First of all, in my corner of Canada we’ve been getting a lot of cooler weather and rain lately. I can’t even explain how relieving that is… For a wheelchair user who has to sit in an all black neoprene seat all day long, 35+ degree heat is like death covered in sweat. Oh yeah… and the rain is good for the fires…. But mostly just happy that I haven’t felt like a puddle for the last few days haha!
So as you can see from the title, today’s post is kind of a taboo subject and not everyone will like it. However before I go on I’d like the reader to note. I 100% support COVID vaccinations and what happened to me should by no means be used to defer anyone from getting one. The series of events that lead up to me getting the AstraZeneca were unique to my situation, and had different decisions been made a different outcome would have resulted. I do not give permission for anyone to use my story to reinforce anti-vaccination. And regardless I am still encouraging everyone to get a COVID vaccine. There… Now on to the nitty gritty.
I was like everyone else when the COVID vaccinations were released. I was very apprehensive, felt they were rushed, and the mRNA vaccines kind of terrified me. Also, my parents chose not to vaccinate me at all, so I had literally never had a vaccine of any kind in my life. So if I’m being honest originally I wasn’t going to get vaccinated. But eventually the medical logic and reasoning behind me specifically getting the vaccine was too strong to ignore. Now I’m not the kind of person to just blindly jump into something just because everyone else is doing it. So I did the best thing I could think of; I contacted a friend of mine who is a doctor in town and asked if she’d be willing to meet with me to discuss the vaccines. She graciously accepted and that evening we went for a stroll and talked. I brought up all my concerns with the vaccine, and like any good doctor she understood and validated them, but went on to explain the amazing technology behind mRNA vaccines. And honestly it was very intriguing and exciting to listen to, because well, science is cool. She also explained to me that the COVID vaccine’s main purpose is to prevent people from becoming seriously ill and dying from it. So really the benefit outweighed anything else, especially for someone like me who is high risk. Armed with new knowledge and a better understanding of the mRNA vaccines, I decided to give it a shot. Bad pun intended…
March 24th was the day of my vaccine, and the circumstances that followed are really what caused what happened to me. That morning as Scott and I were sitting drinking our coffee, he mentioned an article he had just read about AstraZeneca and that blood clots had been linked to it. We might consider that our first sign… I said brazenly that I was sure we wouldn’t be getting AstraZeneca anyways, as they had only just started using it in Canada. I was pretty nervous about getting my first ever vaccine so I didn’t want anything to scare me ultimately. Off we went to the hospital to get the jab. When we were checked in, we received pamphlets all about the mRNA vaccines, so naturally I thought that’s what Scott and I would be getting. When we sat down with the nurse I asked her what vaccine we were getting. She said, “we have AstraZeneca today”. Second red flag… Uh oh, my heart skipped a beat. I immediately mentioned what we had just seen online, that me being wheelchair bound made me high risk for blood clots, and I was freaking uncomfortable with this. Everything I knew was about the mRNA vaccines! The nurse calmly explained that the blood clot instances were essentially one in a million, blood clots happen frequently anyways in people so they can’t be sure they are caused by the AstraZeneca, and there were “no contraindications” for me getting the vaccine. Contraindications… I heard that word a lot throughout this experience… I told her I was still kind of uncomfortable and asked if I could come back on a day when they had an mRNA vaccine. She said they didn’t know which vaccine they’d be getting on which day so no, they couldn’t do that. I briefly looked at Scott who was stoic as usual, quickly considered the facts I was just presented with, and made a snap decision to go ahead with it. After all, I had gotten myself all worked up and if I backed out I might not want to do it again. So I took the jab… Which as you’ll find out if you keep reading turned out to be a big mistake.
Day 2 after getting the AstraZeneca vaccine. I had a fever, body aches, headache, basically everything they said I’d have. I for lack of a better term felt like shit. But I also had other symptoms. My leg, where I was given the shot because there’s not enough muscle on my arm, was swollen to double its size. I had a gigantic bruise that started from the injection site and went all the way up my back. My knee was red and hot and pretty painful. But I kept on keeping on, thinking everything was ok. Day 3 after getting the AstraZeneca vaccine. I woke up to see it plastered all over the news that Canada had removed AstraZeneca from the vaccine line up due to the blood clot risk. They were no longer giving it to people my age. Well shit, I thought to myself as I looked at my increasingly swollen and sore leg. What are the chances that I…. I immediately dismissed the thought, deciding that I was just being paranoid because I was seeing it all over the news. Day 4 after getting the AstraZeneca vaccine. My leg was massive from my hip down to my calf. Extreme pain, hot hot hot to the touch, and red. I finally broke down and called the public health nurse, who advised me to go to the ER immediately. I was stupid and didn’t go till a few days later, still thinking nothing was wrong and I’d look like a hypochondriac if I went to the ER. Finally a week after I got the shot, Scott forced me to go to the ER as my symptoms were not improving.
