Item
Eve Poythress Oral History, 2023/04/16
Media
Title (Dublin Core)
Eve Poythress Oral History, 2023/04/16
Description (Dublin Core)
Self Description - "Well, I am Eve Poythress, I'm from Georgia, born and raised in Georgia, and I am 47 years old."
Some of the things we discussed included:
Early pandemic fear and the possibility of supply chain disruption and resource scarcity.
Making disinfectant when unable to buy it.
Having a nephew murdered by a police officer during the pandemic.
Having caught COVID in December 2020 at a funeral; a friend (Vicky Whitfield, a nurse) who caught it at the same event dying; long COVID.
Treating COVID with NSAIDs, Tylenol, hydration, zinc, mullein, Vitamin D & C, and echinacea.
Isolating from daughter while sick.
Traveling to a military base in Albany to get vaccinated; having an adverse reaction, long term consequences, difficulty working; getting diagnosed with vaccine syndrome.
Experimental treatments—plasma and stem cell injections—to manage vaccine syndrome; arguments with health insurance regarding treatment options; Orthovisc injections.
Wanting greater transparency regarding vaccines.
Joining support groups for people with vaccine syndrome and vaccine injuries; vetting vaccine injury experiences
Filing a VAERS report.
Different family members’ reactions to the vaccination injury.
The difficulty of looking into one’s future when sick.
No accountability from pharmaceutical industries.
Other cultural references: Clorox, Lysol
Early pandemic fear and the possibility of supply chain disruption and resource scarcity.
Making disinfectant when unable to buy it.
Having a nephew murdered by a police officer during the pandemic.
Having caught COVID in December 2020 at a funeral; a friend (Vicky Whitfield, a nurse) who caught it at the same event dying; long COVID.
Treating COVID with NSAIDs, Tylenol, hydration, zinc, mullein, Vitamin D & C, and echinacea.
Isolating from daughter while sick.
Traveling to a military base in Albany to get vaccinated; having an adverse reaction, long term consequences, difficulty working; getting diagnosed with vaccine syndrome.
Experimental treatments—plasma and stem cell injections—to manage vaccine syndrome; arguments with health insurance regarding treatment options; Orthovisc injections.
Wanting greater transparency regarding vaccines.
Joining support groups for people with vaccine syndrome and vaccine injuries; vetting vaccine injury experiences
Filing a VAERS report.
Different family members’ reactions to the vaccination injury.
The difficulty of looking into one’s future when sick.
No accountability from pharmaceutical industries.
Other cultural references: Clorox, Lysol
Recording Date (Dublin Core)
April 16, 2023 10:08
Creator (Dublin Core)
Kit Heintzman
Eve Poythress
Contributor (Dublin Core)
Kit Heintzman
Link (Bibliographic Ontology)
Controlled Vocabulary (Dublin Core)
English
Biography
English
Health & Wellness
English
Home & Family Life
English
Healthcare
Curator's Tags (Omeka Classic)
biography
covid positive
side effects
injury
family
Contributor's Tags (a true folksonomy) (Friend of a Friend)
Atlanta
COVID+
Georgia
injured
Ivermectin
longCOVID
motherhood
murder
Pisces
social media
supplements
vaccination
vaccine syndrome
VAERS
vitamins
weight
Collection (Dublin Core)
Black Voices
Motherhood
Vaccine Stories
Date Submitted (Dublin Core)
08/28/2023
Date Modified (Dublin Core)
09/14/2023
Date Created (Dublin Core)
04/16/2023
Interviewer (Bibliographic Ontology)
Kit Heintzman
Interviewee (Bibliographic Ontology)
Eve Poythress
Location (Omeka Classic)
Atlanta
Georgia
United States of America
Format (Dublin Core)
Video
Language (Dublin Core)
English
Duration (Omeka Classic)
00:38:11
abstract (Bibliographic Ontology)
Early pandemic fear and the possibility of supply chain disruption and resource scarcity. Making disinfectant when unable to buy it. Having a nephew murdered by a police officer during the pandemic. Having caught COVID in December 2020 at a funeral; a friend (Vicky Whitfield, a nurse) who caught it at the same event dying; long COVID. Treating COVID with NSAIDs, Tylenol, hydration, zinc, mullein, Vitamin D & C, and echinacea. Isolating from daughter while sick. Traveling to a military base in Albany to get vaccinated; having an adverse reaction, long term consequences, difficulty working; getting diagnosed with vaccine syndrome. Experimental treatments—plasma and stem cell injections—to manage vaccine syndrome; arguments with health insurance regarding treatment options; Orthovisc injections. Wanting greater transparency regarding vaccines. Joining support groups for people with vaccine syndrome and vaccine injuries; vetting vaccine injury experiences Filing a VAERS report. Different family members’ reactions to the vaccination injury. The difficulty of looking into one’s future when sick. No accountability from pharmaceutical industries.
