Second Shot, Collapse, and Walking Only Backward¶
Day 2 · 7:34:00 · Dean Allison · Jannine Duffy · Jennifer Britain
- 📉 Within weeks she could not lift milk, stay on her feet five minutes, or return to work as weakness and burning calves grew.
- 🏥 ER and clinic staff still urged a second Moderna dose the morning after an all-night ER stay for blue, painful fingers.
- ⬅️ Within 36–48 hours she texted she could not move, clung to walls, and could only shuffle backward down three flights.
Rapid weakness, pressured second dose, and sudden inability to walk forward.
← Blue Fingers, Purple Lesions, and Crystal Pain | Destroyed Hips, Walker Life, and Caregiver Ruin →
Transcript¶
Dean Allison · 7:34:00
I just— I wanted us—.
Jannine Duffy · 7:34:01
No, that's— Yeah, I just— I felt like I was getting weaker now at work. I also, as a personal shopper, So I would go and grab milk out of the cooler to put in my bag. I could no longer pick up a bag of milk. It was taking two arms to get a bag of milk. I went to grab a thing of orange juice, dropped it, and it's like, okay, there's something definitely, definitely wrong. But that was after I'd even gone to the doctor about my hands. So I was just getting weaker. I think within a couple of of weeks, I was— I could no longer go to work. I couldn't stay on my feet for more than 5 minutes. Um, if I touched something, I felt like I was going to break. Like, if, if I would touch this, my hand felt like it was going to break. I felt like I was either like breaking like glass or a total infant. And it's like, I, I have no idea what is going on.
Dean Allison · 7:35:00
So, um, You're clearly having a severe reaction. Do you take a second shot?
Jannine Duffy · 7:35:09
I did, because we did not correlate this at all. I did not think of this whatsoever. It's like, okay, maybe I'm just getting old real, real quick.
Dean Allison · 7:35:19
Now, Jennifer, you have a different story of the evidence here. So can you share with us a conversation you had? Yeah, that was there.
Jannine Duffy · 7:35:26
Of course.
Jennifer Britain · 7:35:26
So This was still around the time where we had seen our family doctor, and he's the one who told me, if you see any changes, go to Emerg, go to Emerg. And it's hard, nobody wants to go to Emerg, especially at that time. And it was really difficult, we spent a lot of hours there waiting. And she was in a lot of pain the one day, and it just so happened to be the day prior to her second shot appointment. And we went to Emerg, we spent all night there.
Jannine Duffy · 7:35:53
All night long.
Jennifer Britain · 7:35:54
I think we left at 8 AM and her appointment was at 11 AM. And I remember asking the emergency room doctors there who let us go if she should be going for that appointment.
Dean Allison · 7:36:03
Can I just ask you to talk a little slower?
Jennifer Britain · 7:36:05
Oh, sorry.
Dean Allison · 7:36:05
Yes, because we've got transcriptionists.
Jennifer Britain · 7:36:08
Of course, I know. And I'll go real quick too.
Dean Allison · 7:36:10
I need to be slowed down. So yeah, so please slow down or they won't have a chance.
Jennifer Britain · 7:36:15
No problem. So they told us yes, she should absolutely go and get that second one, that it was very important that she did that or she could get worse. So sorry, so she could get worse. So we did go through with that appointment, and when we got there, they do their regular questioning, and they asked— we asked them if it was still a good idea for her to get this second shot because she had just been in the emergency room, that her fingers were blue that she was in a lot of pain, and it was actually a doctor who administered that second vaccine, and she said, absolutely yes, you're best off to get this vaccine today so that you don't get worse. So we were told the same thing by that doctor, and I was really hesitant, but the appointment was booked, so we did it, and she did get that shot.
Dean Allison · 7:37:04
That's, you know, the, the reasoning that we had. I think Senator Ron Johnson here yesterday going And, and somebody else said it too. It's like, okay, so the vaccine is supposed to protect you from getting COVID. So if, if it works and that's true, why do you care if somebody's unvaccinated? Because you're protected. Why do you care about them? That— oh, so you're, you're injured from the vaccine, so the solution is just to take more of the vaccine?
Jennifer Britain · 7:37:31
And it was a Moderna, was the second shot as well, and it was within, I believe it was 48 hours, maybe 36 hours. And she texted me. She lives alone in her own apartment, and she text— she's on the second floor with no elevator, just to put that in. And she texted me at 5:00 AM to say, I can't move.
Jennifer Britain · 7:37:49
And I was like, well, what does that mean?
Jennifer Britain · 7:37:51
And I rushed over to her place. I'm only 10 minutes away.
Jennifer Britain · 7:37:54
And when I got into her apartment, she was literally clung to the corner, to the wall.
Jennifer Britain · 7:37:59
She was holding on to the wall because she couldn't hold herself up and she couldn't walk to anywhere in her tiny little one-bedroom apartment. And to be honest, I wanted to call—.
Dean Allison · 7:38:10
So Janine, that's when I started walking backwards.
Jannine Duffy · 7:38:14
That's the only way. I just could shuffle my feet very, very slightly backwards. I could not go forward, I could not go sideways. I could shuffle backwards, and that's how I went down 3 flights of stairs, is like backwards, hanging on.
Jennifer Britain · 7:38:27
Because we were in this strange denial state where we're like, this can't be real. And we had so many times that this can't be real.
Dean Allison · 7:38:33
Just hang on. So, yeah. So, Janine, so you, you've woken up and something's changed. You actually can't walk forward. The only way you can move is, is backwards. What's going through your mind? Like, what's the experience?
Jannine Duffy · 7:38:51
I'm going to say total confusion. And absolutely terrified because I had no idea. Is this going to be my life? Am I just going to drop right here? Um, is pain going to be the rest of my life? Because I'd been in pain for a couple weeks already. Um, I was absolutely terrified. It's like I, I didn't know. I didn't have a clue.
Dean Allison · 7:39:13
And my understanding is, as you also started to shake— can you talk about that? My understanding is your body was shaking too at that time.
Jannine Duffy · 7:39:22
Yeah.
Dean Allison · 7:39:22
Can you share about that?
Jannine Duffy · 7:39:24
Um, my legs absolutely started to shake. I had no control. Like, I don't feel like it was a seizure at all, but everything was just not, not right. It like I was jerky. I was not right. It, it's very hard to describe when you're going through things.