Logan

I’m 31. Prior to the jab, my roof-plumbing job kept me extremely healthy and fit.  I had testicular cancer at 18, but the surgery succeeded and I never had any further problems.

I got the jab because of the mandates—my livelihood and everything that I worked for was on the line. It was either that or sit at home unable to pay the bills, so I got the Astra Zeneca jab on the 26th of August, 2021 (left arm). I felt nothing, not even a sore arm. Later that night, however, I felt like I had Covid with fever, headache, and all-over restlessness.  I went to bed for a week.  I knew it was the jab, but my symptoms slowly decreased.  I went back to life as normal, except for the fatigue that has never left me.  No significant issues arose, so I went ahead and got the second Astra Zeneca jab on the 7th of October (right arm). 

Immediately, the symptoms from my first jab returned and grew severe as the day progressed. I spent the next week in bed and the symptoms decreased once again. I returned to life as usual. Six weeks after my second jab, I noticed a tight chest and shortness of breath after my training sessions. 

On Christmas Day, I felt pretty average and didn’t make an appearance. I rested on the couch all day. Boxing Day came and I woke up to severe chest pains that I hadn’t felt anything like before. I had a sharp radiating pain in my left peck that was really tight down the centre of my sternum and underneath my peck as well. I called the ambulance, unsure of what was happening but the amount of pain was too much for me to handle.

When the ambulance arrived, they paramedics told me on the spot that I had pericarditis. The ECG showed SG elevations which is why they came to that conclusion. I spent the next two weeks in hospital.

They ran tests, including an ultrasound that showed inflammation and fluid around the heart, a chest X-ray, bloods, which showed troponin level rises and an ECG coming up with the pericarditis rhythms. I told them that I thought this was from the jab, but they refused to put two and two together and wouldn’t write it on paper that this was an adverse reaction to the jab. The whole two weeks I was there, I was in severe pain that just wouldn’t go away. I was on morphine and Ketamine, but nothing worked. 

In hospital, they had put me on Colchicine and Celebrex, which actually started to work for a couple of weeks. I returned to work, or at least I tried to return because the chest pain come back harder, hitting me like a tonne of bricks. I called the ambulance again and they picked me up from the job site. They took me to ED and treated me with painkillers and follow-up tests. They were so busy they didn’t have a bed for me and because the pain started to ease, they just discharged me.

Ever since then I have been in and out of hospital. I just to try and manage the pain and have had up to 29 trips in the ambulance and another 2-week stint in hospital on Good Friday. This time they did a heart MRI, a nuclear test for white blood cells, and a stress ultrasound, which all showed inflammation and fluid around the heart. They managed my pain with morphine and endone.

This brings me to now. I’m booked to see a rheumatologist to get some stronger pain killers and anti–inflammatories which hopefully will help me manage my condition. There is no treatment other than drugs and rest. I hope the pain will go away.

I’m still experiencing chest pain daily—a constant 4/10 pain that doesn’t go away, ever, and gets more painful with deeper breathing, which doesn’t help with my shortness of breath. Between loss of wages and medical treatment, it has now cost me 25k at least. My social life and mental health have suffered because I am no longer active. Being active was my whole life before this.