up one day and I just had the worst headache, like I couldn’t even get out of bed,” she said.

Her symptoms escalated to extreme head pain, dizziness, slurred speech, blurred vision and a severe sensitivity to light.

An attempt to ease her symptoms with an IV drip at her villa failed before a doctor assessed her and urgently called an ambulance.

“I think I really underestimated the severity of the situation,” she said from her ICU bed.

Bacterial meningitis is a serious infection that causes inflammation of the protective membranes surrounding the brain and spinal cord.

It can progress rapidly and become life-threatening without urgent medical treatment.

The illness has taken a devastating toll on Smith, who revealed she had also suffered significant memory loss.

“I have lost a lot of memory, like I really struggle to remember things,” she said.

Being critically ill thousands of kilometres from home has compounded the trauma, with Smith describing the difficulty of trying to understand her condition through a language barrier.

“Being in a foreign country, they’re doing their best but the language barrier is hard and feeling like your whole life is in other people’s hands and you don’t have proper answers,” she said.

Smith is desperate to return to Australia but has been unable to fly because of her brain infection and concerns about the effects of cabin pressure.

“I feel absolutely helpless and I just wanna go home,” she said.

The online coach, who runs the Her Method fitness and nutrition business, said she had always taken her health seriously, eating well and exercising regularly.

But her ordeal has been a brutal reminder that a healthy lifestyle does not make someone immune to serious illness.

“Don’t take your life or health for granted ever,” she warned her followers.

There has been some encouraging news, with Smith revealing in a more recent update that she was feeling slightly better and had managed to get out of bed and walk for the first time in more than a week.

Her followers have flooded her social media pages with messages of support, while others have questioned when she might be able to return home.

“Is there any talk of getting you home? It’s so serious, I feel like it would be a lot easier for you in an Australian hospital mentally,” one wrote.

Another who had recently spent a week in hospital added: “I was mentally f***ed and had no hope. Things will change, sending you so much healing and love.”