The local hospital was the place to go in my area to get the initial COVID shots. On 2/21, I took the first injection and had no reaction. Three weeks later, 3/21, I had the second injection. I had parked in the hospital’s parking garage. I started having trouble breathing as I reached the garage. Just before I opened the door, I couldn’t catch a breath, so I hit the blue emergency button in the garage.
When I woke up, I was in the emergency room with a tube down my trachea and a nurse standing over me. The doctor came in and told me I had a reaction. They kept me overnight and I was discharged in the morning. The following Monday, my right hand started to buzz and became a little numb. When I awoke on Tuesday morning, my right hand was fully numb up past my wrist about 6 or so inches.
The hospital spent the next few months trying different drugs and therapies. No good. They sent me to the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, New York because they were supposed to have the best orthopedic hospital department in the east. I was there almost a month with no change and still couldn’t work. I came back home and they asked if I would go to the Cleveland Clinic in Cleveland. I said sure, why not. I had them agree to giving me a private room this time. Up in Rochester, I shared a room and that didn’t work very well.
The judge did allow me to sue the hospital because the cause of my injury was not due to the vaccine. The injection was given to me in my right muscle. The Cleveland Clinic performed a therapy using needles and different exercises while some of the needles were left in place. Very slowly, the feeling began to return. Today, I have 90% use of my right hand and returned to work for 4 months before retiring. The lawyers quickly settled the suit. My attorney said the hospital’s lawyers didn’t even want to negotiate. The judge accepted the settlement and placed a 5 year gag order on everyone in the courtroom. I thought this would take 5 years to settle. Today, I get some pain that feels like someone is pinching me inside my hand. It comes and goes, but lasts only seconds. The doctor in Cleveland told me I had permanent peripheral nerve damage, which probably happened when the injection needle was put into my muscle it probably tore the nerve inside the muscle. There wasn’t anything that can be done to fix it at the time. I just have to tolerate it. It’s not painful, but very annoying. The doc said it happens once in about 250,000 cases. It’s called Peripheral Neuropathy, but today it can be cured by having a nerve graft, but in my case, it’s less than a 50/50 chance to work.