Transcription (Omeka Classic)
Kit Heintzman 00:00
Hello, would you please state your name, the date, the time and your location?
Eve Poythress 00:05
Eve Poythress. It is 10:08am, Atlanta, Georgia. And today is April the 16th 2023.
Kit Heintzman 00:15
And do you consent to having this interview recorded, digitally uploaded and publicly released under a Creative Commons license attribution noncommercial sharealike?
Eve Poythress 00:24
I do.
Kit Heintzman 00:25
Thank you so much for being here with me this morning. Could you just start by introducing yourself to anyone who might find themselves listening, what would you want them to know about you?
Eve Poythress 00:34
Well, I am Eve Poythress, I'm from Georgia, born and raised in Georgia, and I am 47 years old. And that's about it.
Kit Heintzman 00:48
Tell me a story about your life during the pandemic.
Eve Poythress 00:52
Well, it started out pretty scared during the pandemic, because when they announced that we would begin working from home, it was like, very sudden, and I had to leave, I remember leaving the office and going home to get my laptop because I had to get someone from IT to set it up. So I could work from home. And then they sent a crazy email to where we didn't know, you know whether or not we're going to have jobs, even though our computers were set up. And they were just saying, Hey, we hope we're going to be able to still maintain business at the law firm, but if not, you know, we just won't be able to, but they've been going strong ever since then we, a lot of people, I caught COVID. During the pandemic, it was in the beginning of December of twenty nine, no 2020, after going to a funeral, went to a funeral saw a classmate there, we both ended up with COVID She ended up passing I was, you know, it was like the, you know, we were talking daily about our COVID experiences as far as like our symptoms. And then her daughter sent me a message through Facebook and said that she had passed. And that's scared the death out of me because you know, we were just both talking, you know, both congested, and I had no idea that she was going to get sick enough to go to the hospital and die. So that made me very scared. I'm just happy to have gotten out of the out of having COVID. Fast forward to February, got an opportunity to take the COVID vaccine, because both of my parents are high risk. When I took the COVID vaccine, and I remember going, I went to Albany, I had to go to the I think it was a military base in ALbany, it was packed. And we pulled up and then all of a sudden, you know, I was like no, I'm not going to do this. Something just kind of told me Don't do it. But I was in the car and my aunt she was like no, you got to do it. Did it, immediately got a metal taste in my mouth. Kind of felt sick. I had to get a bottle of water. And by the time we made it back to my one of my parents home, which was like a hour and a half drive from Albany. I was limping. And then you know reported everything [inaudible] after limping. The next day I woke up and had of course I had this lump in my arm and then I noticed this blistering rash that was down my injection arm and I was using Benadryl it was just the sore and blustery, and then it's like it oozed, then that healed and then probably like a week later, I was at the ortho with my knee because my knee never got better. And given molosicam for inflammation. And then fast forward to my second injection, which I believe was in March, toward the end of March or at the beginning of April. I told them that one I took at the Delta museum told them about my reaction. And they checked my mayor's report and call someone who cleared me to go ahead and take the second shot, took the second shot and the next day could not walk and had a very high fever of like 103 just like it was when I had COVID and my mom had gotten her her second shot the day before me and she was fine and my mom was like 70 I think she was 72 at the time. So there she is trying to get me out the bed enough to where I could crawl, you know, to go to the bathroom and crawl to the kitchen so she could give me some soup and try to, you know, get me together. And I remember my one of my brothers having to come help me get back in the bed. And that lasted for probably two days because I missed two days of work, I went to get the shot on a Friday, and then I didn't get back to work till Wednesday, when I was able to walk, and then going forward, both knees are bothering me and my hips are bothering me I had swollen joints, I mean, like very swollen and my ankles were the size of a orange, the navel orange at any given moment. And it was very painful and still painful two, two plus years later, and went to the doctor's my primary care doctor finally told me last year, it was around August of last year that, you know, hey, I think you may have a vaccine syndrome. And he asked me not to continue all my education until I get better. So at this point, I'm trying to get better