I had blood drawn at the hospital and anxiously waited for the results. The doctor came in and said what I was hoping she wouldn’t say. My D-Dimer, the test used to diagnose blood clots, was positive. She was putting me in for an emergency ultrasound in Cranbrook. She did say the test could be positive for any number of reasons, not necessarily because I had a clot, but it certainly looked that way. So the next morning we rushed to Cranbrook to have my ultrasound done. I was still in a daze at this point, not wanting to believe this was happening. I had it in my head that they wouldn’t find anything in the ultrasound, and this would all go away. And for the first 40 minutes of the ultrasound that was true… In the last few minutes she went over the side of my left knee, and she stayed on that spot for a long time. Then she got up, went out of the room, and brought back a doctor. Shit shit shit I thought again. They both went over the spot on my knee again for what seemed like ages. Then the doctor looked over at me and said, “We’re seeing a large clot in the deep vein. You’ll have to be admitted to the ER here to be examined and given medication”. Say what now!? No no no, this is my first vaccine ever. The clots were supposed to be one in a million. How is this happening!? I looked over at Scott in a panic. He immediately took a deep breathe in, which is usually his signal for “calm the heck down and breathe”. Sure enough, at the end of the day I went home with a diagnosis of a 4cm blood clot in my left knee and a prescription for four months of blood thinners. And all I was thinking was maybe I should buy a lottery ticket…
So the question I’ve been hearing the most since this happened is, “why wasn’t your case all over the news?”. Well there’s an answer to that… Not a good one but there’s an answer… Of the 5 doctors involved in my case, only two of them believe the clot was caused by the AstraZeneca. The type of blood clot I had was not the type being reported as being in association with AstraZeneca. I heard every excuse in the book as to why I got this clot. “You’re a wheelchair user so you’re at high risk.” “You’re on birth control.” After speaking with my gynaecology specialist, who happens to be the top in her field in Alberta, she said there was no way it was my birth control. I had been on this birth control for two years with no problems, and if I was going to get a clot from the medication it’d be within the first three months. She thought it was the AstraZeneca. The wheelchair user excuse honestly made me livid because it’s so hypocritical. On one hand they’re making it seem like if I wasn’t a wheelchair user and this happened they’d take it more seriously. On the other hand, they’re admitting that I’m at high risk for blood clots BECAUSE I’m a wheelchair user so… WHY WAS I GIVEN ASTRAZENECA IN THE FIRST PLACE!!?? Also, I had a D-Dimer for an issue in my right leg a few weeks earlier and it came back negative. I had no prior issues with my left leg prior to the vaccine, not even one. The top COVID vaccine managers, I’m sure there’s an actual title for them, told me there’s no contraindications (there’s that word again) for me to get the second shot of AstraZeneca. I told them they could go jab themselves… My doctor was absolutely livid about the situation, passionately stating that I should never have been given AstraZeneca in the first place considering my risk factors. I should’ve been given the choice to have an mRNA vaccine.
So where are we now? I went through four gruelling months of being on blood thinners and dealing with the symptoms that come with them. Sun sensitivity, raw scalp, hair loss, nausea, unbelievable fatigue. I couldn’t take anti inflammatories or my CBD oil while on the thinners, which meant I had basically zero relief for my back pain. I couldn’t visit my chiropractor until it was confirmed that my blood clot was gone. The blood thinners caused me to have periods again, which due to my endometriosis were so extreme with cramping, I had to be put on Percocets. Which didn’t help by the way… I bled literally every second day. I bruised at the drop of a hat. Literally… if someone dropped a hat on me it’d probably cause a bruise… I was covered in bruises, especially where I wore straps etc. After going through four months of hell, I’m finally off the blood thinners. But unfortunately I might not be off them permanently. There’s now discussion about whether I should be on the blood thinners for the rest of my life, due to my risk factors, and now that I’ve had a clot I’m apparently more susceptible to them. So I’m going for more tests and we’ll see what happens.
To summarize, when you look at the facts head on, it’s pretty undeniable that I got a blood clot from AstraZeneca. It was an awful four months and to say I’m thankful it’s over is an understatement. I’m now blood clot-less, a month ago I went and got Moderna as my second COVID shot, and I didn’t die. All good things… Could this have been avoided completely? Absolutely. I really hope in the future that when research and trials are done for this sort of thing, that people with disabilities are considered.
So what have I learned from this experience…? Murphy’s Law really hates me….
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