First Dose of Pfizer on 09/13/21
Second Dose of Pfizer on 10/04/21
Gainesville, Florida
40 yrs old
Q: What was your life like before you got the vaccine?
I was very active and enjoyed the outdoors as much as possible. I kayaked almost daily and up until the day of the first vaccine. I had a full time career as a paralegal for 20+ Years and never went without a job until I was fired after receiving my second shot because my body shut down. I fished every weekend, hiked, hunted, tracked through the woods for hours, played with my dogs. I’ve never had any illnesses in my life. I was very healthy and active.
Q: Would you like to share your reasons for getting vaccinated?
I was definitely pressured by my work. I am not anti-VAX but I didn’t feel the need to to get it because I felt like my body was working just fine and fighting my Covid. They did not tell me “I had to“ but I was pulled aside and literally told by my office manager that this was off the record but if I wanted to feel comfortable working and if I wanted to make other people around me comfortable, I would just go get the shot and get it over with. I was made to feel guilty for not doing it. So, I did it to save my job and the other people around me. And now I don’t have a job because they had to let me go because I just was not functioning like myself.
Q: What was your reaction, symptoms, & timeline?
After the first dose, I experienced tingling, pins and needles, numbness in my feet and hands that subsided after a week. After my second shot I had the same symptoms but 100 times worse. With more injuries accumulating on a daily basis to where I was bedridden. The numbness, and pins and needles crept up my calves to my thighs above my buttocks to my lower back. I could literally feel the sensation creeping up by the hour and it was terrifying because I kept telling myself just like after the first dose that it will subside. But it just kept crawling up my body until I had to go to the emergency room and I couldn’t walk. I felt like I had a phone vibrating inside my rib cage with electrical shocks constantly shooting down my body like I could feel my entire nervous system. I could describe it as if I were looking at a chart of the human body with the nervous system and I could feel every nerve get zapped and shocked. The same feeling that started in my hands crept up to my shoulders. Large marble like lymph nodes in my neck. The only way I could describe the feeling of my skin was that I had a wetsuit on. My thighs swelled up to the point that nothing would fit and this happened overnight. I had a feeling of disassociation from the world as if I stood out and couldn’t become in sync with everyone around me. I’ve never had issues saying what I wanted to say and getting my point across. But then when I tried to explain anything, it just didn’t come out right and I had problems talking. I couldn’t tell if it was in my head and part of the disassociation that made me feel like I was making no sense to anybody and I was constantly apologizing when I was trying to explain stuff and I was just looked at strangely like my dog would look at me and turn his head out of curiosity. I literally got that look from several people but I just didn’t seem like I could talk anymore and my speech was slowed and robotic and did not come out smoothly anymore. I felt and looked like I was drunk the way I would walk and I felt very robotic with my movements. Trying to put a key in the door or take a step I felt like a 90 year old woman crippled and moved so slow to the point where everything just quit working. I had developed large pus like sores all over my face, chest and inner left leg near my knee that took a long time to go away but left scars. I recently developed hives on the left side of my body out of nowhere when I’ve never had skin issues or even so much as acne or pimples. I’ve had three bouts of these rashes now. My joints are so painful that I cannot move my hands, knees, ankles, shoulders. I have one good day and three bad days. And this has been ongoing and a pattern developed that I’ve noticed. When I have a good day I push hard to do as much as possible knowing that I’m going to suffer the consequences and not be able to get out of the bed for at least 2 to 3 days. I’ve noticed that exercise and movement does not help me, it hurts me. The more I do the worse I am. I’m in excruciating pain. I feel as though no one believes me or that I am making this last longer than I should and that is the most depressing part of all of it. I don’t want people to think that I’m just not wanting to be active or go to work. The reality is, is that I really can’t work or be active around the house and I feel like I have to put on an act as though I’m not as bad as I am when really I am in so much pain. I just don’t feel believed. If the people around me have not experienced this, they just can’t seem to understand and honestly I don’t understand it either and I cannot find a doctor to believe me either. I’ve seen five neurologists, been to the emergency room three times, stayed at Shands hospital for a week and all my blood work came back completely normal and I was told that I was just deficient in my B12. I’ve been taking B12 injections with zero relief. My timeline is all over the place. I can’t even keep up anymore. Something new seems to pop up every once in a while and my timeline is going on 6 months of excruciating pain and absolute hell.