so I can finish my my education in law school and just, I mean, get back to my normal life I have not been able to work out. And over two years, I've gained at least 30 pounds. Before then I used to go to the gym, gym membership, walk, run, I cannot run, jog, I barely can walk I have my crutches beside me today. But I did get a stem cell experimental, I had to pay to get stem cell and plasma injections in my joints. So I am in week three, tomorrow, make week three of my recovery. Hopefully, in six to eight weeks, I'll hopefully be somewhat back to normal. And just trying to stay positive and not be so angry. Especially at the government. Because you know, after the fact, a lot of people that I know that have gotten vaccinated have either died very close friends mom died after getting the vaccine and she swore by it. She ended up dying with COVID. And a lot of other people in my age range have died, that have taken the vaccine. So I feel like wasn't that much transparency in it.I have a family member that is an epidemiologist. She did not take the vaccine and could not warn me ahead of time on why she felt like I should not have taken it. So she's pretty much trying to help me fight to get my life back. And, you know, keep me abreast of anything that she finds out that may be helpful in my recovery.
Kit Heintzman 08:19
Do you remember when you first heard about COVID-19?
Eve Poythress 08:23
Yeah, actually it was my birthday is March 13. So that was on a Friday, I was getting my, I went to my primary care for my yearly exam and physical. And I remember my phone just kept going off and they were talking about shutting stuff down and about COVID. That was the first time I actually paid attention to hear about COVID Because like everybody was scrambling. I had a birthday dinner and I was like I don't want to I don't want to cancel it. But everybody was getting scared. One of my other siblings happened to be in Puerto Rico and he had to rush back to get back to Georgia with his family. And I remember after we had it, we had a good time that night at dinner, and then Monday it was like everything was shut down on the fifth March the 15th I think it was or March 16 That was when they you know started shutting everything down. And I remember being scared about groceries, water, no tissue. But you know had a I'm a Sam's Club member so I had tissue and water to kind of tie me over but in the meantime I was like on Amazon and everywhere trying to figure out where I would get stuff to keep things sanitary, like Lysol they were charging $20 a can or more for Lysol could not find Clorox anywhere. My dad's a chemical engineer, so he told me how to mix up something that could keep us germ free. So I followed his directions as what as to what to mix to kind of keep us safe until we could get Clorox or anything like that. That was what I remember. After I was told or once I once I first knew about COVID
Kit Heintzman 10:11
Pre pandemic, what was your day to day looking like?
Eve Poythress 10:14
It was wonderful. It was just like, No, no concerns just going to work, doing what I needed to do. Being let me take a step back, I also have, I've been diagnosed with lung COVID. So minus the brain fog, I did not have any brain fog, didn't have to stop to try and figure out how to spell words is kind of weird. Because you know how I felt then verses now, felt great, workout daily, ate healthy, was able to get out more of my friends. Now I have to see if my body's going to allow me to get out. So.
Kit Heintzman 10:59
To the extent that you're comfortable sharing, would you say something about your experiences with health and healthcare, infrastructure, pre pandemic?
Eve Poythress 11:08
With health, you know, 2020 vision. No, no problems at all. Everything was bloodwork wonderful, perfect weight. And health care has changed a lot, because a lot of the prescriptions that I've been prescribed for for my illness, I can't get her I have to argue with my health insurance. And I've had the same I've worked with the same law firm for like four years. So I'm having to argue with them and say, Hey, how dare you tell me that I can't get something or refuse to fill something that my doctor said that I needed. And you're not providing me with an alternative, you're just saying I can't get it. So that's, that's what I remember beforehand, I could get anything, like, but I noticed that they'll give me any kind of narcotic pill that I don't want, I can get that easy. I have tons of narcotic pills. But yeah, and I don't like that, because a lot of stuff I can use like to rub on my joints, they will not allow me to get it without having to pay three and $400 for it. So I have to go outside of my health insurance without really want it, which I'm not willing to do. Because I'm having to pay like $1,200 to get treatments and $400 injections, you know, stuff that I wouldn't normally have to pay for. So it's very expensive. It's like I'm working just to pay for my health.
