A terrible tragedy had occurred to me and, just this morning, I realized that there are things that you cannot change. There is some point in understanding the things you cannot change, but there is a greater point in focusing on the things that you can change while you have the opportunity to.
Some people never get the opportunity to, and for all souls mourning in exile I do this for you- to bring you to a better place through the fruit of my actions, or my sacrifice, whichever comes first.
I, SPC Jongema of the US Army, received an anthrax innoculation. I was told I had to get it even though I pleaded with them to not give it to me, and I almost died. Within 5 seconds I passed out. When I came to I was in a half dream like state. The dr and others came over. They lifted me into a special chair and they monitored me for thirty minutes. At thirty minutes they have to decide to call it or clear it. The nurse whispered to me, "It happens a lot. It's the anthrax shot. It happens a lot."
She was saying it and looking back to make sure other people didnt hear her tell me, and she was trying to console and reassure me. She would come check on me every few minutes, and over the course of 15 minutes she told me three times that, "the colour is coming back to your face," but I knew she was lying. It's important to make a victim as comfortable as possible, because it's your body's reaction and not the thing itself which is the factor. My body has it's defense mechanisms. For some reason I was very calm. I was in a comical mood for some reason. I acted like a good soldier when they said I could go, and I could tell they just didn't want to call it in.
So I walked to the next building to clear SRC, and they sent me back to dental which is in the same building as shots. As I walked back across the lot through the penetrating Mississippi heat, it felt as if my body was a sponge that was suddenly put into the desert. I felt the water in my body all disappear. So I was trying to convince someone to sign my paper in dental when suddenly I began to feel like puking, and I did, into a trash can they gave me. The dr came over. He said he is calling it. Then at some point I lifted up my shirt and said, "Where did all those red dots come from?" They were all over my stomach. Within five minutes I was in an ambulance and within 5 or 10 minutes the attendant told me, the red dots went up to your upper neck, and then began receding.
If it had passed the blood brain barrier, my body might have killed my brain to defend itself.
I lay in a hospital bed for over 45 minutes alone. I overheard the nurse in the hallway hushedly telling someone that the heart monitors weren't connected to the desk. The male voice told her to hush up basically and that it would be fixed soon. I looked over at the heart monitor and I knew that it was up to me to focus and to stay calm. They eventually came and got me, and did a CT scan of my brain as well as a chest x-ray.
Them I laid alone for 2 hours until another soldier arrived to watch me as a battle buddy. A while after that, they came back saying the dr will talk to me about the results.
The chest x-ray showed a serious amount of swelling in my left lung, like a big cylindrical whited out tube on the picture. The dr said he was worried about the swelling around my heart, and they scheduled me to come back in 3 days for a heart MRI. I think it was late afternoon on a friday...can't remember. So I asked him about the lung and he said, "I don't know what that is. It could be a recent lung infection. Heck, it could be cancer," and he sent me off without saying any more about it.
That night I had trouble breathing as I was trying to sleep. I had somewhat less trouble the next night, and the night after, but cleared up after that. My heart MRI showed no such Pericorditis, so case management stamped me ready to return to duty and that was the end of it.
No follow up. No proper care. No responsibility taken, but at that time I didn't know.
It wasn't until 8 months later that I read the toxicology reports. Then I learned that something like 1.5 percent of people die from that shot- one of them from a heart tumor a year later, Something like 2.8 percent have severe problems (can't remember now). There are a few other categories in between and then over 30 percent of people have some technical name for a burning pain in the arm. One of the scientists that worked on the vaccine remarked that it was not meant to safeguard people against engineered and weaponized anthrax, that it could only safeguard them from natural forms.
One army dr, over 14 months later rebutted that there may be no substantial proof that it does protect, but the idea is that it might, and they refused to do any kind of follow up testing. To me that meant we are guinnie pigs to some research study at best, but at worst...
...most of us have turned our bodies and brains off. That's why it doesn't affect them..but some of us have a strong connection to our body and mind and our reactions may be violent.
...I am definitely a person whom you can say has had extreme reactions to certain things. Maybe my panic before the shot, and my preconceived notions that it may be bad for me caused my body to react with panic also, but just cause it makes sense does not make it true, and this presents a possible logical fallacy. Just because B is equally possible does not mean that A is untrue.
The anthrax shot just is dangerous, and 2 or 3 ingredients are known heart and lung toxicants.
I think the Army takes advantage of people's confusion. As long as there is an "official story" then most people look away.
Well tonight I tell my story, and maybe..maybe it will make a difference somehow..or maybe it won't.