FORT ST. JOHN — According to the National Library of Medicine, the anti-COVID vaccines can have side effects. While no data is showing how many people are affected, they say long post-COVID vaccination syndrome is often neglected.
In the case of one Fort St. John resident, the statement holds true. Michelle Worton started experiencing neurological symptoms days after her second COVID vaccination in December 2021. The last two years of her life have consisted of countless MRIs, blood work and visits to the emergency room.
What was once her active lifestyle, turned into a daily battle to have the energy to take care of two kids. “I experience severe headaches, cranial pressure, insomnia, cognitive deficits such as speech or mental processing, blurred, double, and tunnel vision, sound sensitivity, lapses in short-term memory, and problems with balance, upright posture and extraordinary dizziness. And now within the last few weeks, intermittent loss of sight in my right eye.”
“What’s the next mountain we’re going to climb? And now it’s how much medicine am I going to take today,” explained Worton.
On a visit to the Edmonton Heart Fit Clinic, they aged her vascular system to be almost 70 years old. At the time, she was 43 years old.
However, no Canadian doctor she visited could explain the reason behind her symptoms and how they related to the COVID-19 vaccine.
“In January, I found out that they had identified a pineal gland cyst in July of 2022 and they missed it and they didn’t write it down,” she explained.
When she started her research, she stumbled upon a paper by Dr. Sunil Patel. According to Dr. Patel, the cystic pineal gland is causing a chemical effect. The only way to relieve her condition is through a $150,000 surgery, with additional costs amounting to $200,000.
When she returned to B.C. in August, her neurologist said that no one in the province would recommend the surgery or be able to perform it.
“My last appointment with Burnaby Neurologist on October 4 shed light on why my body is responding the way it is and how the vaccine has caused damage at a cellular level. Burnaby Neurologist explained that his observation is that the vaccine changes chemistry in the brain, he termed it Central Sensitization Syndrome, post COVID vaccine,” wrote Worton in an email to CJDC TV. “I then asked him, would it not stand to reason that if you just said the vaccine changes chemistry in the brain - could it not then change the chemistry to cause a symptomatic cystic pineal gland… He would not speak to this observation.”
Instead, he recommended a trial drug and more injections to manage the symptoms but not fix the problem.
“Since December 2021, I have attempted to manage my symptoms and adapt over the last year and a half. My symptoms have gotten significantly worse since mid-February,” she wrote in an email to CJDC TV. “The understanding of the associated symptoms and presentation of the pineal cysts, while it remains a developing condition, seemingly appears to be disregarded in Canada.”
Peace River North MLA Dan Davies has been advocating for Worton to get the help she needs in the province.
“She came into the office and kind of laid out her whole story… A treatment that the top leading experts on what she has been saying she needs the surgery. Yet here in British Columbia, it’s not seen as a priority,” he explained, stating that he would be speaking with Health Minister Adrian Dix on her condition.
Worton says, “I had no evidence of disease prior to vaccination. Throughout this experience I have been criticized, judged and mocked by medical professionals and individuals, as a whole, for asking hard questions about vaccine adverse effects. And that we can’t talk about it. Why? All I want is my health back. And if it means asking hard questions to get to the root cause, I will. I have to for myself and my family.”
Currently, the minister is leading a program to send cancer patients to Washington for help. Davies hopes Worton can also get the funds and medical assistance she needs.
Meanwhile, her friends have set up a GoFundMe to raise money for her surgery and travel to South Carolina where Dr. Patel is located.
“I’m not in this alone because it’s been a fight and I have this loving family and friends that believe in me and they’re helping me,” says Worton.
She is also in the third stage of Canada’s vaccine injury program. They are reviewing her medical history and documents from specialists, clinics and hospitals.
Currently, she is tentatively scheduled for an occipital craniotomy on November 20, pending finances
“I just want my life back. I want to be heard,” she says. “My hope is that the more information available, the more awareness of this issue at hand, so that others will not have to live in suffering.”
A link to her GoFundMe can be found here.