Kit Heintzman 12:42
Are you comfortable sharing any of the treatment options that you've wanted that the insurance has been unwilling to fund?
Eve Poythress 12:51
One was the plasma, plasma and stem cell injections, I had to pay $1,200 a few weeks ago to get those also coming up, I'm going to do the, think it's called ortho risk injections for my knees. I got to pay $400 before they'll send it to my doctor. And, you know, basically I'm having to pay out of pocket because it's something that my insurance will not cover for treatment because it's considered experimental. And that's pretty much it, things that could possibly get me better. I'm having problems getting access to without having to spend a lot of money and to go into debt.
Kit Heintzman 13:36
To go back to something you had said earlier. When you when you first caught COVID, at the funeral, would you tell me a bit about the person whose funeral it was? Who did you who did you lose?
Eve Poythress 13:48
Yeah, I lost my nephew. He was killed by an Atlanta police officer. Kind of going to leave it at that because it's still an open investigation. And we're still going through it. It's been two years ago. But yeah, long story short, he and his girlfriend went to a club in Atlanta, one of the security guards groped her. He asked for an apology and was trying to defend her, security guard told him you know, wait a minute, comes out with a shotgun. Both he and the APD officer that was working a gig proceeded to shoot me because, I'm sorry, because my nephew down and my cousin wasn't too far away. But you know, it's probably a good thing that the cousin wasn't there, because it probably would have been more than one family member involved. And, you know, 20 he was 25 at the time Marine, you know, what, you know, work for the, for the country. And if that's how he gets treated when he's when he's home. So, thats his funeral we were at.
Kit Heintzman 14:59
And would you tell me about the friend that you met up with there who also interacted COVID?
Eve Poythress 15:07
Who, her name's, her name was Vicki Whitfill. We went to high school together. And we, you know, just been friends ever since high school pretty much and stayed in touch. And this is very sweet young lady. She was a nurse. But she had think she had gotten diabetes right beforehand and had been off of work because of her diabetes. And, you know, just decided to come support me at my nephew's funeral and got sick.
Kit Heintzman 15:49
What was it like calling her back and forth when you were both sick?
Eve Poythress 15:53
We were just pretty much talking about our symptoms and talking about when we get done, we're going to brunch and you know, things like that, to wonder how long we're going to actually not be feeling well. So that's, that's kind of like what we were talking about and making plans.
Eve Poythress 15:54
Would you share a bit about what it was like when you noticed you had contracted COVID? How did you how did you realize you were sick, what did you do?
Eve Poythress 16:22
Um, I woke up and was very weak. And I had a horrible headache, first headache I've ever had in my wife. And then I went and tried to get something some, I think it was orange juice, drink some orange juice to try to get myself together to go into the office. Because then I was going like one day a week, and just couldn't go I had to call and let them know that I was gonna wasn't gonna be able to come in for that day, not be working from home. And then my throat started getting scratchy. And then the fever came. And it was super high. And I didn't really I didn't have body aches like a lot of people had when I had contracted COVID. But it was just really a lot of fatigue. And the headache was almost unbearable, felt like somebody was hitting me in the head with something. And it would just wake you up if you'd be sleep. It feels like somebody just walked up and hit you with a blunt object.
Kit Heintzman 17:32
What did you do?
Eve Poythress 17:34
I took as much Tylenol as I could between Tylenol and NSAIDs and I drank a lot of water. And I was taking vitamin D. I was doing research. I ordered a bunch of stuff from Amazon, vitamin D. Some other stuff akinesia. Vitamin C, I was taking like 2500 milligrams so that I didn't know why I was just trying to take a high dosage and zinc. I feel like it's something else. Oh, and Mullin, which is I know when you have COVID your mucous, at least my mucus was like super thick. And I remember that a lot of people were getting pneumonia from it. So I was trying to keep myself from getting pneumonia. So I read about Asian herbs and a lot of people on Twitter when I put in the Mullen the Mullen I think I put Mullen lehan, you know people were talking about how when they had COVID that it helped them get better and stop coughing which it did work. I think that was probably the best supplement that I took that helped me not to get sick enough to have to go to the hospital.
Kit Heintzman 19:05
Was there anyone around helping to take care of you?
