While having dinner with some dear friends I was asked the question, "Did you read the article in the Times-Union newspaper about the lady and the flu shot?" "Yes," I stated. "Then why don't you tell people about your sister?"
I have told people. I even considered writing a book, yet something has always stopped me. Maybe it is because the pain is still too real. I have only the information given to me by doctors and my own research, as to what caused her death. Yet my mind cannot comprehend how something as revered as the flu vaccination can cause so much pain and took my precious sister's life.
All I know is my once vibrant, intelligent, twin sister, with all of her nursing degrees and a new job as a wound-care director, is gone. She had so much to give. Now her potential contributions to the world will never happen because she received a flu vaccination and a diseased called Guillian-Barré (a misdirected immune response) was its legacy.
It began with paralysis, a lack of proper diagnosis, visits to two university hospitals, in two different states, every system in her body going insane, two strokes, the loss of her kidneys, dialysis and ended with hemorrhaging in her brain. For three years, it was one step forward and two steps back. So when I hear about it being flu season, everything within me screams, "Why didn't they tell us that it is not as harmless as we believed?"
Taking a flu vaccination is an individual decision, but I know what I lived through for three agonizing years and I know what my answer is when asked, "Do you want a flu shot?"
