The Vaccine Narrative

On February 25th, I attended the hearing for HB1235, a bill with medical freedom in mind. It would protect people from vaccine mandates, discrimination against vaccine choices, and rule that doctors and pediatricians provide vaccine package inserts sharing adverse reactions before administration. Though it was so well thought out and logical, it didn’t pass. My heart has been heavy since then. Fear and popular opinion triumphed over doctorate and law degrees, relevant statistics, testimonies, and facts. I saw firsthand how freedom, truth, and logic are so easily disregarded when presented with fear, and how one's narrative affects beliefs and decisions. I saw blind trust given to vaccines and the vaccine industry, all because the record we've had playing in our heads our whole lives has said they're safe and effective and we've never thought to question them. That used to be me.

IN THE DARK I was 19 when I got “caught up” on vaccines for a missions’ school I was considering. My face broke out with small, unsightly bumps for months following each round, with the duration gradually lessening each time. I got polyps on my cervix for the first and only time in my life that I was too embarrassed to even talk about, and two warts showed up on my hands within a week of receiving my first round. I had never missed one day of work in the three years I worked at the Marriott, yet the day I received my last round was told I looked sick and should go home. Two weeks later, I couldn’t walk on our honeymoon without severe pain despite me wearing comfy shoes on our wedding day and every other day. That level of pain in my feet never returned. It was the beginning of a huge set of autoimmune diseases and cysts rupturing that my life would now be plagued with that got worse with each nursing and pregnancy period. I questioned everything but vaccines. My mind endlessly searched for causes, but nothing ever made sense. My body had never reacted that way, and I was always left in the dark.

AWAKENING IN MOTHERHOOD

It wasn’t until I had my first child that my sister brought up how many vaccines were on the schedule. I thought it strange the huge jump in vaccines without any evidence as to why and opted for the 1983 schedule I was given as a child. My newfound role as a mother was the one light I had during a really dark season in my life. I felt like she was a “gift of God’s favor” in a time I questioned God’s love for me and named her accordingly. I was determined to do everything right and endured the pain of natural childbirth despite tearing and her pushing my sacrum out of place as she was born face up. It was the end of a really hard pregnancy that had me getting IV’s and a medication to hold food down. Despite the hard pregnancy and packing on a considerable amount of weight with my body going into survival mode, I would have willingly done it all over again in a heartbeat if needed. On the other side of that pain was a love I never knew I could encounter. My labor was the closest I had felt to God in a long time, and I thanked Him for the opportunity to bring life into the world.

At her two month check up, tears streamed down my face as I held her down telling her it was for her good as she screamed and cried harder than ever before. Of course, I was told to give her Tylenol as she broke out with a high fever and looked for a natural medication for her new earache. She became “colicky” and started to hate riding in our van though we used to drive her around before then to put her to sleep. Within the week, she started screaming every time she peed. Every time I called in or brought it to anyone’s attention, I was told, “oh, she just has a tummy ache” or my concern was dismissed. I was just a first time mom. It didn't matter that I was literally with her all day. Thankfully, I kept pushing to be seen as her screaming never let up. When they weighed her at her next appointment, she started peeing on the scale and started screaming as she did. They finally agreed to look into it. I found out that her urine was going into her kidneys every time she peed. It was then that I began questioning them. When I did, I learned that my experience wasn’t foreign. In fact, I was one of many who had similar experiences. Most were considerably worse. Whole sites were dedicated to miscarriages following the DTap and flu shots during pregnancy.  It broke my heart. Babies that died of SIDS within days to weeks following vaccinations all told the same story despite plenty of studies showing a correlation. All told the same narrative. “It’s just a coincidence. You’re a mom, what do you know?” Degrees triumphed over common sense, statistics, facts written right on the package inserts. Yet it was the moms, dads, and families who had to pay and carry the burden, not the doctors and not the manufacturers that could no longer be sued. Our taxes paid for the small percentages of those reported and proven in a court set up against them that could take years and lots of money many don’t have. Even worse, so many are dismissed and told not to even question them just as I. Still, despite all of that, we’ve paid out over $4 BILLION for those proven injuries and deaths. Safe and effective? I think not. (The Supreme Court seems to think the same.)