Eve Poythress 19:09
My daughter, she was staying upstairs, but she will put my food at the door. And then my nephew's girlfriend the one that had passed she came by the house despite me telling her not to because I didn't want her to get it. She came and brought me a big thing of soup and she found some Lysol she brought some Lysol to the house and you know left it for my daughter to prepare for me and for me to use to you know, spray my room down as needed. And that was about it.
Kit Heintzman 19:48
I'm curious what's motherhood meant to you while all of this is going on?
Eve Poythress 19:52
Very scared because my daughter never contracted COVID, praise God she did not but both she, both me and her father, we were like, when I was getting better, he had COVID. So she's having to go to his house and try to get him stuff to his door. So it was it was a strain on her. But like, and I was very scared, I did not want her to get it. And that was the that was the main thing. I just her not getting COVID because I know how I felt when I had it.
Kit Heintzman 20:26
Would you share a little bit about your journey with decision making about the vaccine? So how you decided to first go in looking at my notes, February 2021, with the conversation with your aunt, what was that like?
Eve Poythress 20:45
Well it was really, um, my parents, you know, kept trying to put it in my head with my aunt when we got there. When I was like, oh, no, I'm not. It was just like I said, No, I'm not doing this. And that those are my exact words. And she was like, Yeah, we drove all the way down here. You're doing this, your parents need you. You got to do this for your parents to make sure they don't get sick. Oh, and I forgot to mention that. My mom cought COVID at the funeral to forgot to mention that too. So she was sick. At the same time I was sick. But back to the conversation with my aunt. But yes, she was like, Oh, you're getting that shot. Matter of fact, you're going first. So, I got the shot.
Kit Heintzman 21:33
What was it like deciding to go for the second shot after that?
Eve Poythress 21:38
Um, I was kind of scared. But my mom was like, well, you need the complete dosage. If they tell you that you can take it when we get here, you need to go ahead and take it. And they told me I could take it after looking at the VAERS report and talking to whoever they called. They told me I could take it and that's the good.
Kit Heintzman 22:01
How is keeping in contact with your mother been throughout the pandemic?
Eve Poythress 22:05
We talk every day. I talk to my parents daily, call and checking in with them.
Kit Heintzman 22:13
Other than COVID-19, what have been some of the social and political issues on your mind and heart over the last few years?
Eve Poythress 22:22
Who is running this nation? That's that's the biggest thing. Leadership don't really like where we are now. As far as leadership. So that's, I don't really like to talk about politics. I'm just saying that I don't like what's going on now in the nation. I'll just leave it at that.
Kit Heintzman 22:48
What does the word health mean to you?
Eve Poythress 22:52
Health is wealth. Health means wealth. Because without health, you can't do anything. You can't. You can't work like you need to work. And I've missed a whole lot of days of work. Probably go to work, maybe in a two weeks time span, probably get one weekend in the office. And other days, I'm at home, not feeling well enough to go in. And they took away the work from home access. But I love the firm that I work for. So I'm just dealing with it for now. So yeah, when you mentioned health thats wealth, love to have my health back.
Kit Heintzman 23:30
What are some of the things you want for your own health and the health of people around you?
Eve Poythress 23:35
I want for everyone, to everyone that's dealing with with the things that I'm dealing with, like long COVID And vaccine syndromes want us to all be back to our normal lives and like with the groups that I'm in, it's a lot of people that are worse off than me. And although I'm having issues, I'm fortunate enough to not be in a wheelchair like some of the people in my groups are in wheelchairs and can't even walk now, can't hardly breathe, I can breathe well. It's just that I'm having excruciating pain in my joints now and makes it hard for me to get around. But like overall, I want everybody to be back to their previous state and healthy again.
Kit Heintzman 24:25
What do you think we would need to do as a society to get everyone there? How do we, how do we attain that?
