Unvaxxed Albertan fights for her life
Episode Stats
Words per Minute
156.9274
Summary
Join me as I interview Sheila Annette Lewis, an international citizen living in the United States of America, who is fighting to get her back on the organ donor list in Canada. She has been on the transplant waiting list for years, but has been unable to get on the waiting list because of her Canadian passport being denied her right to become an organ donor in Canada, despite being a Canadian citizen living abroad.
Transcript
00:00:00.000
hey everyone welcome back to the alberta roundup i am joined by a very special guest today i have
00:00:17.360
sheila annette lewis with me on the program we have been following her story very closely
00:00:22.740
on the show over the last couple of months and i am very excited to have the opportunity to
00:00:27.480
interview her and i know that you guys are going to be interested in hearing more about her case
00:00:32.240
sheila thank you so much for joining me today thank you for having me on rachel so sheila we
00:00:38.940
know that your efforts to basically get back on the organ donor transplant list in canada
00:00:44.360
have been stymied pretty much at every turn you obviously have taken this up to the alberta
00:00:49.500
appeal court and then you even sought to have the supreme court of canada hear your case
00:00:53.620
we know now that they turned that down i have to say were you surprised when you heard
00:00:59.060
that they were not going to hear your case did you expect that it would be taken up to the supreme
00:01:03.380
court yeah i was i was really surprised and i was surprised um that the supreme court acted on it
00:01:15.140
so quickly as well i was expecting it to take a while for them to to make a decision on my case
00:01:27.460
and were you given any details as to why your case was rejected or just a flat no we will not hear your
00:01:32.580
case for the supreme court of canada um it was just it just come back that it was they did not want to
00:01:40.900
hear the case it was denied and that was there that we weren't given any more details they just
00:01:48.660
denied to hear the case so since that happened there's also been another very positive development
00:01:56.100
in your story now we have learned that a u.s hospital is actually willing to give you the organ
00:02:02.660
transplant that you need um you said that it was a hospital in texas i'm just wondering if you'd be
00:02:07.460
willing to share some details with us about which hospital hospital that is and how you actually got
00:02:12.900
in touch with them and were able to get on their transplant list despite being an international citizen
00:02:19.860
well we called um different organizations in the united states they kind of helped in some of it um
00:02:28.660
we also did a lot of cold calls uh the people behind the scenes that are helping me they did a lot of
00:02:34.020
cold calls themselves and then we came across this was on the list that was given to us by the united
00:02:40.820
states of some possible hospitals that might be willing to do so when we contacted texas um they said
00:02:52.900
they didn't see any reason why not but we would have to you know work on it and figure out from then
00:03:01.220
if i was even a possible candidate so that's what the stage where we're at now um they've already told
00:03:07.540
us how much it would cost for the testing to get done to see if i was still healthy enough my organs
00:03:13.780
were healthy enough to even get on the donor list so um i sent all the medical records down to them and
00:03:23.060
that's what they're reviewing now um they also created a file for me of course at the hospital
00:03:31.700
um i also was speaking to a doctor yesterday uh on zoom from the texas hospital and they have a board
00:03:42.900
meeting thursdays so on thursday tomorrow they will present my case in front of the board and we're
00:03:52.100
going to go from there and depending on what the board says tomorrow with the information that they
00:04:00.420
have depending on um the next steps okay so it sounds like thursday will be a pretty big day for
00:04:09.700
you in terms of getting that answer meanwhile they're also reviewing your documents we know
00:04:13.780
that currently you're in the process of fundraising a hundred thousand usd to get that first step of
00:04:19.460
testing that you need when we spoke on the phone you said you had received testing when you were in
00:04:24.020
canada but they stopped testing you about two years ago when you refused to be vaccinated against
00:04:29.220
covet 19. we're looking at the fundraiser now it's at about eighty seven thousand dollars just over as
00:04:35.700
of wednesday morning when we're filming and it's been climbing pretty steadily over the past week from
00:04:40.180
what i can tell so i feel fairly confident that you'll have that first a hundred thousand that you
00:04:44.180
need for testing pretty soon once you have that money are you able to begin testing in the states
00:04:50.660
right away or do they still have to kind of continue looking through your document and is there going
00:04:55.220
to be more of a wait period well we don't know that answer at all um it all depends on what the
00:05:01.780
board is going to say they could like they told me they could come back with the dates fairly quickly
00:05:08.020
because of the progression of my disease of course so it all depends on what the board is going to say
00:05:14.420
um they are a smaller hospital than than what we'd like um because being a smaller hospital they do
00:05:26.100
less transplants of course so like he said depending on what we're looking for and what we want
00:05:35.460
