First-Wave Vaccine: Flu-like Hours Later, Then Excruciating Spinal Pain¶
Day 4 · 2:23:39 · Shannon Holmes · Glen Motz
- 😊 As a high-risk-facing paramedic she was eager to receive the shot, posed smiling at the clinic, and believed she was protecting family and country.
- 🤒 Within hours she had fevers, chills, nausea and vomiting; by morning she had severe back-and-leg pain and weakness like repeated disc herniations.
- 🧊 Saddle paresthesia (complete numbness where a saddle would touch) and ice-pick spinal pain forced her to crawl to the car for emergency care.
Rapid onset of neurological catastrophe after the dose she took with full professional enthusiasm.
← Jamie R. Daniel Sworn In: Advanced-Care Paramedic and Young Mother | ER Crisis Ignored: Forced to Walk, Collapsed, Left on Floor →
Transcript¶
Shannon Holmes · 2:23:39
So at the time of the vaccines, as you said, I did have some stable health things, but they're all well managed and I was not disabled. I was fully functioning. I was working 12-hour shifts as a paramedic. I held a 0.5 line, which is part-time, but I quite often picked up to full-time hours. I just like the flexibility of picking when I could work. We were managing our home together, about 50/50 responsibilities. At the time, our daughter was 18 months old, our first daughter. Parenting, looking after her, doing extremely well. Being a first responder, I was one of the first waves of people chosen to go get the vaccine, and I was excited. I was over the moon excited that I could go and do this service for my country, get the vaccine that we'd been told had been very similar. It's been studied, it's safe, it's effective. And as a healthcare practitioner, I worked with people who are high risk. We have high-risk members of our family, and this is something I could do to help.
Shannon Holmes · 2:24:40
And I was so excited to go get that vaccine, and I went I have a picture of me smiling at the vaccine clinic being like, yes, everybody go get your vaccine. Vaccines save lives because they do. But this is not a vaccine. This is something completely different. Within hours I had flu-like symptoms. I was in bed. I remember clearly with a bucket because I was nauseous. I was throwing up. I had fevers and chills. I just felt generally unwell. Flu-like symptoms. Normal vaccine. I chose not to take any Advil or Tylenol at that time because my knowledge knew is that's the immune response. This is what's supposed to be happening. Went to bed that night, very uncomfortable. Woke up the next morning in excruciating pain, severe pain to my back, down to my legs, some weakness. It felt like I had previously herniated my back years ago that had been fully rehabbed and it felt like I was herniating my back back over and over and over and over again.
Shannon Holmes · 2:25:40
And I knew something was wrong. I did everything I could think of at home to manage it. Advil, Tylenol, heat, ice, compression, doing some zed lying, like you name it. I did everything I could because I was not going to go to the hospital for this because I don't go to the hospital for things. I take people to the hospital, but within about 24 to 48 hours, it became very clear that I needed to go to Emerg. I started presenting with something called saddle paresthesia. So if you think of when you're sitting on a horse, anything that would touch the saddle of the horse went completely numb. And it felt like I had an ice pick going into my spinal cord over and over again.
Glen Motz · 2:26:19
Jamie, can I just slow you down? And the reason is, is we have some very nice people in the translation booth that are trying to translate in real time what you're saying in English into French. And they've been very nice to us. So I'm asking you to be nice to them. So if you can try— I know it's stressful to be here and speak to people, and we're so grateful that you're here. But if you can just try and slow it down a little bit.
Speaker B · 2:26:48
Thank you.
Shannon Holmes · 2:26:49
So I knew something was wrong. I had medical knowledge. I could tell this was presenting like a severe spinal cord injury. I went to the hospital. Um, my husband had wanted to call an ambulance, but I would not let him, um, because it would have been one of my co-workers that would have picked me up. So we went to the hospital, and I remember being taken back to a room right away. Um, and they—.
Glen Motz · 2:27:11
Now, can I just slow you down? Because I want people to really understand what's going on. Is my understanding is, is you're experiencing extreme weakness?
Shannon Holmes · 2:27:20
Yes.
Glen Motz · 2:27:21
To the point that, um, you're having trouble walking?
Shannon Holmes · 2:27:24
Yes.
Glen Motz · 2:27:24
So can you explain that for us?
Shannon Holmes · 2:27:27
It was so severe that my husband, like I said, wanted to call an ambulance and I refused. So I, I was so weak and in so much pain, I was literally crawling across the floor to get out of the house. I needed a wheelchair once we got to the emergency department and they took me straight back to a room because it did present like a severe spinal cord injury. I was having overflow urinary—.
Glen Motz · 2:27:52
I'm going to say urinary. That's what I was going to say. You were losing sensation?
Shannon Holmes · 2:27:56
I lost all sensation into my groin, my inner thighs, still with the extreme pain. And I started having overflow urinary incontinence. I could not feel when I needed to void, so I did not void. So then it would overflow. They took imaging at the hospital but determined that it was most likely surgical, something called cauda equina. So they transferred me to a different hospital via ambulance, my worst nightmare, to a different hospital so I can meet with the spinal surgery team. Once I got there, they finally had my imaging results, and I met with the spinal surgeon, and he said that there was nothing obvious on my MRI, that it was probably just a bad day. Um, not quite sure how that works. They ended up releasing me from that hospital.