Eve Poythress 24:33
First, they have to acknowledge that, hey, this vaccine is not as great as we said it was and some people are suffering. Some people and some people in my family didn't have problems. My one of my brothers actually three, three of my brothers and my sisters that took it I have one sister that didn't. My sister that took it they're fine is you know, I guess it was Uh, unlucky, the unlucky person, but you know, it works for some people and doesn't work for everybody. And that needs to be said, stops, stop trying to push it still, because it doesn't work for everybody stop telling people that it's going to work for everybody, or there's gonna, listen, your COVID experience because I my COVID experience wasn't that bad. It was scary. But like, as far as I could breathe, you know, and as long as I took the supplements that I read up on, I feel feel like it's manageable. Don't tell people that COVID is not manageable. With nutraceuticals, or, or any of the new drugs like, Y'all knew that y'all were getting, I can't think of the name of the pill. But you knew that you would have that pill? Why would Why did you push this vaccine on people? And then these jobs? You know, I was gonna have to take it from my job either way, if I didn't take it for my parents. So there's that.
Kit Heintzman 26:00
Do you feel like people in your life acknowledge what happened to you? Do you feel believed?
Eve Poythress 26:07
Some of them, the people in our family that are in the military, not so much, because I think it's a level of being brainwashed that they go through to where they're like, well, it nobody else is going through this and this, that and the third. So like, half of my family members, believe me and other half don't, it's mainly my dad's my dad's side of the family, because they have the military backgrounds that are brainwashed and like, it's gotta be something else. Well, I've been tested for autoimmune diseases, I don't have any twice, actually, because they're like, lupus. No, I don't have lupus. So I got clear with that a couple of weeks ago, and then got sent right back to the ortho, like, we're gonna see back to the ortho. So I should tell them something that, you know, no, I'm not sick with any autoimmune diseases.
Kit Heintzman 27:09
You've mentioned being a part of sort of online communities, for people who've been vaccine injured. Could you say more about that? Where did you, how did you find them, what are they like, what did they give you?
Eve Poythress 27:22
Actually my sister, the one that's the epidemiologist. She went to protests in DC and met a lot of people and told them about my, my injury. And they asked me to reach out. So I reached out to them on it's one group on well, actually a couple of groups on Facebook, reached out to them and got bed it told him what happened to me. And then when we're in the group, we share, you know, what we do for certain things like what what we're taking what's been helpful for people that have this similar injuries, like as mine. I remember posting the pictures of my joints, like, Oh, my knees was swell and my ankles, and I asked anybody, you know, if they were going through that no one in either group, you know, had gone through that. But, you know, they were, you know, well, why don't you reach out to this particular doctor. And that was before my doctor acknowledged, you know, what was going on with me. So, like, I've paid to see doctors, other doctors that were out of my network. To try and get some help. I've taken ivermectin I don't know if I'm supposed to say this on here. But I've tried ivermectin. But that was, it seemed like it was a fix. But then, like, once you take so much of it, it stops working. So it's just like, I haven't been able to find the right fix for what's going on with me.
Kit Heintzman 28:55
What was the vetting process like?
Eve Poythress 28:58
You have to explain. You have to tell them like when you were vaccinated, your symptoms, and it looks like that they kind of go by what other people are going through to see if to make sure that you're really injured. And not just in there trying to be a heckler trying to get a shutdown.
Kit Heintzman 29:21
What is the word safety mean to you?
Eve Poythress 29:25
Safety is just like more than more than one thing, safety outside of the home safety inside of home, just safety everywhere. We would all like to be safe and not have to worry about people, other people that might not be such good people doing something to us or anything like car accidents, freak accidents. Safety has just been making sure you get to your family daily.
Kit Heintzman 29:55
Thinking in that sort of narrow biomedical context of a pandemic Pre before the vaccine was available, what were some of the things you were doing to keep yourself feeling safer from COVID-19?
Eve Poythress 30:08
I was staying in the house. Wait, did you say pre pandemic?
Kit Heintzman 30:14
Oh, sorry, no, not pre pandemic, sorry, pre vaccine.
Eve Poythress 30:17
Oh, pre vaccine. Yeah, pre vaccine, I was staying in the house and just not not going out. I wouldn't letting too many people come to the house. Because you know, if you're out and about and still still doing your thing, like the pandemics not going on, you're not coming in here. So I was just, you know, keeping my door shut, basically. And having just bind what I felt like I needed to keep my house germ free and safe.
Kit Heintzman 30:47
How are you feeling about the immediate future?
Eve Poythress 30:53
I really don't know, I'm kind of right now I'm in a place where I'm wondering like, what my future is going to be like, as far as my symptoms or whatever. That's really where my mind is. Not really so much as other people right now. I want to get back to where the person that I was pre pandemic and pre vaccine.
