In this episode, Dr. Gregory Chan talks about the challenges faced by doctors when it comes to not only diagnosing vaccine injuries, but also reporting them. Dr. Chan is a family physician in Pinoka, Alberta, Canada.
00:16:54.940but yet they're still suffering from symptoms.
00:16:57.280And so what this other doctor said is that, you know, they're they're really concerned and sad about how some of these people are being treated and
00:17:05.260They're just not getting answers. They're sent home
00:17:10.180Very few physicians will even bother to look into it any further
00:17:14.640So they're they're just kind of left on their own struggling to to be well
00:17:21.880Yeah, and I and that's the difficult part
00:17:24.780I mean, it's not satisfying to be in that situation where you don't have answers.
00:17:32.780And certainly, you know, being a doctor, you'd like to help people and you'd like to try and
00:17:37.740fix whatever's wrong. But unfortunately, in these situations, if we can't find an answer,
00:17:43.980and they still have symptoms, then there isn't much that I can do medically as far as treating it.
00:17:50.940um there are some other things that we could try um like um you know waiting to see if there are
00:17:59.360other jurisdictions that have other other other recommendations unfortunately there isn't much
00:18:04.740that's out there but um it just requires regular follow-up to say that just check in to see how
00:18:10.620they're doing and i think that's the important thing is to still maintain that relationship
00:18:16.000that that I do believe what they've what's happened to them and that we'll
00:18:22.540try and investigate the symptoms as best we can right well thank you very much
00:18:28.480for sharing your perspective on this uphill battle when it comes to even just
00:18:35.800reporting the adverse events here in in Alberta and and some of the people that
00:18:42.760going to be speaking with are from other parts of canada that are running into similar situations
00:18:48.120which is uh which is very unfortunate but um thank you dr chan for uh for speaking with us today
00:18:55.080yeah i appreciate the time i do i do have to say that it does put you in a really strange position
00:19:01.560because number one i'm supposed to be advocating for my patients and when they've when they've had
00:19:07.800a reaction, and they're told that it is an adverse event, and they're told to have the
00:19:15.400treatment again, that's a very unusual situation to be in. And I feel compelled to stand in the
00:19:22.080gap and to stand up for my patients. Even when they're told that it doesn't count as an adverse
00:19:30.040reaction, we're kind of left in a situation with patients still having symptoms, then what do you
00:19:35.960do and I still am left in the same situation I have to stand with my
00:19:40.080patients absolutely and I'm sure your patients appreciate your dedication to
00:19:45.860them for sure I know there's a lot of doctors who have who have even told me
00:19:51.020that there's real pressure and there's a bit of a fear in in doing what you're
00:19:55.840doing just for the the recourse that they could force or that they could face
00:20:02.060And it really comes down to informed consent. So not only have they done that process of taking the vaccine for the first time, but after having experienced what they've experienced, they're still exercising their informed consent.
00:20:17.960They've had something happen, they've thought about it, and they're informing themselves as far as whether to make that medical decision again.
00:20:25.660And I think that's a medical principle, an ethical principle that we have to uphold.
00:20:30.440agreed well and hopefully uh with more awareness of this um we will see change so we've also got
00:20:38.840sean muldoon joining us and sean is from langley bc he is a quality manager for an industrial
00:20:46.440supplies company and sean had quite an experience after he was vaccinated why don't you uh why don't
00:20:53.560you tell us a little bit about um when you got vaccinated and what happened um i got vaccinated
00:21:00.440in april of last year and um end of april and initially everything was it was good i wasn't
00:21:06.760too concerned about it at the time um next day i had some flu-like symptoms kind of typical couple
00:21:12.280hours um sore shoulder and then that was it and so i didn't really worry about it too much but
00:21:17.320about a week and a half later um i went to bed and woke up in the night and i was having some
00:21:23.400pretty severe abdominal pain i just kind of wrote it off like something i ate maybe so i didn't agree
00:21:28.360with me but uh i spoke to the doctor the next day um i started vomiting which is uh very uncommon
00:21:35.960and so he said we'll give it a few days maybe call 8-1-1 just to double check you know talks
00:21:41.160about covid symptoms and i didn't have any so i didn't worry too much about it i did have a fever
00:21:46.360a few days later and so um i did go get a covet test which came back negative i didn't really eat
00:21:51.640all week a bit of like chicken noodle soup nothing was really staying down and then on friday i called
00:21:56.360the doctor back initially it was monday when i spoke to him so spoke five days later and i just
00:22:02.440said you know i'm not getting better i said i'm still putting quite a bit of pain here um my
00:22:06.360stomach's in a knot i've barely eaten all week and he said okay well we'll give it another day or two
00:22:11.240and if you're still having issues, we'll investigate further. And then that night,
00:22:15.800I just deteriorated rapidly. The pain got very intense. I started vomiting quite violently.
00:22:23.400The next day, I've had a pretty rough night while being a pretty rough week altogether.
00:22:28.680I went to the bathroom and I was in a lot of pain. I started vomiting and I started passing
00:22:34.600blood as well. So I called my wife at that point and I just said, I've got to get to the hospital.
00:22:39.240I said something's wrong um when I got to the hospital I actually went straight into the
00:22:44.860emergency room bathroom and I was just throwing up profusely and I was lying on the floor in the
00:22:49.760emergency room bathroom I couldn't really get up because I've been a been a pretty rough week at
00:22:53.560this point and my wife is checking me in um so I finally kind of got up and walked out there and I
00:22:59.480got checked in and uh they didn't initially know what was going on they didn't know if I was
00:23:04.220passing the kidney stone um I couldn't get off the floor they kept asking me to get off the floor but
00:23:09.040the pain was just kind of so intense at this point. I don't even really remember a lot after
00:23:14.540getting checked in. I can't tell you what the doctors looked like or the nurse or anything.
00:23:19.680Regardless, they did a bunch of tests. They did some blood work. My D-dimer was off. My platelets
00:23:23.820were off. They still didn't know what was going on. And this was about noon. And then the next
00:23:29.160thing I really recall was getting kind of like rushed into surgery. It felt like we were running.