Q: What is your life like now, after getting the vaccine?
I have no life. I will notice one good day and it’s usually a really really good day and I push hard to do as much as possible whether it’s cleaning the bathtub or playing with my dogs or vacuuming which is so minimal compared to what I used to be able to do knowing that the next day to three days I am bedridden. If I rake the leaves on a good day, the next day I cannot move my hands because that is what I used. When I try to move anything around the house and I’m using my lower back and legs to pick up objects, the next day I can’t use that part of my body anymore. I think about trying to apply for other jobs having never been without a job since I was 15 but then I know I can’t give them 100% of myself because I don’t know what’s gonna happen or what symptom is going to rear its ugly head out of nowhere. Right now I’m bedridden because I cleaned my bathroom yesterday so I cannot move my hands. My fingers and joints are locked up. I have sores all over my body. I look out my window and see how beautiful it is outside and it only depresses me because I want to be out on the river kayaking or fishing but I know I can’t do it and I feel like I’m letting everyone around me down that enjoys to do these things with me because I can’t. I know a lot of people talk about staying positive but I just can’t find it in me because my life was a great life before all of this and it has completely turned upside down and I don’t know where to find the positivity in any of this.
Q: Share your experience with any medical care and any diagnoses you have received:
I had presented to the emergency room three times and there was real concern with the doctors and they showed it. I was admitted and stayed for a week or more and I was pumped full of steroids. And after a week, they didn’t know what else to do so they sent me on my way. And literally as I’m being wheelchaired out to my ride every thing just crept right back up within minutes after leaving the hospital. All my blood work came back normal after several MRIs, CT scans, spinal tap, nerve conduction studies, they just decided that I was deficient in my B12 because it was low but it was not dangerously low, still within the normal range. And I was prescribed B12 shots and gabapentin.
Q: Was your reaction reported, and what was the response?
Just to my doctors in the hospital and neurologists. I got to the point where I just gave up on even trying. I lost my job over this which means I lost my insurance. I am unable to get any kind of assistance because I can’t have a medical record relating anything to the vaccine so I don’t have anything to show what’s going on with me.
Q: Is there anything that has helped, and have your symptoms improved?
My symptoms have improved as far as the shocks and the numbness and pins and needles. I don’t know if it’s just because I’ve blocked them out but right now I’m experiencing severe joint pain and my hands and feet are still numb. The numbness in my hands and feet has never gone away. I still get random rashes and large bumps that pop up on occasion. I have not found anything that helps. Maybe the gabapentin has finally started helping with the pins and needles or maybe it was just time that it took for it to go away, but I can’t think of anything in particular that has helped.
Q: Have you had Covid before? What was your experience if so?
I tested positive in July and I believe I had the Delta variant. I seem to have breezed right through it. My body was fighting the way it was supposed to and healing my body the way it was supposed to and my immune system was working the way it was supposed to. I did not develop cough or chest pains or any of the regular symptoms you would think. The only symptoms I experience with some joint pain and fever. And my body was almost rid of the virus until I was pressured into getting the shot by my work. I did not feel in my gut that it was right timing because I was still recovering but I did what I needed to do, or at least what every profession and news outlet made me feel like I needed to do for the people around me. And I was happy to do my duty to help contain this virus. But instead, it has destroyed me.
Q: What do you wish others knew?
I wish others knew what the injured are going through and that they believed us. I wish the medical industry would work to provide assistance for the injured instead of making us feel like what’s happening is just our bodies are unhealthy and it wasn’t because of this vaccine. It’s 100% due to the vaccine, there’s just no denying it. And I just wish that jobs were more understanding and that the medical professionals would look further into a solution rather than just medicate us and move onto the next patient. I wish that there was assistance out there for people who were injured due to the vaccine that cannot work which means they can’t pay their bills, but they can’t offer anything when you have no record of what’s going on with you.
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