QUESTIONS SPARKED

It wasn’t until I bled every two weeks for over a year following the birth of my third child that I finally went to my gynecologist who wanted to put me on birth control for my problem. I wanted to get to the root of it, not mask the problem. That was the start of me seeking holistic health. The last thing I wanted to do was take pills for the rest of my life. It was then that I started questioning whether any medications even heal people or just mask symptoms and put one at risk for worse symptoms. I still have yet to find one that actually heals rather than makes one dependent on them. 

I found a holistic doctor that helped correct my problem within a month. He gave me herbs that addressed my adrenals and thyroid and my clothes were fitting looser by the second week. People were asking if I lost weight, but I hadn’t. I started questioning how much my weight issues were internal or external. After every single “diet” I tried failed, my friend suggested I get my thyroid checked out. 

DEVASTATING EFFECTS

I threw up the morning of my appointment and told them the last time I had was when I was pregnant. So, we did a lot of lab work but opted out of x-rays just in case and I found out the next morning I was pregnant. That pregnancy was just as hard as my first where I couldn’t hold anything down, but now had 3 kids 5 and under to take care of as well. My kids didn’t understand why my pregnancy was so hard so we watched natural birth videos where I cried and shared with them how worth it they all are and this baby would be in the end. It felt more real to me sooner than any other pregnancy, and I felt more empty than ever when I found out I lost "her." I had gone in the day before after badly bleeding and was told it was a cyst rupturing and heard her strong heartbeat. I was told I had another cyst, but with her strong heartbeat and surviving the first one, they were sure she would be fine. I was a week further along than I thought, and was given the same due date as my sister-in-law I excitedly shared the news with. Through the night I felt like I was having another back labor, but told myself it was just the other cyst rupturing and she would be fine. Even with having five other natural childbirths, that one was one of the most painful and without the relief, endorphins, or new life at the end, one of the most unforgettable and devastating. Thankfully, God redeemed that day for me when my son came exactly a year to the day after. However, at the time, I lost so much blood that if I stood, I had sharp shooting pains travel up and down my legs. I knew I was finally getting my test results back the next week and was told I already passed my baby when I went in for my second ultrasound so I decided to just wait it out thinking maybe answers might give me a little relief. 

To my dismay, I was given more devastating news. My tests showed that my white blood count was so high that it was like I was fighting an infection for years. I was severely anemic (this was from the lab work taken before my cysts ruptured and my miscarriage) and had such low iron and B vitamins that they had never seen before in a person my age. My pituitary glands that tell everything else what to do were under functioning and as a result my thyroid was as well. My liver was unable to detox itself, my heart was under stress, my oxygen levels were to the point it was as though I was holding my breath for long periods of time, and I was incredibly low in every single nutrient despite my healthy diet because my body was unable to absorb any of it. I was told that even if I had all the money in the world, I might not be able to correct all of this as the older lady sharing my results had never seen anything like it. We had a limited budget so I asked that they put my health priorities in order. My thyroid was number 6 on the list. After the death of my baby and how my opinion and voice seemed devalued in those days, my weight and image were such a high priority for me. I had always cared so much about health, yet my outsides didn’t match my insides and it was probably seen as hypocritical for me to even weigh in on health issues with the way I looked. Though I had answers for my uphill struggle with my image, I didn’t have answers to what caused the struggle in the first place. I wanted to get to the root of it all so I knew how to address the problem rather than just meeting my ever growing number of needs that differed through various seasons of my life. The uncertainty was unsettling, and I didn’t even know where to direct my questions. My mom and sisters didn’t have the same problems with their pregnancies. I never even stopped having cycles during times I was exclusively nursing. And despite having passed my baby the first night and already being incredibly anemic, I continued to bleed for 75 days straight with no earthly person able to give me a reason why and a continual reminder that I lost my baby without any closure. I cried and prayed all 75 of those days and felt like my heart couldn’t take another hit.