00:23:34.420and I asked the nurse if I was going for surgery and she said yes and I said so this isn't a stomach
00:23:40.640bug and she kind of laughed and said no and I asked the surgeon what time it was because I
00:23:45.920kind of lost track of everything going on around me and he said it's 3 30 a.m or three o'clock in
00:23:50.840the morning so at that point I kind of realized well something's very wrong and then when I came
00:23:57.620too they told me that i had blood clots and that they've had to um they've removed about half my
00:24:04.980small intestine it was about uh just over six feet of my small intestine needs to be removed
00:24:09.940because it was uh it was dead and had the blood cut off to it um and so the next a couple days
00:24:18.100later they left a bunch of really bad intestine in me hoping it would recover because they'd taken as
00:24:24.580much as they could they said and for me to still hope to have some semblance of normal life
00:24:29.380afterwards they went back in and the intestine was recovering there was about 10 centimeters
00:24:34.980they had to take because it wasn't it was gone um so that was my second surgery and then they
00:24:40.260stitched me back up um they did some more scans i've had a bunch of ct scans and uh they found
00:24:46.260some more clots they found clots in my lungs and my spleen my abdomen um the one in my portal vein
00:24:52.260or my my liver is the one that had cut off the blood supply to my intestines and then a couple
00:24:58.660days after that my blood had been sent off to mcmaster university in ontario where they do a
00:25:05.780lot of the vaccine research and whatnot and the results had come back and they confirmed that this
00:25:11.140was vaccine-induced thrombosis and thrombocytopenia and basically a team of doctors set up a table
00:25:18.420beside my bed in the icu and uh had a little meeting and one came forward and said you know
00:25:23.700we've done the investigation and uh this was caused by your vaccine yeah and so so based on
00:25:31.540the timing it sounds like that was kind of well so you started struggling at about a week and
00:25:36.580a half after the vaccine and then but you know it was about two weeks by the time you
00:25:41.140ended up being hospitalized uh and you had mentioned about some of the tests like you
00:25:46.100said your d-dimer was off now i understand that uh that test is something that registers um blood
00:25:53.460clots so so um yeah so d-dimer everybody i've spoke to that got diagnosed with vit when they
00:26:00.340ended up in hospital they were getting just like off the charts d-dimer i knew nothing about this
00:26:05.140obviously at the time my d-dimer was in the 30 000 33 000 or 34 000 um it should be almost
00:26:12.020undetectable uh within a few days of getting on the ivig treatments in the prednisone it was down
00:26:18.500under a thousand it was at 800. um the problem with d-dimer tests it tells you something's
00:26:23.700wrong but it's kind of non-specific so when they get a d-dimer result like that and they see it's
00:26:30.100at 33 000 instead of non-recordable basically um it just implies something's wrong and the next
00:26:38.340day when i came out of my initial surgery the first one um you know my surgeon was everybody
00:26:44.820involved in like my care was phenomenal i can't like the track from the medical staff and the
00:26:49.540surgeon and the team of doctors um he was checking on me multiple times a day and he wasn't working
00:26:54.420that day but uh um sorry he was kind of uh the one that came forward and uh said that they couldn't
00:27:02.820find any of the typical markers for blood clotting he said that he suspected that this might be
00:27:08.580vaccine related because um i didn't have any sort of the um the traditional markers they look for
00:27:14.900with blood clotting right and and so just again to confirm you had the first dose of pfizer is that
00:27:21.860correct no it was astrazeneca oh the astrazeneca okay and so that one has been um uh you know well
00:27:30.020documented to be um responsible for a lot of of of blood clots yeah it's um one of the things i was
00:27:41.780quite kind of content to hear over the next kind of five six weeks multiple provinces said they
00:27:47.700were going to stop giving it out a lot of countries already had due to the blood clot risk in bc the
00:27:53.940reason they gave for not giving out more was due to limited supply which was a little frustrating
00:27:58.580I was in the hospital at the time and I just received a video we got text out to everybody
00:28:03.780from our provincial health officer that said just so you know if you at AstraZeneca you made the
00:28:08.660right choice all of our vaccines are very safe here in Canada meanwhile I've been in the ICU
00:28:13.140for three weeks while they try to figure out basically how to keep me alive at this point
00:28:18.420but then in I guess it was October and November Canada approved Johnson & Johnson which is
00:28:25.620basically the same thing and so at that point i was quite upset to know that more people were
00:28:31.700going to be put at risk for a bit like i've been diagnosed with and potentially have to go through
00:28:37.620something like this you know up until a month or so ago i had no colon i'd lost half my small
00:28:44.900intestine but they weren't able to reconnect what was still there so i've been living with very
00:28:50.500little intestine for the last kind of eight or nine months basically um and i just didn't want
00:28:56.980to find out that uh canada was going to proceed with giving this vaccination out to people and
00:29:02.420potentially put them in this kind of like a health risk and unfortunately johnson and johnson is a
00:29:08.260very very similar vaccine and it's also documented to cause it as well so you ended up getting the
00:29:18.420first dose and they were very clear that this was a vaccine-induced injury did do you have an
00:29:28.980exemption now are you do you have an exemption that that doesn't expire like what position are
00:29:34.160you in now I do have an exemption at the moment initially I was told I didn't qualify for one
00:29:40.220there was kind of a blanket statement I don't know if they used it across Canada or North America
00:29:45.360but it basically said if you have a history of thrombosis or thrombocytopenia from a previous
00:29:51.220vaccination, then go get an mRNA, basically saying, you know, yeah, we know that vaccine almost killed
00:29:57.880you, but this other one should be fine. I've been told by a doctor in the hospital, until you
00:30:03.980recover from this, once this is ancient history, then we'll discuss another vaccine. Until that
00:30:08.820point, you're not getting another jab. I spoke to a hematologist. I was supported in that. That was
00:30:14.660how we were proceeding and then when the vaccine passport came into place a few months later I
00:30:20.340called and asked for an exemption and my hematologist got back to me and said I'm sorry
00:30:24.660but you don't qualify because of this there was a page of exemptions and who was eligible for a
00:30:32.080deferral and unfortunately if you'd had thrombosis and thrombocytopenia that was vaccine induced
00:30:37.800um it was go get an mRNA go get a Pfizer or Moderna but after being told by a doctor after
00:30:45.480being you know discussing with a hematologist um there's no way I was getting another vaccine at
00:30:51.060that point I was I was terrified at the thought of getting another vaccine after what the first
00:30:55.120one had done to me well of course and especially considering uh you know the the situation where
00:31:01.780you've been told that you've had um you know such a large amount of your intestine removed like
00:31:08.500i can't imagine if if it you know you had a similar reaction and you know what's the option
00:31:16.020right like that's just um so right now you don't have a uh right now you don't have
00:31:21.540an exemption no what ended up happening is um another woman in bc um who was diagnosed with
00:31:26.820it as well she'd been in contact with numerous um sources um trying to get an exemption and then at
00:31:34.420the end of december um or back in december we were both on cbc they did a little article about
00:31:39.380us trying to get an exemption after having these um vaccine injuries and they actually cut to a
00:31:44.260little clip of our provincial health officer bonnie henry saying oh we're aware of these cases but
00:31:48.180it's a long process and whatnot um and the next day this woman in squamish got a letter from our
00:31:53.540Deputy Provincial Health Officer Brian Emerson and it included a temporary exemption just until her
00:32:00.980hematologist could confirm that it was safe for her to get another vaccine because when I was told
00:32:07.380that I needed to get another one that was the first question I had for a hematologist is is
00:32:12.260there any sort of documentation studies research that says it's safe for me to get this job and
00:32:18.900she just said no no there's not and so being in that position i was like i said mortified at the
00:32:25.620very thought of getting another one about a week later i was told to send everything to our deputy
00:32:30.660provincial health officer as well this was letters from a hematologist explaining why they were