if we went with a bigger hospital we would have you know they would have more transplants a year
00:05:41.860
um so there's a lot to take in to consider it's not just jump on the bandwagon on the first one
00:05:49.940
um so but at least we're getting we're getting somewhere with it at least and they do give us
00:05:57.860
positive reviews of course so we just have to wait wait and see it's a waiting game right
00:06:05.540
it's the family and friends event at shoppers drug mart get 20 off almost all regular priced
00:06:10.820
merchandise two days only tuesday february 24th and wednesday february 25th open your pc optimum app
00:06:17.700
to get your coupon for sure and you've just mentioned that you're waiting to hear from
00:06:25.300
the hospital they could give you a date fairly quickly does that mean that you feel fairly
00:06:29.540
confident that they will approve your case i'm not gonna feel comfortable with anything until i'm there
00:06:34.980
when i'm there i'm gonna be confident but i feel really good i really do about this but you know
00:06:43.060
the old saying goes you know nothing is hatched until you crack the egg so i don't want to count my
00:06:51.380
chickens before they're hatched i've done that in canada and look where it got me i was really pumped they
00:06:58.740
put me on the transplant list on the donor list excuse me they put me on the donor list they said
00:07:04.420
i was ready i had a very very healthy body you know and look where that got me and i was pumped to go
00:07:12.740
i did all the physio for it i did everything they asked me to do like everything the only thing i didn't
00:07:19.380
was the experimental vaccine so um just because somebody tells you something doesn't mean it's
00:07:28.980
actually going to happen i guess canada proved that and which is sad because canada is our country and
00:07:38.340
um who better to believe than our own doctors our own
00:07:43.220
government when we talk about this sort of uphill battle and you not wanting to be certain of
00:07:54.260
something before you're actually there obviously you have a very significant amount of money that
00:07:58.580
you need to fundraise i mentioned that initial hundred thousand dollars for testing but afterwards
00:08:03.380
i believe it's another half a million that you need to fundraise for the actual transplant
00:08:08.100
itself and that's of course in american dollars so a very very significant amount of
00:08:12.740
money in canadian dollars it seems like people have been very supportive and very receptive
00:08:17.700
to donating to your cause so far as i think amazing amazing like they really are canadians are really
00:08:23.700
really really coming through and we're also getting donations from the united states as well um so
00:08:30.260
it's it's amazing the movement is i never ever ever dreamed we would even get to where we are today i
00:08:38.260
really didn't um but canadians are really really coming through and it's sometimes it's like it's
00:08:46.100
powerful it's overwhelming and i sit back sometimes and it really touches the heart it really does because
00:08:57.620
canadians are very caring and giving and um they're just overall great people and you can't thank them
00:09:11.060
enough there's just no possible way you could ever thank them enough for what they're doing and my hope
00:09:18.660
for this transplant and my hope was to get a policy overturned and that's what was the purpose of the
00:09:31.140
courts was to overturn the policy so many more canadians would be able to get the transplant that i
00:09:40.180
hoped i would be able to get it wasn't just about me and it's still not about me it's about all canadians
00:09:47.220
and all canadians are suffering the same way i am and we can't we can't overlook that it's not just
00:09:56.020
about one person right but they're forcing they're forcing a hand where they're making it just one person
00:10:06.500
because i'm not winning that's the problem with the courts i'm not winning it the question is why
00:10:15.620
why and i have natural immunity and very high levels of it more so than most people they say
00:10:23.940
and to require still a booster like they're saying why am i still required to get a booster when i have
00:10:32.340
natural immunity it doesn't make sense none of it makes sense especially with all the data you know
00:10:40.740
rachel i mean i'm sure i'm not the only person that knows everything that's going on with this vaccine
00:10:48.180
it's too much information out now way too much a lot of people are injured a lot of people have
00:10:55.140
passed away a lot of families were affected how many families do they gotta destroy before somebody
00:11:03.700
steps up and stops us it's canada's in a sad place right now
00:11:15.700
another question that i had about your case is that you know the organ that you actually need
00:11:20.900
as well as the names of the doctors that you were working with here in alberta as well as the hospital
00:11:26.180
that you were working with all of that is under a publication ban the court really sought to protect
00:11:31.460
those doctors for the decision that they made in denying you this organ transplant has that been
00:11:36.580
difficult for you to process has it been difficult to explain to people exactly what's going on when
00:11:41.380
there's so much that news outlets can't cover of course it is because it's really sad i mean
00:11:49.380
it wasn't enough that they come back and they said they had a policy um didn't have a policy when they
00:11:57.860
made this they sat around a table it was said right to me i have it on records they said the doctor had
00:12:04.900
said to me on the phone on the zoom that we have to make a decision we have to sit down as a team
