Christa, a career nurse and mother of three, was until recently a healthy 49-year-old who ran up to 30 miles a week, with no pain and taking no medications.
“I woke up every morning with the excitement of taking on the new day,” the Newbury Park resident says.
For 25 years, she worked primarily in long-term care settings with elderly people, and raised her kids in local public and private schools. More recently, she served in hospice, home health and long-term care environments.
“I really loved hospice care,” she says. “It was lovely. … The thing that excites me is having that nurse’s role and advocating for patients and families.”
But last year, when Christa received her second Pfizer shot, her health spiraled out of control.
“[My doctor] knew it was the vaccine and said, ‘Hopefully it’ll go away,’” she says. “It never went away.”
Instead, Christa plunged into a nightmare of symptoms and health problems her doctors could not explain and which robbed her of her active lifestyle — and her job.
“I am fighting every day to live in gratitude and be positive amidst the suffering,” she says. “You don’t know how devastating this has been. I’m a caged bird. It’s really sad.
… This is not just about losing your health. It’s your livelihood and everything. I want [people] to know what I lost to this vaccine — the travesty, the devastation, the s*** show, living a nightmare. These are all things happening to me now.”