00:32:35.860reluctant for me to get one i still have vit i'm still producing these antibodies almost a year
00:32:41.220later that caused the blood clots so um they didn't want to proceed with the operation with
00:32:47.860the surgery to reconnect my colon because i'm still producing these antibodies yet the province
00:32:52.660was telling me go get another jab um so i provide all that information to the deputy provincial
00:32:58.980health officer and then about a week later i also got a letter um with a temporary deferral
00:33:04.660from a second jab but it's literally like a piece of paper i pack around with me um and it's pretty
00:33:10.020beat up and ragged now because uh it's been almost you know probably four or five months of keeping
00:33:14.500this thing in my back pocket and then every time i go to a restaurant or to an event i pull out the
00:33:19.220piece of paper i explain the scenario to them um they go get their manager their manager goes and
00:33:24.420talks to the owner and then finally they come back and as of like so far i haven't had any issues just
00:33:30.900beyond them having to kind of go and confirm that uh it's legitimate because uh it doesn't really
00:33:36.580look legitimate to be honest it's just like a piece of paper you can tip it up at home but
00:33:40.980right it's um it's literally like i bonnie henry do give permission to sean muldoon
00:33:45.700to go to the pub and hockey games signed bonnie henry basically so that's what i tell people i go
00:33:51.860i've got a letter from bonnie she says i'm allowed to go to the pub yes that's where i've been for
00:33:58.820the last since december i got that and then months leading up to that i was getting furious i was
00:34:04.020livid um i lost a lot of sleep uh ended up medicated um just because i felt like i was
00:34:11.020being punished for going and getting the vaccine um it just felt like i i didn't even question it
00:34:19.140i just went and got the vaccine i didn't really worry too much about it and then you know i was
00:34:22.880in the hospital for over two months um i was on massive doses of medication um it affected
00:34:27.980it my vision was blurry my my mind was shaky my hands shook constantly for months and so for them
00:34:35.080to turn around and say go get another jab it just it just seemed bleeding chris there was no way i
00:34:39.360was going to um and then when i finally got that deferral it was right before christmas they just
00:34:44.820kind of announced if you're not double vaxxed the expectation is you don't go to christmas dinner
00:34:48.880and so i was really really upset at the time um i was ready to go like chain myself to the doors
00:34:55.040the car went building and caused a stink um because i was so upset about it and then i got
00:34:59.760the deferral and was kind of able to you know sort of get back on with a somewhat normal life
00:35:05.360right now in bc the vaccine mandates are set to lift uh is it april 5th is that right i believe
00:35:14.320april 8th thank you um so that's going to make things a little bit easier but of course we still
00:35:20.720have um federal mandates across canada which would would you know still impact travel and whatnot
00:35:28.160i would suspect at this point that your exemption would would work there but what are you going to
00:35:35.440do like what what are your thoughts when somebody says the exemption is no longer valid i i have to
00:35:44.880like what what's your decision yeah i've thought about that um i i think i'll just be back at
00:35:50.080square one again um i'm gonna just um i'm gonna have to again reach out to the powers that be if
00:35:57.120you have to reach out to politicians i spoke to my local mla um everybody's on my side i haven't
00:36:02.720really dealt with anybody who thinks that i should just kind of go out and get another jab just to
00:36:08.240get on with my life um i still think if you're only getting a vaccine because you want to go to pubs
00:36:13.440and concerts and travel um you're kind of getting it for the wrong reason to some degree they they
00:36:19.600keep calling you know unvaccinated people selfish but uh going to get a vaccine so you can go to the
00:36:24.400pub is just as selfish yeah it's kind of like um it's getting vaccinated for the wrong reasons
00:36:29.680i don't i don't want to put these vaccines in my kids right now this has been too traumatizing on
00:36:34.480my whole family on my wife my friends if they take the vax passes out i'm prepared to live with those
00:36:43.680restrictions for the time being because that's that's my choice moving forward um i'll probably
00:36:50.720be very vocal about it though because of the circumstances around us all absolutely and i was
00:36:57.280just talking to a doctor here in alberta who has dealt with many vaccine injured and has reported
00:37:04.480many as well and uh you know the it puts some of these doctors in a very tough position as well
00:37:12.720because he says you know i i'm trying to advocate for my parent my patients i care i care about their
00:37:18.240well-being and i'm trying to advocate for them but yet the only like i don't know if it's different
00:37:24.160in bc but in alberta as far as the college of physicians and surgeons go the only um adequate
00:37:31.600reason for an exemption here is if you've had an anaphylactic reaction and you actually have to
00:37:38.160get the first dose to see if you are are going to have that kind of reaction and so
00:37:44.960it seems to me that a person who had to have um multiple feet of their intestines removed because
00:37:54.400they died from blood clots and this was how your body reacted um you know it's it's uh concerning
00:38:03.280that somebody would say but you're still you're still required to do number two yeah and i mean
00:38:09.540it wasn't it wasn't me who approached them and said you know i don't want to get a second vaccine
00:38:14.420i'm scared now i was approached by a doctor specifically to talk to me about a second vaccine
00:38:18.640you know this doctor approached me um to tell me that we're not giving you any more any more
00:38:24.300vaccinations at this point we need you healthy before we even consider it to have a doctor tell
00:38:29.700you that to talk to your haematologist to have them on board and then to have the province and
00:38:34.280this isn't because they looked at my case specifically and made like a decision based
00:38:38.540on my health um that i should proceed with getting another vaccination and it was safe for me to do
00:38:44.520so this was just a blanket statement and so that's when i realized that the doctors are handcuffed
00:38:50.160my haematologist said i'm sorry there's nothing i can do um they said it was ridiculous there was
00:38:55.320an expectation for me to go get another job at that point but there was nothing they could do
00:39:00.360their hands were tied and then that's when I started to really appreciate the position that
00:39:04.420the doctors are in where they're they're dealing hands-on with a patient you know I dealt with
00:39:09.880these doctors my hematologist I've been dealing with now for coming up on a year I don't know
00:39:13.680how many times I've spoken with them same with the doctor in internal medicine when I was just
00:39:18.940readmitted to the hospital back in January was dealing with that same doctor again these are
00:39:23.260doctors that are they're comfortable with my file they're working with my file
00:39:26.860they're working with me directly and they don't think I should get another
00:39:30.280jab but then the province comes along and says well we have this policy and so
00:39:34.760he's got to go get one or he's not allowed to go to a Canucks game and that
00:39:37.760was really really it was a tough pill to swallow knowing that my doctor's
00:39:43.360opinions were being disregarded for some general blanket statement that was put
00:39:47.620on a document that I don't even think the problems created that document I
00:39:51.460it was either federal or provincial or i'm sorry even north american-wide well and we've got we've
00:39:58.340also got uh kareen moore uh joining us as well she's an ontario mom and she works in the tech
00:40:05.620industry part-time and is also again a busy mom and uh kareen had uh an adverse event an adverse
00:40:15.700reaction to the vaccine as well a bit different than than you sean but kareen why don't you uh
00:40:22.500give us some details about when you first were vaccinated and what happened for you
00:40:28.740sure i um i had my vaccine last august and i was fine until the next day when i woke up the
00:40:39.780breathing felt different. I had discomfort in my chest, but I assumed it was the immune response
00:40:45.620that I'd heard so much about in the media. But then I began, the pain intensified and two weeks
00:40:53.380after my first dose of Moderna, I felt like I was having a heart attack with intense stabbing pain
00:41:00.340in my chest and radiating pain at my shoulders and upper arms. And I went to emerge twice that week
00:41:07.940And over the course of that week and the next months, they ran tests, you know, blood, ECG,
00:41:15.920KG, echo, CT scan, x-rays, stress test, holder monitor. I was in and out, you know, at least
00:41:24.460twice a week more often than that at times. And just to try to figure out what was happening.