00:12:12.020
and we have to go over whether we're gonna ask or make people that need to transplant a life-saving
00:12:19.940
transplant to get the vaccine so in a couple weeks after that they got back to me and they said we made
00:12:26.660
a decision they made a decision they didn't have a policy so when i forced their hand and i asked them
00:12:33.780
for the policy a copy of it they refused it then i wrote them a letter in november and i said there's
00:12:42.100
not a policy it is recommended strongly recommended that i get the vaccine but it wasn't policy and that
00:12:54.180
was in november 2021 so what happened bang all of a sudden there was a policy they come up with a
00:13:04.180
policy but when they first told me they made the decision it was in march but in november the same
00:13:11.300
year they finally got a policy because i was asking to see a copy of it so it's sad that the courts put the
00:13:21.620
gag order on me which they wanted the doctors wanted and asked for because it was to silence me
00:13:29.700
but look at it the other way if they were speaking the truth about everything which i know now they
00:13:37.460
weren't through testimony and what was ignored in the courts it's really sad that they had to put a
00:13:48.500
publication band on me or a gag order whatever we want to call it if they were speaking the truth
00:13:54.580
what did they have to worry about searchlight pictures presents in the blink of an eye on hulu
00:14:01.380
on disney plus a sweeping science fiction drama spanning the stone age the present day and the distant
00:14:07.460
future about the essence of what it means to be human regardless of our place in history the film is
00:14:13.060
directed by oscar-winning filmmaker andrew stanton and stars rashida jones kate mckinnon and david diggs
00:14:19.220
stream in the blink of an eye now only on hulu on disney plus sign up at disneyplus.com
00:14:28.820
well i have to say that their attempts to silence you certainly have not been successful that kind
00:14:34.180
of brings me to my last question here something that i've been so struck by in this story and i know
00:14:39.380
that has really resonated with my audience as well is your resilience your ability to continue pushing
00:14:45.700
through this and to fight for what you know is right despite really being up against all odds maybe
00:14:51.860
you could speak to that a little bit have you found this difficult have you wanted to really just give
00:14:57.140
up at any points and what has kept you pushing through there's lots of times there really is there's
00:15:05.140
lots of times that you know i'm sitting here and i'm thinking and it's quiet and i'm by myself you
00:15:11.460
know it's late at night and i can't sleep for one reason or another and yeah i think about just
00:15:21.380
that's it nothing's enough but what's that going to do it's not going to get me nowhere and it's not
00:15:27.700
going to get anybody else anywhere but at the same time the truth needs to come out and if i just stop
00:15:36.500
at all which they want me to these doctors they want me to go away like they used to ask me in the
00:15:43.700
zoom calls at the end they would say when they called oh you're still hanging in i see because i
00:15:49.780
answered the phone it's like yeah i'm still hanging in but they want me to go away they want to silence me
00:15:58.180
and no it ain't gonna happen so i will fight as long as i can and do what i can to fight for myself
00:16:10.980
and the rest of canada for the other people that need these surgeries as well but yes there's times
00:16:18.660
it gets tough like really tough especially when it's hard to breathe and there's a lot of times
00:16:28.420
when i exert myself when i get up to do something even with the third machine
00:16:38.340
it's tough to keep going sometimes but i have to have to keep fighting
00:16:44.180
i never was one to give up before so i'm gonna start now
00:16:53.300
well sheila thank you so much for coming on today and sharing a little bit of your story and your
00:16:58.100
journey with us i know that me and my viewers we are behind you a hundred percent and i know a lot
00:17:02.740
of people were really excited to be able to support your fundraiser and we will continue to follow your
00:17:07.620
story with interest and uh you'll just be in our prayers and we are rooting for you a hundred percent
00:17:12.820
so thank you so much for coming you have the fundraiser do you have the fundraiser uh websites
00:17:18.980
yes we have the fundraiser website and it's been linked in my previous shows and we'll link it in
00:17:23.060
this episode below as well okay great okay then rachel thank you very much for having me on your show
00:17:28.980
today i appreciate it and thank you to everyone that is as helping with this movement and sending prayers
00:17:37.300
and you know have support for me and inboxing me i get a lot of them and uh i try to i try to do as
00:17:45.860
many as i can every day but but thank you for your support rachel you're most welcome okay we'll chat with
00:17:53.540
you soon okay chat soon take care okay guys thank you so much for joining me on this special
00:17:58.900
episode of the elberto roundup it was so touching to hear from miss lewis and to hear a little bit
00:18:03.940
about her story and hopefully we can have her on again for another positive update in a couple weeks
00:18:09.140
or months for those of you who want to go find the go find me page right now you can find that at
00:18:14.500
give send go.com g-a-m-m-5 again that's give send go.com g-a-m-m-5 okay guys i will see you on
00:18:23.620
saturday for our usual episode of the elberto roundup enjoy the rest of your week