I'm also in BC, and was a healthcare worker until they fired me ("with cause", so I was unable to collect EI).
The jab was first offered to us in December 2020.
I declined early on, though I did think, at that point, that I would eventually get it. However, when they were first rolled out it was in smaller batches and I felt that there were other HCWs who were in more dire need than I was. I worked casual ER Registration, so my shifts were on a called out basis, not full or even part-time; my contact with patients was already minimal. I decided I'd like the nurses and doctors on the frontline, or people taking care of our elderly, get first dibs before I moseyed on over to get mine.
As well, I wanted to wait and see a little bit -- I'd had bad reactions to flu vaxxes before, and this was new enough I wanted to know more before I just went and got it done. So I'd wait before I rolled up my sleeve.
Or, that was the logical thread going through my head. Underneath, there was a pulling in my gut: a very clear no. Do not do this. This will be the end of you.
The pulling in my gut didn't make sense to the brain that had been trained to accept Western Medicine as infallible, so -- very unlike my usual MO of always trusting my gut -- I did my best to ignore the finality of it and just told myself I was waiting and seeing.
This went on for a while -- we had several small batches arrive over the first half of 2021, and every time I declined, thinking through my logical process, feeling the pull in my gut get stronger each time, still consciously thinking, "Oh, I'll get it eventually, I'm sure I will."
In the meantime, my husband was, as is his love language, sending me links to things online that he found amusing or interesting. A big part of that was the theatre, for lack of a better term, around the jab rollout. All the big shows of "Look, this person is getting jabbed on live TV!" and when you look close there was...no needle. Or the plunger was already down. Or it was administered in such a way as to clearly be not an actual administration. On and on.
He sent me links, and we talked about it, and he kept saying, "I mean, I want to believe it's a good thing but...why all the theatre around it? If it's so great, why are they doing this?"
I didn't have an answer for him.
In May 2021, I started a full-time rotation at our ER Registration.
The hospital I worked at is in a small town -- as of the 2016 census, our stable yearly population was roughly 13K. It swells to about 20K in the summer.
Despite the tiny nature of my town, during my full-time rotation in ER Reg (which ended up being about 6 months), I saw an average of 1 vaxx injury a day.
I don't mean that every time the docs would conclude it was one; I mean, on the whole, I saw at least 1 a day of either an ER front page that concluded post-vaxx injury, or I saw a patient who came in and the first thing they said was "I just got the vaxx and immediately got such and such symptoms." Whether or not it was officially diagnosed as such, I saw enough people coming in stating their thoughts as to the cause -- and you have to trust the patient. (Something medicine has forgotten.)
As I watched this happen, I watched the broader narrative shift and change. It happened so fast as to be unbelievable.
I watched the stories pile up of vax injuries, and saw with growing concern the mounting body of evidence that the jab was interfering with women's menstrual cycles.
My lifelong dream is to have children, and my husband and I were going to start trying once my work morphed into full-time and I got benefits (and he was able to join me in said small town -- we've spent 3 years being partially long-distance). As the evidence for the jab interfering with the reproductive system piled up, I realized to take it would be a huge, risky gamble against my future fertility (something I already had concerns about).
All of these factors compounded, and by June 2021 I realized that the tugging in my gut, that had been yelling, trying to get my attention -- I realized it could not be ignored. If I got the jab, it would be the end of me. I knew it in my bones.
Later, I got confirmation from my main three deities that the jab was bad news, and that they were working to protect me and my loved ones as much as possible.
While I realized my gut feeling was likely a message from my gods, I didn't really glom on to the more spiritual component of the danger of the jab or how effective the propaganda was, not right away -- I interpreted "end of me" to refer to physical realities, like my health or ability to be a mother or my very life, and saw it as making sense that my gods would want me to continue to exist (I am more use to them alive, after all).
As time has gone on, and I've witnessed...things I find unfathomable within the pagan sphere, I realized there has to be something metaphysical going on with the whole thing (thanks in no small part to the forum here and the many good discussions that have opened my eyes to a whole realm of possibilities). Otherwise there's no other way to explain the abrupt about-face I've seen in people I thought I knew who went from being hippy/crunchy/distrust-the-man type pagan polytheists to "you need to get jabbed otherwise the gods will turn their backs on you."
I am still very angry about all this. As recently as last fall, they were preventing unjabbed people from visiting loved ones in hospital. Even if you were married. How I know? My husband almost died last year, with a bilateral pulmonary embolism. We came in to ER just in time. While he was admitted but in ER overflow (something all hospitals have for inpatients), I was able to see him (and care for him in ways the nurses did not have the time/energy to do). Towards the end of his stay, they moved him up to the ward, and for over 24 hours I was not allowed to go see him.
The only thing that stopped me from trying to anyway and making a scene was him begging me not to.
We got through it, and he's okay now -- but I still think about that and am suffused with rage. And I think, may all the people who had a hand in keeping me from my husband's side -- may they know the mercy of Hera.
And I can't say anything else about my feelings, or I'll have the RCMP knocking on my door.