00:41:32.300and the tests were not definitive um i was told that i probably waited too long to detect some of
00:41:39.900what had been happening um before i came in and i waited so long because i thought it was normal
00:41:46.380at first that this was maybe just my immune response and um anyways um i couldn't lie down
00:41:56.540the the most challenging part for me other than the pain and difficulty breathing because every
00:42:01.900breath hurt was that I couldn't lie down to sleep at night because the stabbing pain in my chest was
00:42:06.580so intense that I couldn't breathe. So I had to sit up in bed and lean forward to alleviate the
00:42:13.920pain. I was having palpitations, shortness of breath, and the cardiologist treated me for
00:42:20.140pericarditis, but I reacted to the medicine with a severe full body rash. And I felt like I couldn't
00:42:27.160breathe at all after my first three doses of the medicine they gave me. So I did stop taking the
00:42:34.140medication. I was unable to get a hold of my doctors for a week after that to figure out what
00:42:40.360to do. And in the middle of all this, my family doctor asked if cognitive behavioral therapy
00:42:47.760would be helpful for me, which added insult to injury, because I had no history of needing
00:42:56.140cognitive behavioral therapy to handle anything and these were purely physiological symptoms and
00:43:03.500the the lack of sleep was definitely affecting me but i needed my pain treated and my
00:43:08.860my symptoms treated and i needed to be able to breathe um so they were sort of likening it to
00:43:15.900you having anxiety yeah well yeah yeah and i've never had anxiety um and i it was it was
00:43:27.020anyways with um with the exception of two of my doctors it became very clear and apparent to me
00:43:33.340that the specialists wanted to wash their hands of me they didn't want to tie it to the vaccine
00:43:38.380i spent you know just hours in pain by myself with no medical care um i felt like abandoned
00:43:46.300collateral damage and um unacknowledged abandoned and then um two doctors finally stated that it
00:43:55.420was clearly a reaction but that their license was on the line there they didn't they couldn't
00:44:00.940definitively there was nothing that they could do and um one doctor even went as far as to say
00:44:08.140not to vaccinate our children but that they wouldn't write an exemption because they can't
00:44:13.420um i was unable to do the simplest tasks like cooking or cleaning i remember taking my kids
00:44:19.180shoe shopping and leaning against the wall you know i i used to ride my bike 80 kilometers a
00:44:24.780week or you know i'm a very active person i remember leaning against the wall taking my
00:44:30.220kids to get shoes and just not being able to breathe standing there helping them with their
00:44:35.340back to to school you know shopping um i would go for a walk around the block with my husband and i
00:44:44.940i remember just trying to keep active and ending up leaning on him and saying i can't go around
00:44:50.300the block take me home and that's unheard of for me um so um eventually i did get the pericarditis
00:45:00.620diagnosis um uh while a doctor wrote an exemption for me with no end date um after the public health
00:45:10.780review it came back with an arbitrary end date six months from submission so even and even now
00:45:17.500with an exemption i still cannot get on a plane or a train to visit my parents across the country
00:45:21.900nor they me um because they don't our family actually has a history of vaccine injury
00:45:30.140so i was reluctant to get it um my sister spent five years in a wheelchair after the first year
00:45:38.380of hepatitis b vaccines were given in grade seven and my mom was diagnosed with severe intolerance
00:45:44.700to all medication by a toronto general hospital doctor so and for instance when i have antibiotics
00:45:51.580i pass out i i don't react well to pharmaceuticals so i've always had to treat myself um through um
00:46:01.980food and healthy lifestyle and i've just uh that's how i've managed my whole life and so i
00:46:07.820was very reluctant to get this vaccine but my life was too inhibited to be able to live without
00:46:12.700getting it so i had a choice to make and i clearly made the wrong one because to this day
00:46:18.140I'm not who I was. I have daily pain. I have chest aches. I have air hunger.
00:46:27.580And I have to strain to breathe and my breathing muscles ache and hurt because it takes work to
00:46:41.240breathe. I, you know, like, and so you've been given this temporary, but at some point you are
00:46:52.320going to be expected to get another vaccine by the sounds of it. Yeah. I'm assuming that this is,
00:47:02.440you know, that you have remorse, that you have, like, you know, that you look at this as,
00:47:08.620would you say that you would never do it again would you say that this was a mistake
00:47:14.040yes it was the biggest mistake of my life I knew um that I have sensitivities to medicine
00:47:21.600and in normal times I would have opted out because of my personal um health needs and my body I know
00:47:31.760my body. You know, I'm not, I would never tell somebody what to do for their own body. And so
00:47:39.580it was very invasive for people to be telling me what to do for mine. It was, yeah, certainly
00:47:46.080I've felt close to death many times since that vaccine. And I, you know, from being a completely
00:47:53.560healthy person with a full life and my life is very different now and um yeah will i do it again
00:48:03.080no because for me i believe that there's a very significant chance that i could die with another
00:48:12.200shot interestingly listening to the other story um they suggested that i not get an mrna another
00:48:18.520mrna shot instead i go to astrazeneca yeah and i i do hear that i have heard that from many people
00:48:27.560that um that seems to be what a lot of the healthcare uh uh practitioners are saying is
00:48:35.480if you had a bad reaction to the the the vaccine that is not mrna based then try the other one um
00:48:42.360but you know ultimately i i can i couldn't imagine how terrified uh it might how terrified you must
00:48:51.720feel having suffered that still suffering that and and have to consider you know being able to
00:49:00.120participate in a normal life in you know in the public travel things like that you would have to
00:49:06.360risk it again? Yeah it's it doesn't feel like the Canada I used to know. Do you
00:49:18.900have it so your family doctor is your family doctor advocating for you or
00:49:23.180again is this a situation where there's you know there's too much on the line
00:49:28.920for them i don't feel supported by my family doctor i and and so your symptoms are lingering
00:49:41.000they are they are still you are still struggling with this this is not um rectified itself for you
00:49:48.520no i have had um i've had to seek alternate help because the doctors kept saying we don't
00:49:56.120know what to do we've given you the medicine that's all we have and i reacted to it so i've
00:50:02.200sought alternate therapy i've had great help from um an osteopath actually in with my breathing and
00:50:10.760muscle straining um and i also had um intercostal chondritis which is pain between my rib cage
00:50:19.400muscles which was also triggered by the vaccine and that's been greatly reduced from my osteopath
00:50:27.640treatments and I've also sought help from several naturopaths who have helped with
00:50:34.680treating my inflammation and have been very supportive in researching global best practices
00:50:42.440for um somebody with my sensitivities to be able to heal as best possible
00:50:52.120how about you sean have you been able to access uh much for additional treatment or have you
00:50:59.320have you sought out any other options uh elsewhere um i haven't sought out many options but um
00:51:07.320um like my experience being quite a bit different again um i was getting blood work every two weeks
00:51:15.180for all of last year because they wanted to proceed with this next surgery so i've basically
00:51:21.780been in constant contact with my hematologist the the entire way through this um it wasn't
00:51:28.700planted up back in hospital in january that they realized my health was deteriorating just my lack
00:51:32.760intestine um being malnourished and um and dehydrated it kind of caught up to me and so uh
00:51:39.480when i went in the last time they decided to set up a little bit more outpatient care which was
00:51:43.320like outpatient dietician um internal medicine was kind of going to keep up on my blood work every
00:51:48.040month and then it was decided to just proceed with this surgery um my health was deteriorating
00:51:53.240my doctor said you're slowly dying in shock so we got to get you reconnected so i still have some
00:51:59.880you know i just had a surgery six weeks ago and so i'm still recovering from that
00:52:03.640and then there's still some aspects of um things were happening last year when i was first um
00:52:12.200kind of sent home from the hospital um you know your your head's not on properly your your focus
00:52:17.160isn't right my body's weak you can't lie in the hospital bed for two months and come out feeling
00:52:21.240particularly good and so i've got a bit of a uh a recovery ahead of me still from a year
00:52:26.840of malnourishment well not a year i guess nine months um plus this last surgery that i had so i
00:52:33.240i have had a lot about patient care i will just add though that um you know i was in the hospital
00:52:38.840being told almost the same thing i was being told we don't know how to treat this we don't know
00:52:43.160anything about the side effects and we know even less about treating them they were looking at
00:52:47.560cases out of the uk across north america trying to figure out what to do with my care and this
00:52:54.120this is what I'm being told by doctors in the hospital. I probably met with 20 different doctors
00:52:58.840over the two months that I was in the hospital. And that message was repeated to me numerous times
00:53:04.700that they didn't know what to do. They didn't know how to treat me. And that is very frustrating
00:53:09.220when you've gone and you've gotten this jab and you know that they're giving it to millions of
00:53:13.840Canadians, but the doctors don't even know how to treat the side effects. Yeah, that's one of the
00:53:22.280things that that I heard from the doctor that we were speaking to as well is
00:53:27.740that you know these these doctors are dealing with something so new they they
00:53:32.940don't know what they're up against they don't know I mean sometimes you know
00:53:36.980you're getting you're getting test after test it's not showing it's not showing
00:53:41.360what it should be but yet you've got people who are still suffering who are
00:53:44.960suffering with symptoms and and these doctors are sort of at a loss for how to
00:53:50.160treat them and how to uh you know how to best care for them so it's uh it's definitely um an
00:53:57.760issue sort of on both sides and questions too many questions you know left unanswered for
00:54:04.240uh doctors and patients and it's got it's got to be just a frustrating situation to be in
00:54:09.760uh we've got yeah well sorry i'll just say i didn't have any hesitancy going to go get my
00:54:13.840vaccination i didn't really understand how come some people were nervous to or scared to my
00:54:18.160My family's never had an issue with vaccinations.
