Also serving the communities of De Luz, Rainbow, Camp Pendleton, Pala and Pauma
Juile Reeder
Publisher
Whether you are for mandates or against mandates has a lot to do with the information you have. Some people who only know what they hear on the nightly news, may believe that the mandates are necessary and we all need to “do our part.” They may believe that young people are in great danger and they all need to be vaccinated. Others believe we should all be wearing masks.
Some people like me, because of my job, seek information daily from all over the globe. It’s important to know the stats, if the stats are reliable, the studies and if the studies were paid for by the industry they represent. What are politicians voting on? Are the politicians being paid to pass or stop a product or law? Why are there scientists and doctors on both sides of the issue? There’s a lot to sift through and consider. And it’s my job to be skeptical.
After all the reports, stats and rhetoric, the one thing you can’t get around is someone’s personal experience.
I am against the mandates for a few reasons, civil rights, no long-term studies, adverse events, etc. If you’ve read my editorials for the last couple of years, you know that my family has experienced vaccine injuries. Besides our immediate family, my niece, and now a nephew by marriage, who needs to remain anonymous for fear of retribution, has his story. We will call him Tom.
Tom is in his 30s. He’s in peak physical condition, smart and married with a beautiful wife and two children. He has been in the military for years and loves being in the military. It was his plan to make it his career, until he got the first Pfizer shot on
March 25, 2021. That vaccine changed his and his family's lives.
Tom said just days after his first shot, on April 5, 2021, he started to get a radiating numbness starting from his spine and spreading to his whole right side from his armpit to his waistline. He had lost feeling from the right side of his spine, and that spread from his armpit line down to his feet. He claimed that the sensation cut off all motor functions, including bowel control. He could tell things weren’t normal, and he knew he needed help, and he needed it fast.
When he approached one of his superiors at work to let him know he was having trouble and needed to seek medical help, he was told, “You will be fine, get back in the field. You just came back from leave and have had plenty of time to rest. We can’t afford for you to not be here.”
But after five days of struggling at work and the symptoms clearly getting worse, he took it upon himself to go to the hospital on base.
Unfortunately, his local military hospital was no help at all. He was told they didn’t know what it was and he should just go home, take some Tylenol and hopefully it would go away. He was also given a COVID test and was told to wait 72 hours for any changes, and if the symptoms continued to return. So he went home.
After he was cleared as being negative from the COVID test, he returned to the hospital. With obviously worsened symptoms he was asked by the staff, “what are you doing here?” He then responded with “The symptoms have not gone away, and I was told to come back if things were still the same.” This is all within 10 days of receiving the vaccine that was said to be protecting him. He had zero signs of any neurological disease before those 10 days.
Tom explained that this was an extremely difficult time for him. He was getting no answers from his assigned medical professionals. There was no access to a neurologist on staff in that hospital. He was sure it had to do directly with his COVID-19 vaccine, yet he was being told by the hospital staff that he was the “one in a million exception who had an adverse effect.”
He says he was told that he shouldn’t talk about it because he would cause others to have “vaccine hesitancy.” Now, in addition to not knowing what was happening to him, why it was happening or how to make it better, he said that he was being shamed into silence. There was no one to talk to.
Shamed into silence is a common occurrence according to vaccine injured athlete Kyle Warner, a professional mountain bike racer who was diagnosed with pericarditis, he says was brought on by Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine.
At this time, there is no help for those injured by the vaccines from the vaccine injury court because the vaccines at the time Tom and Warner were injured were unapproved. The Emergency Use Authorization releases any liability from the manufacturers, so injured people have nowhere to turn.
Tom finally was taken by an ambulance to a civilian hospital to receive better treatment for his condition, three hours away from his home on post. When he arrived, the neurologist on-site asked, “What in the world took you so long to get here?”
Due to the requirements of the military, Tom couldn’t go to a civilian hospital without a referral from his military provider. Immediately the civilian hospital ran tests, collected samples and performed a spinal tap. They found lesions on his spine, and positive Oligoclonal Bands, which are indicators of Multiple Sclerosis.
Tom was later diagnosed with Transverse Myelitis, a neuro disease that affects the Myelin Sheath, the insulating layer that forms around the nerves including those around the brain and spinal cord. Although intense doses of steroids, and Plasmapheresis were done to treat the symptoms, Tom was told he would likely not regain the use of his legs, and he would have permanent nerve damage.
This made things even worse for him. He explained that he wasn’t able to work. He worried about how he would support his family. The military was quietly discharging him and leaving him to fend for himself with state disability. He said his wife had to quit her part-time job because she was needed at home, not only for their children, but also to assist him. He was growing increasingly depressed, and angry due to feeling shunned by his unit, and because of their lack of support, and communication.
His superior reached out while he was in the hospital, and instead of asking about how he was feeling, or if his family needed anything, they asked when he would be able to go back to work.
After being discharged from the hospital, and completing what little physical therapy he could do, Tom was wheelchair bound, and returned home. Although his case manager was handling his appointment scheduling, and determined he needed to be moved to the Wounded Warrior unit on post, his command and unit had left him, and his family to fend for themselves.
After returning home, another problem arose. Tom’s current home was not ADA equipped, and was a two-story house, making things difficult for him to bathe, and sleep since all the necessities were upstairs. He attempted to reach out to his housing office, but was told that there would be a wait, and they wouldn’t be able to accommodate him until his name came up on the list. After eight months of struggling to deal with his condition, Tom was eventually transferred to the Wounded Warrior unit.
He’s not happy with what has happened to him, but at least he’s getting the attention he needs now and the help his family needs.
Now his attention is on his children.
“No one is getting near my kids with that shot,” he said. “No way.”
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