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Pressure to Vaccinate the Immunocompromised Son and Mother

Day 2 · 5:44:49 · James Freeland

  • 📢 Wall-to-wall ads and calls telling James—an MS patient and essential health-and-safety worker—that he would die if he caught COVID pushed him to take dose one.
  • 👪 His compliance then drove Ma, terrified of harming her immunocompromised son, to take her first shot; both had a limp arm for a day that resolved.
  • 📅 Second doses were scheduled about three weeks later; James felt little after his, while Ma went to Carmichael Arena on July 5 for hers.

How fear messaging cascaded from son to mother into the second-dose appointment.

← James Freeland Sworn: Portrait of His Mother Donna | July 5–7: Collapse After Dose Two and Hospital Gatekeeping →

Transcript

James Freeland · 5:44:49

Well, like I said, uh, I'm immunocompromised, so it started off with that. Started off with a bunch of, um, you know, the, the, the commercials and, uh, you know, Trudeau and all the different commercials of, uh, you know, you got to get tested, you got to get, uh, sorry, you got to get the vaccine, you got to protect everybody else, you got to protect the immunocompromised. And all the commercials coming out saying, you know, uh, if you're 65 and older, the older group's going to get it first. Um, if you're immunocompromised, you'll get a special number, uh, to go with the older groups. Uh, my mom kept calling me telling me, you got to go get it done, you got to go get it done. And, you know, I was iffy at the, at the beginning, just like the, the fella earlier was iffy because, you know, it was being rolled out too fast. There was way too many things that weren't lining up for me. I'm a very observant and curious person, so it just wasn't lining up for me at first. And she was being very adamant about me getting it because of my immunocompromised situation.

James Freeland · 5:45:56

As a matter of fact, I got a phone call from our public health unit And I don't know how they got my number. I don't know how it happened, but they told me that I have a special number to get to go for this shot. I said, I'm not really interested right now. And I was considered a— what do they call that— a worker, essential, essential worker. So I was working 7 days a week, 12-hour shifts. I was a health and safety worker and So I said, no, I really don't have the time, you know, and this and that. And, uh, so they, they called me again 2 days later and told me, like, you know, if I don't do it, they told me that I was going to die if I catch it. That's exact words that they told me. And so it kind of put fear in my eyes, in my heart. I have a son, you know, I didn't want to do that. So I went and got a shot. So since I got the shot, that, that made my mom go get the shot. So she went and got her first shot.

James Freeland · 5:46:57

I got my first shot. After I got my shot, my whole arm was limp. I couldn't use my arm for the first day. I couldn't use it. It was not usable. She got her shot, first shot, I don't know, it was a couple weeks later.

Speaker L · 5:47:10

She had the same effect.

James Freeland · 5:47:11

She couldn't use her arm for the first day. So I said, ah, it's me too, Ma, you know what I mean? Like, it's same thing. But it went away after 24 hours, you know, and and it was fine. I went to go get my second shot. I don't know, I can't remember, 3 weeks later or whatever it was they scheduled it. She also had to get her shot 3 weeks— second shot 3 weeks later. My second shot, I didn't feel not too much. There wasn't anything wrong with me. She went to go get her second shot and they— she went in on July 5th. And, uh, I had called her that morning because my girlfriend at the time's, uh, birthday was on July 7th, and we had planned to, uh, go for dinner on July 7th. And her— I'm sorry, my mom and her fiancé were going to come with us for dinner. So I had called her on July 5th to, uh, ensure that she was still coming.

Speaker Q · 5:48:10

Oh yeah, James.

James Freeland · 5:48:11

She used to call me James. She said, yeah, we're gonna come. I'm just gonna go for my shot there and I'll call you when, when I'm done. I said, okay, ma, I'll be at work. If I don't get the call, please, uh, just, just, uh, you know, call back or leave a message. Uh, she did call me, but when she called me, it was— she called me right when she got the shot and I did answer.