FORMING CONNECTIONS

Around the same time, a woman posted in a vaccine group I was a part of and said how she had to get the hep B vaccine for work and got a goiter on her thyroid within a week and asked if anyone else knew if there was a correlation as that was the only new thing she had done. Sure enough, another lady just happened to have the same exact experience. I thought it odd. My mom just happened to bring over a laundry basket full of my belongings from organizing her workroom. Right on the top was my vaccine record from getting “caught up” at 19. Initially, I assumed it was my daughter’s and was furious when I saw the hep B vaccine as I knew that was one I opted out of only to see it was mine (I found out later she was still given it too). For years, my husband and I questioned what the heck happened to my health at the time with no answers, but now I had a different narrative playing out in my head. It wasn’t just me telling myself vaccines were good for me and needed to go on missions’ trips and I need to be tough and not make a sound as they inject me. It wasn’t me thinking “wow, this is a lot” as they told me I had to come in a couple more times even after I changed course and didn’t go to the school I was considering during my engagement. My new narrative questioned if there was anything about them that could give me answers to my health issues. My new narrative started seeing a connection in the timing and the onset of the symptoms I experienced. One of those stinking warts from my first round was still on the side of my right index finger all these years later. I had tried all the wart removal remedies only to resort to clipping it down as it wouldn’t go away. My mind couldn’t get over the fact that the hep B vaccine was questioned to have caused thyroid issues in 2 different women and I knew my thyroid was having issues as well.  When I looked up the hep B vaccine and thyroid, I happened to find a study showing a significant number of people who had thyroid issues immediately following that vaccine and another study showing that the hep B vaccine can cause your liver to be unable to detox itself and causes more harm than good. Both issues I had and saw a connection with the hep B vaccine. I started reading everything I could get my hands on. 

While my numbers were changing somewhat with herbs and nutrients that were in tune with my needs, I didn’t feel or look much differently and I still didn’t want to have to be dependent on taking special natural remedies with a high price tag my entire life either. I began wondering how diet could play into all of this with the mindset of letting food be my medicine as I was starting to absorb some of the nutrients I was taking with herbs to fit my needs. Sure enough, I stumbled upon people talking about The Paleo Approach and the autoimmune diet that addressed so many issues I had. I read once you get one, it can quickly spiral into other ones if not addressed or reversed. Pregnancy and nursing periods could make autoimmune disorders go into remission or get much worse for those who had them. It all started making sense. By page 48, I had read how three factors are usually needed to set off autoimmune issues in those susceptible. One of them happened to be heavy metals like aluminum and cadmium that are adjuvants in the majority of vaccines. Knowing to look that up, I found a considerable amount of studies that shared the same ideas. Within a month of following the autoimmune paleo diet, I noticed that I was no longer needing to clip my unsightly wart that I had been clipping for the past eight years because it had disappeared. It still hasn’t returned five years later. It was like a lightbulb went off. A NEW NARRATIVE

It wasn’t just my daughter or others I knew who had adverse reactions to vaccines. It isn’t “one in a million” who have reactions. I was one of them. My body had been fighting off the poisons in vaccines for EIGHT years. Scary to think it would still be happening if I hadn’t gotten to the root of it and done something about it. That was why my white blood cell count was so high. That is why my body started attacking itself. The damages caused by vaccines killed my baby. I was healthy and 19 and had adverse reactions every single round of vaccines, yet I still questioned everything but them because the narrative I had heard my entire life was how good and needed they are and that they eradicated polio. Most people have heard the same narrative. Most people don’t even think to question them. Most people haven’t heard any shady history or connections. Most kids aren’t 19 and healthy when they get vaccinated. If they follow the recommended schedule, they’ve already gotten 76 doses of poison by the age of 16, too early and small to know anything different. It’s no wonder we have a growing number of autoimmune diseases and with the narrative provided us, we can’t figure out why. I know how frustrating it can be to connect the pieces even before they started hiding more of the information. I know how frustrating it is to be in the dark. I know how disappointing it is to do harm while thinking you’re doing what’s good. We’re told that vaccines help those with autoimmune diseases, but they are one of the very things that create them. We’re told that they should be mandated for the greater good, but only one death was needed for the greater good. That death already happened. 

God didn’t forget our immune systems. We are fearfully and wonderfully made, knit together in our mothers’ wombs. He did a good job on us. He heals all our diseases. By His stripes we are healed. He can be trusted and is Someone we can count on who keeps His promises and remains faithful. He is our great Physician. I for one am tired of relying on a faulty industry, a shady past, creating a demand for our babies' lives, and looking to people who think it’s their job to play God and limit our population yet are given the opportunities to create the poisons that are injected into us. Fear and ignorance have no place here. Let’s rise up in the face of fear and change the narrative. If we don't, we will continue seeking to build our immune systems with the very things that could destroy them.