Re: The Epiphany (A reflection thread on pandemic choices)
The jab was first offered to us in December 2020.
I declined early on, though I did think, at that point, that I would eventually get it. However, when they were first rolled out it was in smaller batches and I felt that there were other HCWs who were in more dire need than I was. I worked casual ER Registration, so my shifts were on a called out basis, not full or even part-time; my contact with patients was already minimal. I decided I'd like the nurses and doctors on the frontline, or people taking care of our elderly, get first dibs before I moseyed on over to get mine.
As well, I wanted to wait and see a little bit -- I'd had bad reactions to flu vaxxes before, and this was new enough I wanted to know more before I just went and got it done. So I'd wait before I rolled up my sleeve.
Or, that was the logical thread going through my head. Underneath, there was a pulling in my gut: a very clear no. Do not do this. This will be the end of you.
The pulling in my gut didn't make sense to the brain that had been trained to accept Western Medicine as infallible, so -- very unlike my usual MO of always trusting my gut -- I did my best to ignore the finality of it and just told myself I was waiting and seeing.
This went on for a while -- we had several small batches arrive over the first half of 2021, and every time I declined, thinking through my logical process, feeling the pull in my gut get stronger each time, still consciously thinking, "Oh, I'll get it eventually, I'm sure I will."
In the meantime, my husband was, as is his love language, sending me links to things online that he found amusing or interesting. A big part of that was the theatre, for lack of a better term, around the jab rollout. All the big shows of "Look, this person is getting jabbed on live TV!" and when you look close there was...no needle. Or the plunger was already down. Or it was administered in such a way as to clearly be not an actual administration. On and on.
He sent me links, and we talked about it, and he kept saying, "I mean, I want to believe it's a good thing but...why all the theatre around it? If it's so great, why are they doing this?"
I didn't have an answer for him.
In May 2021, I started a full-time rotation at our ER Registration.
The hospital I worked at is in a small town -- as of the 2016 census, our stable yearly population was roughly 13K. It swells to about 20K in the summer.
Despite the tiny nature of my town, during my full-time rotation in ER Reg (which ended up being about 6 months), I saw an average of 1 vaxx injury a day.
I don't mean that every time the docs would conclude it was one; I mean, on the whole, I saw at least 1 a day of either an ER front page that concluded post-vaxx injury, or I saw a patient who came in and the first thing they said was "I just got the vaxx and immediately got such and such symptoms." Whether or not it was officially diagnosed as such, I saw enough people coming in stating their thoughts as to the cause -- and you have to trust the patient. (Something medicine has forgotten.)
As I watched this happen, I watched the broader narrative shift and change. It happened so fast as to be unbelievable.
I watched the stories pile up of vax injuries, and saw with growing concern the mounting body of evidence that the jab was interfering with women's menstrual cycles.
My lifelong dream is to have children, and my husband and I were going to start trying once my work morphed into full-time and I got benefits (and he was able to join me in said small town -- we've spent 3 years being partially long-distance). As the evidence for the jab interfering with the reproductive system piled up, I realized to take it would be a huge, risky gamble against my future fertility (something I already had concerns about).
All of these factors compounded, and by June 2021 I realized that the tugging in my gut, that had been yelling, trying to get my attention -- I realized it could not be ignored. If I got the jab, it would be the end of me. I knew it in my bones.
Later, I got confirmation from my main three deities that the jab was bad news, and that they were working to protect me and my loved ones as much as possible.
While I realized my gut feeling was likely a message from my gods, I didn't really glom on to the more spiritual component of the danger of the jab or how effective the propaganda was, not right away -- I interpreted "end of me" to refer to physical realities, like my health or ability to be a mother or my very life, and saw it as making sense that my gods would want me to continue to exist (I am more use to them alive, after all).
As time has gone on, and I've witnessed...things I find unfathomable within the pagan sphere, I realized there has to be something metaphysical going on with the whole thing (thanks in no small part to the forum here and the many good discussions that have opened my eyes to a whole realm of possibilities). Otherwise there's no other way to explain the abrupt about-face I've seen in people I thought I knew who went from being hippy/crunchy/distrust-the-man type pagan polytheists to "you need to get jabbed otherwise the gods will turn their backs on you."
I am still very angry about all this. As recently as last fall, they were preventing unjabbed people from visiting loved ones in hospital. Even if you were married. How I know? My husband almost died last year, with a bilateral pulmonary embolism. We came in to ER just in time. While he was admitted but in ER overflow (something all hospitals have for inpatients), I was able to see him (and care for him in ways the nurses did not have the time/energy to do). Towards the end of his stay, they moved him up to the ward, and for over 24 hours I was not allowed to go see him.
The only thing that stopped me from trying to anyway and making a scene was him begging me not to.
We got through it, and he's okay now -- but I still think about that and am suffused with rage. And I think, may all the people who had a hand in keeping me from my husband's side -- may they know the mercy of Hera.
And I can't say anything else about my feelings, or I'll have the RCMP knocking on my door.