00:54:43.540that they were gonna lose their job if they went and got it.
00:54:45.620So a lot of nurses at the time weren't vaccinated.
00:54:48.160And I left the hospital, you know, eight or nine weeks later with a much, much different attitude towards vaccines, towards vaccine safety and just towards people's people's choice to put it in their body and their opinion of why they were going to do that, because I didn't leave the hospital two months later, reassured that I was just some crazy fluke.
00:55:09.380now just very unfortunate this happened i left the hospital two months later i'm pretty rattled
00:55:14.100when it came to vaccines and really just saying you know um if if you don't have any fear of
00:55:19.300vaccines it's like the tourist that walks up to take a picture of a bear you know it's it's almost
00:55:24.340irresponsible you you should have some fear of them because there is um the potential for you
00:55:30.260to be very seriously hurt or even killed i was i was told by one doctor he's amazed that i lived
00:55:35.540through this so wow yeah similar experience for our our next guest uh mla shane getson uh alberta
00:55:45.780mla and uh somebody who came forward uh in february and um and and shared uh an adverse event
00:55:54.500that he had a similar story from you mr getson that the fact that when you were in the hospital
00:56:02.180um dealing with this adverse event you had mentioned that you were speaking with some of
00:56:08.980the health care staff about it and they had you know casually said you were our third in this
00:56:15.060evening um we we had a little bit of um uh trouble technically with trying to get uh our our story
00:56:24.740or hear your story so let's let's start again and uh why don't you explain to us what when you got
00:56:30.260vaccinated and what happened? Sure. So I guess just to predicate that, again, well, we did. Our
00:56:37.460family had COVID back in January of 2020. So it went right through our family. My wife, she has a
00:56:43.460medical background. Her parents both were medical backgrounds. Her dad was a doc, chief of staff,
00:56:49.320ran a hospital for 30 years. So again, when we had it, we went through all the events. It was
00:56:55.560different depending on which member of the household had it. I didn't have that bad of
00:57:00.380effect from COVID classic. My wife and oldest son and oldest daughter had had more adverse
00:57:07.080outcomes from COVID itself, but we all weathered the storm. So when I went and had my vaccination,
00:57:13.600I was held off right until last fall until September 22nd. And again, like the last guest
00:57:19.700in a position of an MLA, I get to hear lots of stories coming in one way or the other.
00:57:25.560of people having success and others not so successful and what really makes a person
00:57:32.060pause is when you see how many medical professionals chose not to have this particular
00:57:37.280vaccine and it's not with vaccine hesitance or anti-vaxxers or any of the other words that were
00:57:42.920invented during this last period in the last couple years it really comes down to people
00:57:47.820making the choices for the right reasons for themselves myself I've had lots of vaccinations
00:57:51.600before, zero problems, absolutely zero problems at all. So I think I shared with you earlier before
00:57:57.220the technical difficulties, I'm a private pilot as well. And in my age bracket, we have the full
00:58:03.020medical every two years just to make sure that we're fit to fly. I waited until the fall until
00:58:08.860I had my annual was due to do that. That way I had a baseline of exactly where my health was at
00:58:15.840prior to a vaccination as well. And again, zero medical history prior to this. I'm one of the
00:58:21.580most boring people that when docs or nurses asked to do the forms because there's nothing on there
00:58:25.760you know no issues no health issues no health problems it is a fiddle so when I went in and
00:58:30.800had my vaccination it was on the same day that my medical was performed for my flight exam zero
00:58:35.240issues or September 22nd I go and have my first jab in my left arm so I'm inoculated with the
00:58:42.340first dose immediately following that sicker than a dog in bed for two days at home and we're going
00:58:49.700into session on the Monday and part of the reason why I did it as well was to be a voice for others
00:58:53.960again to make sure my voice was still heard and theirs in the house and I didn't tell anybody my
00:58:59.980vaccination status because quite frankly I don't think it's anybody's business and the same as the0.68
00:59:04.560vaccine passports etc I was just abhorrently against that so paid for my own tests and0.93
00:59:09.700everything else to be in the house so then my symptoms progressed it was just one autoimmune
00:59:15.480type issue after another severe arthritic type pain aches and knees joints my shoulder I started
00:59:23.500losing mobility my shoulder difficulty to sleep at night started getting chest pains this all took
00:59:29.760the place over from September until December 22nd and when I started having some chest pains that's
00:59:35.600when my wife said okay enough for this go in and see the doctor and see what's going on so when I
00:59:40.620my family physician again he ran a battery of tests again i could barely lift my arm shooting
00:59:45.900pains it snapped it cracked a bunch of things there uh through the chest x-rays run full blood
00:59:51.100work again and electrocardiogram again um some ultrasound on my arm to find what was going on
00:59:56.380chest x-rays he discovered that i had a partially collapsed left lung as well and uh couldn't explain
01:00:03.740what was going on the good thing with the new or news on the blood work was there was no strokes
01:00:07.260there wasn't uh any heart issues so then uh over the christmas break it was trying to get mobility
01:00:13.980back in my arm by uh a few weeks after that in the first second week i should say in in january
01:00:20.380developed a a massive rash across my thighs and uh raised difficult troublesome bothersome you
01:00:28.940know whatever you want to throw at it for which words very uncomfortable um but doable you know
01:00:33.980know you could kind of work through it and I was still working with the lung trying to do deep
01:00:38.800breathing exercises to reinflate my left lung or you know partially collapsed left lung and a week
01:00:45.580following the rash all of a sudden my face started puffing up and over the course of about four to
01:00:52.700five days as you can see from that photo you just flashed up I looked like somebody went 10 rounds
01:00:57.120with Tyson with no prize money. Ended up in the emergency room and in the hospital emergency
01:01:04.480in Sturgeon County or Sturgeon County Hospital. And in passing, speaking to one of the
01:01:11.580security people there, he had said I was the third person in 20 minutes with some type of
01:01:16.580weird allergic reaction coming through. It was just busy that night. By 5 a.m. I went in at
01:01:24.520nine o'clock and no respiratory issues at that point. So there was no closing of the throat or
01:01:29.480anything else. With my wife's medical background, she told me to take some antihistamines to see0.80
01:01:34.400if that would bring a zero effect. The emergency room doc shot me full of Benadryl in there. So
01:01:41.040injectable Benadryl wasn't bringing it down. She didn't know what to do with this, sent me home0.99
01:01:46.860that night or that morning, I should say, I guess it's about 6 a.m. I was discharged and
01:01:52.440made a recommendation or a referral I should say to go see a dermatologist
01:01:57.000that would take place over the course of about a month later three weeks to a month later
01:02:01.240let my doc know on on would have been Monday and I received a prescription for
01:02:09.180prednisone so a steroid essentially a heavy dose for three days to reset my immune system
