On August 28, 2021, Christine Hoehne’s world turned upside down. Until that pivotal day, Christine had been a high-achieving global benefits manager and consultant, working on healthcare and well-being programs for employees in over 150 countries. She was a mother of three, an avid traveler, and a marathon runner. She lived a full, vibrant, and energetic life.

Then, Christine and her daughter decided to get the COVID-19 vaccine. Her daughter made the decision because her college basketball team was pushing players to get vaccinated, and Christine made the decision because her company had given her an ultimatum: get the vaccine or face termination. They discussed their plight on a walk that morning, and by that afternoon, they’d both gotten the shot (though Christine had already contracted and recovered from COVID in 2020).

Within two hours of receiving the Pfizer vaccine, Christine’s life transformed. Her body entered a state of total breakdown. She was hemorrhaging badly, couldn’t raise her right arm, couldn’t walk, and experienced swelling in her right leg. This was all topped off by migraines.

In the space of a single afternoon, Christine went from being a perfectly healthy and physically active 47-year-old to crawling around her house, unable to walk. She had entered a period of physical deterioration, excruciating pain, depression, loss of income, expensive treatments, and personal life crises. Her old life had shattered.

Every day became a struggle: a struggle to get out of bed, a struggle to care for her kids, and a struggle to work. She was crippled by throbbing pain and paralyzing depression. She was eventually placed on medical leave from her job, with the hope that some rest would put her back on her feet. But this was not to be. Instead, the symptoms worsened. Her migraines became accompanied by auras, and at times, she was unable to see.

In an interview with Intellectual Takeout, Christine indicated that a Mayo Clinic report on her case described a total of 14 different medical diagnoses, including myocarditis and tachycardia, heart disorders that many say are signature signs of COVID-vaccine injury. Alongside this, Christine recalled that her resting heart rate, prior to getting the shot, was in the range of 45–60 BPM. After the shot, her heart rate would, at times, spike to 175 BPM.

Desperate, Christine sought help from a number of doctors in the Minnesota metro area, but for the most part, they just told her that the vaccine was safe and she should return to health soon. But weeks passed, and then months, and she was still suffering.

Finally, in November 2021, Christine secured a virtual appointment at Mayo Clinic, followed by in-person visits in March 2022. At Mayo, she saw a doctor who was the first one to acknowledge—at least off the record—that Christine had likely been injured by the Pfizer vaccine. He hugged her, said he was sorry for what had happened to her, and that her condition was real. He also said she probably hadn’t been receiving the care she needed.

Christine expressed her gratitude and good fortune in finding a doctor who would, at last, acknowledge what had happened to her and support her healing journey. After all, not everyone in her position has shared that luck. According to Christine, one of her doctor’s colleagues had suffered a similar adverse reaction to the COVID vaccine, which may have affected the Mayo team’s approach to vaccine cases by the time she arrived.

Christine ended up working with an array of doctors at Mayo and the Minneapolis Clinic of Neurology (which she described as “a life saver”), alongside some doctors outside these institutions. Mayo functioned as a kind of umbrella entity for the various treatments Christine received in nutrition, neurology, and pharmaceuticals. But while she experienced some improvement over the next several months, she wasn’t fully healing, and the complicated, drug-based medical treatment became overwhelming. She faced 33 different bottles of pills every day.

So on July 22, 2022, she made a decision. She couldn’t keep living this way. Christine notified her doctors that she was going off all the drugs and embracing more alternative treatments. For the most part, her doctors were supportive of this decision, and Christine tried an array of alternative medical practices, including the Morley Robbins’ Root Cause Protocol, Tony Robbins’ books and mindset coaching program, meditation, adrenal cocktails, magnesium baths, hypnosis, and energy enhancement system treatment.

At last, Christine began to climb out of the canyon of suffering she’d been trapped in. Light returned to her as the symptoms subsided. And though Christine has only recently emerged from the nightmare she’s been living during the past three years, and her journey isn’t over, she’s come an incredible distance, battling against sudden upheaval of her life to reclaim some sense of herself and what matters to her.

She still suffers from migraines, but most of her other symptoms have dissipated. With the healing she’s experienced and the resolution of some trying personal circumstances that coincided with her illness, Christine feels she has her life back again.

Beyond this, her ordeal—including her medical leave and the accompanying loneliness—deepened her understanding of the suffering and needs of employees who are placed on leave. This new perspective has shaped her approach to the benefits programs she designs at her new job.

Christine has also become more comfortable talking about her experience, and the tale of her injury may have even influenced the decision of two human relations departments with whom she’s shared her story. They chose not to mandate the vaccine for company employees. And now, Christine has begun contacting lawmakers about this issue, though with a limited response rate.

Speaking to Intellectual Takeout, Christine said that she hopes her tale can bring some hope to others suffering the life-altering effects of vaccine injury. “I just want all the people who have been so injured to be seen and heard,” she said. “And to be understood.”

As shown by Senator Ron Johnson using data from the FDA Adverse Event Reporting System and the CDC’s Vaccine Adverse Effect Reporting System, Christine’s story is not one-of-a-kind. Thousands, if not millions, of people have had their lives turned upside down by the vaccine, abruptly coming face-to-face with a chilling new reality of post-injury life. Christine’s story has a happy ending, but unfortunately, many have not been as lucky as she.

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