01:02:14.420and then that stopped the reactions that were taking place but it was over the course of about
01:02:21.060a month roughly of ice packs all the time to try to bring the swelling down and then when I was in
01:02:27.020the the truck convoy that was a week after and I had my son with me with an EpiPen to make sure
01:02:32.800that you know I didn't have any reactions in case I did it and anything along those lines and again
01:02:39.740you know a little bit difficulty breathing and then where I'm at right now in the recovery well
01:02:45.520actually I guess I should jump ahead once I got to see the dermatologist he also disclosed that
01:02:51.820there was lots of challenges out there even one of his own staff had issues and with it but when
01:02:59.220he was looking at my information it's almost like the docs can't jump to the conclusion themselves
01:03:04.140they're almost leading you into it to ask what you think is going on and once I you know regaled
01:03:09.020the story told him about the pictures he had seen those said the incidents said I believed it was
01:03:14.660an autoimmune reaction caused by the, you know, the injection of Pfizer, the first one I'm having
01:03:18.360adverse reaction. He agreed. And he looked at the pictures and what was definitive for him
01:03:24.980was the rash on my legs. And he says that there is no question that's, that's what's going on
01:03:30.120there. So the docs too are having issues. My own family physician or medical doc, he couldn't say
01:03:37.180anything with it. He couldn't do anything. He had to have a specialist. And then the specialists
01:03:40.920even are at the point where you know this one doc had said it's they've made it so difficult with
01:03:45.960reporting on this particular vaccine he says it's almost like you roll up and see a car crash taking
01:03:52.340place but you're not in the driver's seat at the time of one of the cars so then it wasn't an
01:03:56.840accident because now you can't report it because you're not in that particular circumstance and his
01:04:01.620frustration was with any vaccine you want to report there are going to be side effects that's
01:04:06.360just a given but this one it seems so darn difficult that it's making it challenging for
01:04:10.840everybody so right now where i'm i'm at a recovery my lung is reinflated um my movement is coming
01:04:18.340back in my right shoulder i can pick up 15 pounds now i'm pretty excited about that um you know if
01:04:24.100you've ever seen me before i'm about six foot two 230 and a farm kid uh so being this yeah so 15
01:04:29.180pounds is nothing no yeah that's tough and uh right now it's just uh tired all the time and if
01:04:38.060i work more than eight to ten hours i really start developing those symptoms again of aches and pain
01:04:43.660so it's it's pretty humbling quite honestly and right now it's just through the process of working
01:04:49.180through formally applying for the vaccine injury and having that recognized by the federal government
01:04:55.980now now doing that what about uh getting an exemption so do do you have an exemption do
01:05:03.360you have a temporary exemption where are things at for you with that yeah so it's it's interesting
01:05:09.820it's a catch-22 and um right now i'm i officially do not have an exemption so i'm in the process of
01:05:16.780getting an exemption through their process now you would imagine and i mean you flashed that
01:05:22.120picture up when I shared that with fellow colleagues again I didn't tell anybody what
01:05:25.920was happening with me I didn't want to prejudice anyone's decisions for what they were doing
01:05:30.060I wanted to make sure that obviously I document information and I spoke for both sides you know
01:05:35.660whoever chose to get vaccinated or not again I'm not a medical professional at all so people have
01:05:40.420to go reconcile with that and do that but even when I shared my picture and told my story to
01:05:45.600my own colleagues they're going well you're exempt I'm going we're not and on that program I
01:05:49.920technically i'm not exempt well they couldn't believe it so there therein lies the frustration
01:05:54.560when you look at the system and what a person has to go through versus what would be common sense
01:06:01.680well and uh shane one of the struggles too is uh the doctor that i was interviewing a little
01:06:07.200bit earlier an alberta doctor it's you know i i actually spoke with a couple of doctors who
01:06:13.520wanted to stay anonymous because of the threat uh and and one of the doctors actually said to me at
01:06:20.320the end of of speaking with me that it's it's a travesty that i can't publicly speak about this
01:06:28.000with you i can't tell you what i've seen and what i've experienced on the record because my my
01:06:35.200license is at stake yeah i this like to me i i'm having a like that doesn't seem like it makes
01:06:43.680sense a for for the transparency but but also the fact that we're still dealing with um something
01:06:51.520that's fairly new uh as far as vaccines go we're still dealing with something that was uh emergency
01:06:58.000youth use authorized and still is it is still in a trial phase um up until 2000 or 2023 and so
01:07:07.200this doctor that i've been speaking with said it's it's it's one of those situations where
01:07:12.160we should be documenting everything we should actually be looking at everything as suspect
01:07:17.840and then working to rule it out not the other way around so so it's uh and and i understand
01:07:23.920you know there's a part of me that understands that it was it was the goal was to get um people
01:07:32.780vaccinated to protect the the public to protect the population and um the hope was that that was
01:07:39.040going to sort of be the the cure-all the end-all to this pandemic um but you know to to go so far
01:07:48.500as to silence people and not give them a voice for the, you know, the vaccine injuries or the
01:07:57.700adverse events that they've suffered. And to go so far as to interfere with doctor-patient
01:08:03.760relationship, to go so far as to make it difficult for doctors to have conversation,
01:08:09.980even amongst themselves, to share information is, I think I agree with him, it is a travesty.
01:08:16.660well there is and again we want to take that coin that catchphrase you know trust the science
01:08:22.380well scientists will sit around and want empirical evidence and they want to bring that forward and
01:08:26.220talk about it and again in the position of an MLA you know I tabled 63 testimonies in the house
01:08:31.180of medical professionals that were having issues that would not take the vaccination themselves or
01:08:36.760being pushed into it and folks have to understand too there's there's layers to this onion you know
01:08:41.440there's the federal mandates that are taking place that are out of our control there's the
01:08:46.380jurisdiction for health within the provinces that we have jurisdiction to to lay out there and again
01:08:51.620the province we took away the ability from ourselves to have mandatory vaccinations so
01:08:56.880bill 66 did away with that but then it's left up with ahs and the college of physicians
01:09:02.540coupled with the ministry of health of where the docs actually fall into play here as well
01:09:08.480so the college of physicians there's appointed positions on there from from the government
01:09:12.620there's also the doctors from their own community come out and fill those positions as well. So
01:09:18.760again, this isn't just a one party trying to fix the system. It's a bunch of groups. And I would
01:09:24.600say lessons learned of where all of those elements have to be reviewed, inclusive of AHS. And the
01:09:30.320fact that docs themselves, and I can give you, I can't name the name, but I'll give you an example
01:09:35.440of one doctor that, you know, I tried to help and to no avail, quite frankly, unfortunately.
01:09:43.040So this gentleman, he got into medicine in the first place. He was inspired as a child because
01:09:49.080he found out he had a heart condition. So him and his family all had COVID. They had the serology
01:09:54.700to show it. He's graduated top of the dean's list, been practicing for 16 years, has a predisposed
01:10:00.000heart condition looking at the vaccinations out there weighed the math the risk wasn't worth it
01:10:07.200and he even got forced into a position where he ended up taking the J&J so he could keep his
01:10:13.300position so he could keep practicing with his patients and again he's already had COVID work
01:10:17.540through all of that in the first place as exposed to patients and then felt compelled or forced to
01:10:22.680have to do that now where we did get a lot of exemptions was for the rural docs and then even
01:10:28.440in the position where we're at now. We finally had that lifted where the testing is, but AHS
01:10:33.140still maintains that any new hires have to be vaccinated. Now, the concerns I have with the
01:10:37.820vaccination, if we look at it, and I kind of tongue in cheek called it COVID classic. So
01:10:41.820the original COVID strain that we had, that's what these vaccines were designed for. And what
01:10:46.960we've seen is limited or diminishing efficacy on the new strains. So when the Pfizer using their
01:10:54.240own numbers, when they're saying it's 70 percent ineffective for double vaccination for adults and
01:11:00.240it's 98 percent ineffective for children, then I struggle with suggesting that the original
01:11:07.680vaccination, that we should be, you know, pushing this forward with folks not fully understanding
01:11:13.260the risks and understanding where they're at. So if it's 30 percent efficacy, then why would you
01:11:19.140take the risk of the current strains of where you're at? I struggle with that. So again, with
01:11:24.000me coming forward and talking about these things so openly I'm hoping that people will take a sober
01:11:28.460second pause look at the information out there not have the stigma that's been contrived around
01:11:33.880it and people so polarized and just really think of where you're at if it's if it's really worth it
01:11:38.600and if you want to do it still that's fine but go into it with eyes wide open
01:11:42.120exactly and I think when when you're talking about something that that does come with these
01:11:50.080risks uh provable and you know i'm talking to three of you right now who have had terrible um
01:11:57.760reactions to to keep pushing forward with it being a mandate um is is challenging and it's
01:12:06.960you know i think we can all say we're thankful for people in positions like yours where you can be
01:12:14.320heard you can you can speak to a bigger broader audience uh and and you know it's it's not
01:12:22.400as easily hushed so uh just wanted to say thank you for coming forward i imagine that was
01:12:29.840that was uh felt probably a little bit terrifying a little bit tricky maybe um i'm not sure but uh
01:12:37.200but no there was there was no issues on that so again I'm six foot two two thirty and I used to
01:12:44.000build major projects so it wasn't about having our hurt feelings report or feeling timid I find
01:12:48.700myself in a difficult position where I tried to keep personal information personal and where the
01:12:55.340opposition wants to vilify and even one member is going out there and is on record now for saying
01:12:59.680how I'd done it to hack into people's medical information and my caution all the way along on
01:13:05.120this was that when you start devolving to the point where your your classifications of people
01:13:10.720on their choices and moreover when you're ordering a a burger and the in the person that's selling
01:13:16.660you that instead of asking if you want fries with it is asking you for your medical information
01:13:20.240we're going down a path here the law of diminishing returns of what we're looking for so now we've
01:13:25.280predisposed a population to have public information if you don't disclose it then they're categorizing
01:13:30.700you as one formed the other. So quite frankly, they made me angry. They frustrated me to the
01:13:36.300point where, fine, if you want to vilify and start taking another run at me, here's the other side of
01:13:40.520the story. And maybe you should back off on some of the people for the decisions and why they made
01:13:44.920it. So it wasn't because I was timid or anything else. It was simply enough was enough. And here's
01:13:51.180the rest of the story. And again, I didn't want my position to prejudice any of that. And if you
01:13:56.840look at any of my social media posts or anything else I never said go get the vaccine and I never
01:14:01.080said don't go get the vaccine everything was consistent so people had a judgment and a choice
01:14:05.820based on the information that they had and that they went into it with eyes wide open so that's
01:14:10.400where I came from it just quite frankly they made me very frustrated and angry and they wanted to
01:14:15.900start a fight I have no problem with finishing it right well thank you for that and I think there's
01:14:21.580a lot of people that have felt very frustrated by the process that they have they have walked
01:14:26.700through again i've spoken with many doctors who have struggled uh in this province and other
01:14:31.980provinces actually um in in you know the the even just the process of trying to report these
01:14:38.860uh having patients that they're very concerned for come back and say well i've been told i still have
01:14:45.580to be um dose two vaccinated so a real challenge for many people and uh you know i i appreciate
01:14:53.660that you are are going public and that you are speaking up for a lot of people who don't have a
01:14:59.180voice in this uh and uh you know sort of demanding that it not be silenced so thank you for that
01:15:07.420well and i appreciate the venue and the more times that we can have open conversations that aren't
01:15:12.620politicized, that, you know, we will get better, better as people here as we move forward.
01:15:18.140And there's going to be a ton of lessons learned out of this. And I would anticipate legislation
01:15:22.700put in place as well, once we get the full understanding. The challenge that I have right
01:15:28.300now is on the federal level, regardless of what is coming out, that we still seem to be heading
01:15:35.200down a path of reckless abandon and not listening to what is relevant. It's fixated on ideology and
01:15:41.420belief rather than where we're at and it's going to take all of us to try to turn that around
01:15:45.660and understand that you know we've been divided and conquered we've been turned on each other as
01:15:50.700citizens here and we have to stop that rhetoric we have to stop talking about our vaccine status
01:15:56.460we have to talk about what happened where we're at and to make sure that again people are well
01:16:01.580informed and advised of what's happening and not to live in fear yeah it's just very compelling
01:16:07.740and it tugs in the heartstrings when you hear these stories and again like the folks on the call
01:16:12.540a lot of them come across my desk because i've said this and i'll keep tabling your information
01:16:17.020and if you do have vaccine injuries or stories and you're not being listened to
01:16:20.780send it in to me and and i'll do what i can with it and i'll make sure that it gets tabled and put
01:16:25.660on public record so that we do have a historical record of this as well forever in our answer as
01:16:30.700it was recorded in the Alberta history. Well, that's incredible. I appreciate that.
01:16:36.460And thank you very much for your time. I know that you are likely very busy. So if you need
01:16:43.560to jump off, completely understand. Thanks again. And I'm sure we'll hear from you again
01:16:50.940on this topic. I appreciate it, folks. Take care. Okay. And Corinne, I wanted to just chat with you
01:16:58.520again uh you we you and i had talked about a friend of yours as well uh her name was claire
01:17:04.520duncan and claire is a good friend of yours that is actually a triath triathlete and you had
01:17:11.640mentioned she was also vaccine injured and uh she spoke with me today wasn't able to join us for the
01:17:18.600call but said that that she would be okay for you to share a little bit about what she experienced
01:17:24.520as well yeah she was um she was diagnosed with myopericarditis after her third dose
01:17:33.160like me she felt like she was having a heart attack uh 24 hours after getting it and went
01:17:37.560to the hospital and all tests revealed there was a lot of information and the doctors think
01:17:43.560she probably developed it um after the second dose because she was having all the symptoms
01:17:50.040of myocarditis after her second dose but um didn't really pay attention i guess and pushed through
01:17:57.400yeah yeah as a triathlete and she got sent for a ct and an echo and now she has severe0.96
01:18:06.280nerve damage in her feet which came i guess a week after her third dose um in january and she
01:18:13.080still has that right now. And she has radiating chest pain. Her HR was elevated to, I think she0.98
01:18:23.040said 160 while resting and she had flu-like symptoms. Her initial cardiologist appointment
01:18:30.880after her visit to the hospital was scheduled five weeks after her diagnosis, which is similar to me,
01:18:40.820wait weeks and weeks while you're unable to sleep you're in pain you're unable to live your life
01:18:45.780for these appointments and then they gave her ibuprofen and suggested bed rest to her and
01:18:54.420and didn't really give her any information at all on what recovery would look like or
01:19:00.180her path forward as a triathlete just kind of there you go bed rest0.87
01:19:05.860you know i when i listen to your experience when i listen to uh claire's experience sean
01:19:15.820your experience i just think you know sean you were telling me too that you lost 60 pounds uh
01:19:21.920in a very short amount of time i mean the this is life-changing uh and how long this is going
01:19:28.960be life-changing um you know like it i i can't imagine trying to process the regret uh and but
01:19:40.400but stay positive not not let this uh affect you mentally uh and and and bring you down i
01:19:47.440i imagine that's been a bit of a challenge for for either of you sean how about you
01:19:51.440um it has but initially i just tried to just focus on my recovery i knew i had a long way to go when
01:20:00.240i had lost some intestine and i kind of had to reinvent how i how i ate and how i drank and
01:20:05.600everything else i found that with time um you know motivation seems to wane over time and then that's
01:20:12.800when i started to struggle with it more and more i did become um i had a harder time staying
01:20:18.160positive and i started to also become more and more bitter about what had happened uh just the
01:20:23.440complete lack of support the lack of acknowledgement from a government level whether it was federal or
01:20:29.920provincial there's been there's been absolutely nothing there's been almost no contact and
01:20:36.640updates from the vaccine injury support program i was fortunate that my work did have long-term
01:20:43.360disability set up because i haven't worked now in eight to ten months so initially i was on ei
01:20:50.160which doesn't pay particularly well and then i got transferred over to that but there's definitely
01:20:54.960been periods where i just kind of felt i don't want to say betrayed or um i feel like i put my
01:21:03.040trust in the health professionals and i put my trust um in our government and um i regret it
01:21:09.920now and i wish i hadn't and i'll never be able to again when they told me it should be safe to go
01:21:14.160get another vaccine i couldn't trust them i did that the first time um you know they said it was
01:21:19.360safe to get this vaccine and it wasn't and it's just that simple you know it very nearly killed
01:21:24.400me um i lived with a lot of guilt initially because nobody put a gun to my head and forced
01:21:30.400me to get this vaccine i did it on my own accord and then my children almost lost their father
01:21:35.360because of it and the first couple weeks nurses even had a hard time understanding when i tell0.72
01:21:42.480them that the guilt was just overwhelming i'd break down lying in my bed in the icu i just
01:21:47.360have tears pouring down my face thinking about my children and my family what i'd done to them
01:21:54.320by making this choice and it turned out to be the worst choice i've ever made in my life
01:21:59.920and no i wouldn't do it again but it's hard to know that the manufacturers aren't liable and
01:22:06.800the government's not liable and nobody has any sort of responsibility and then you can't even
01:22:12.480get acknowledgement or support for your injury after the fact especially when they're mandating
01:22:18.640people go get them and you can't mandate something and tell people to do something and then just
01:22:24.720just waive all liability and all responsibility after.
01:22:28.340You have to support people that are injured
01:22:30.480when you're mandating something like this.
01:22:32.640And I just, I can't agree with what they're doing
01:22:53.300And I just couldn't believe that our province was putting in new mandates at this point when it feels like everybody's going to get a jab against what can be treated like a flu or a cold at this point.
01:23:06.060So I have very I've had a lot of sleepless nights just trying to come to terms with everything that happened over what seemed like such a harmless thing in the first place.
01:23:17.460I walked in and got a little jab in my shoulder and I carried on and I changed my life potentially forever.
01:23:23.300because i'll have i'll have short balance and go for the rest of my life now i'm not getting any
01:23:26.900more any more intestine back i'm afraid yeah kareen how about you how how has this affected
01:23:33.860you uh and your mental health um it's been a challenge i um the like four months of not
01:23:42.260being able to sleep and having to sit up all night uh you know no sleep alone is gonna do a number
01:23:50.180and it was hard to be a mother and to carry out my responsibilities at work and um you know and
01:24:00.100and also just to deal with constant pain and every breath being a struggle um i can't there
01:24:06.820were times when i couldn't even talk because it was too much effort and um so then i just didn't
01:24:13.140even want to be around people because even the excitement of being around people caused my heart
01:24:18.660rate to go up to a point where i couldn't and i'm an extrovert so just all that alone time that i
01:24:25.060that i had to take just to try to recover you know and then coupled with the prognosis of you
01:24:31.620will not be able to work for the rest of your life you will not be able to participate in society
01:24:37.460like just seeing legislation going into place around the world and there's nowhere to go to
01:24:43.700get away from it it's certainly challenging and you know it takes a lot
01:24:52.920of strength to to heal during a time of such uncertainty I I would agree I can't
01:25:03.200imagine how excuse me how difficult it has probably been I when I put the call
01:25:10.700out to to speak with people and to have them share their stories about being vaccine injured
01:25:17.820you can only imagine my my inbox was quite full and i i heard from many people i heard from
01:25:27.660a southern alberta lady she received two pfizer shots and within two weeks she was in
01:25:36.620you know similar to you Sean terrible abdominal pain and she was misdiagnosed I think again this
01:25:43.500is this is part of the struggle is is that a lot of these doctors don't know what they're up against
01:25:48.460they're not sure what they're looking for you know people are presenting with symptoms you can't find
01:25:54.220anything in the tests she was misdiagnosed and then four days later she went back in in again
01:26:01.260even worse excruciating pain and they found that she had a perforated appendix um and and her
01:26:08.540challenge was that uh they they didn't believe that this had anything to do with her vaccine
01:26:14.780even though it was um it was within weeks uh until her daughter she said looked into it and saw on
01:26:23.420pfizer's list of adverse events that appendicitis and issues with the appendix were a known effect
01:26:32.060from the vaccine so that was a struggle for her i had another lady from ontario her name's liz
01:26:38.700she contacted me one dose injured she does have an exemption she's a 39 year old mom of two
01:26:46.060she got vaccinated to be able to work you know a lot of people did a lot of people did it0.70
01:26:51.340it not necessarily, as you mentioned, Sean, for the reason to be protected, but it was to be able
01:26:57.540to work and to be able to go out with friends and to be able to live a normal life. She, like you,
01:27:03.920Corinne, had shortness of breath, joint pain. They found a blood clot in her lungs. I have another
01:27:10.520person that contacted me, an Ontario law enforcement officer. After two doses of Pfizer
01:27:16.480through May and June. He had ringing in the ears after the first dose, but after the second dose,
01:27:24.920it has been horrible, terrible chronic tinnitus, he says. His family doctor and
01:27:33.480another specialist did confirm it is a vaccine injury with no treatment. So he is still dealing
01:27:42.180with it it is it has not uh lifted in any way shape or form for him and this is since june so
01:27:50.180he's struggling with that another person contacted me to let me know that his wife's grandmother
01:27:57.060also suffered from pericarditis and was hospitalized numerous times almost died
01:28:03.300it was confirmed by a doctor to be vaccine related and she still ended up having to get
01:28:11.380her second shot uh and and it you know like it again it's one of those situations where
01:28:18.180people are making these decisions and uh feeling pressured or forced i heard from another mother um
01:28:26.500this was a lady from windsor ontario her 26 year old son experienced bell's palsy this is again
01:28:34.020another terrible side effect that many people have suffered from um and it's sort of the paralysis
01:28:40.260of one side of your of your face was confirmed as an adverse reaction to the shot from an allergist
01:28:47.620said he should not get the second dose but again it was one of those situations where they suggested
01:28:55.700try the johnson and johnson for your second dose and thankfully did he did not react to that second
01:29:03.540dose. He did go and get the Johnson and Johnson. But again, I understand from listening to both of
01:29:12.400you and to many others that this has been, you know, it's been a very strange time. We've never
01:29:20.160experienced anything like this. And I think there has been a lot of people who haven't had the
01:29:25.140opportunity to speak well for themselves. And even in that, I know, Corinne, you had said part of the
01:29:31.680reason you feel like you have got somewhere that you were able to get an exemption for a period
01:29:39.980of time was because you could speak up and you could speak well for yourself. And I think there
01:29:44.300are a lot of people who haven't been able to. Yeah, I recognize that the ability to research
01:29:54.320and articulate is um and to be tenacious while you're feeling so terrible and you know I had
01:30:02.680the support of my husband helping me along that journey and advocating by my side and um I just
01:30:09.800can't imagine what it's like for you know somebody who's not as familiar with the language or who
01:30:17.460isn't supported um by the people around them um yeah i i do think advocacy is missing for many
01:30:28.040well i you know the i would like to kind of thank you both because you both are um you know speaking
01:30:35.660up you both are uh taking the opportunity to share and and i think that is part of how we
01:30:43.600get through this right is is bringing awareness to this giving people an
01:30:48.160opportunity to speak in a voice and to hear and and I hope that as we move
01:30:55.780through this as we get out of this pandemic that we learn a lot from this
01:31:01.900and we don't ever have to repeat some of the mistakes that were made and and I
01:31:09.840really do hope that both of you are are sort of on the mend and continue to to get better and can
01:31:17.600enjoy uh you know a good life with your children as parents uh in your work lives uh being fit and
01:31:25.600active so uh that's my hope for both of you and again i just want to thank you both for
01:31:31.360speaking with me today and for sharing your stories thank you thank you melanie