Kit Heintzman 31:17
What are some of your hopes for a longer term future?
Eve Poythress 31:22
Um, I hope that we as a society, get it together, I don't have much hope for but it would be nice. We as a society to get it back together and more unity, stop lying about stuff and, and scaring the public up. And just in order to sell something. Just just only give us things that are healthy for us. Not only medication, but environmental wise as well. stop polluting the air. Just we just need to do better.
Kit Heintzman 32:01
When you've been in need of support, who have you been able to turn to over the last few years?
Eve Poythress 32:07
My parents and my my siblings pretty much. That's that's pretty much it, you know, other people. And it's one of the partners at the farm where I work. He's, you know, very understanding, he even tried to help me find an attorney. But then when we looked at it with the house, where the law stands with these vaccines, where they were granted immunity and so forth, it's like I don't have any options. So I'm gonna have to continue to pay for the bills that I accumulate, and so forth. But like, one or two people have been supportive at work.
Kit Heintzman 32:48
What was the, who did you,ho did you contact when the first injury happened?
Eve Poythress 32:56
It was VAERS. V-A-E-R-S is a website where you go in and you put in, you tell them what you take in, and you put in your symptoms and what happened after you took it. And what was that process like.
Kit Heintzman 33:12
Did anyone get back in touch with you?
Eve Poythress 33:15
No, a lot of people, I found that a lot of people in my support groups, no one got back to them. But you can still go in and add like with the second shot. I went in and added what happened after that. And as things progressed, and if anything else gets worse, you can just add to your VAERS report. That's pretty much it. I don't think they're doing anything with it, but still did it.
Kit Heintzman 33:43
Do you think of the pandemic as a historic event?
Eve Poythress 33:48
Yes, definitely a historic event. Because in my lifetime, I've not seen the world shut down like that. That was very, very scary. And I haven't seen us like fighting for things. Just for for things that we need, in general, like fighting about tissue. It's just weird. But you know, and having to meet people went and met somebody. It was. Now I've never sold drugs. Let me just say this, but how I would imagine a drug deal going down. That was how I was meeting people to get tissue and Lysol and I felt like I was meeting people in the back alley to get necessities. And it looks like what I see on TV when they're selling drugs. So that's that's why I made that analogy.
Kit Heintzman 34:47
Thinking back to your own education when you were much younger, what are some of the things in history you wish you'd learned more about as a child?
Eve Poythress 34:54
I actually hated history being honest, hated everything about it. So I can't say it was anything. Nope, no history at all. I hated everything about history, especially when we had to talk about the wars and civil war and all that kind of stuff. It just didn't interest me. They say that Pisces always just want to look at things like, like, it's good, everything can be good. So I just wanted to, like that kind of stuff kind of gets to me. You know, when people fight, I just want everybody to be positive. I know, it's not possible. But that's just where my mindset is. I try to keep stay in that mindset. Don't like to engage in arguments, unless I'm just like, totally pushed. So for the most part, I live and let live and I hated history again.
Kit Heintzman 35:54
Why do you think scholars in the social sciences and humanities so people who do work in like political science, or sociology or literature, what should we be doing right now to help us understand the human side of COVID-19?
Eve Poythress 36:09
Things like what you're doing, you're the only person that has reached out to me, even with the people, some of the people that my sister has connected me with no one, you know, it was just like, tip of the iceberg stuff. But like with the things that you're asking me, that will be helpful. It's a lot of other people like me, so the more people it's like people are being shunned. So if more people will open up and ask questions and talk to other people, you find that it's really an issue with this, and maybe we can get something done about it.
Kit Heintzman 36:46
This is my last question. I'd like you to imagine speaking to a historian in the future, someone far enough away that they have no lived, shared lived experience of this moment. What would you tell them cannot be forgotten about right now?
Eve Poythress 37:04
Don't forget the vaccine injured. Because I'm sure it's gonna be a lot worse toward towards the end. That's the main thing because it's people I've added failed to mention this. I had a co worker that he took the vaccine, I don't know which one he took, but he ended up with an aneurysm and a stroke. And he it's he's 43. Now, he's in he's in a nursing home. So definitely remember the vaccine injured, some, some are worse off than I am. So that's, that's what I will tell them.
Kit Heintzman 37:43
Thank you so so much for the generosity of your time and the kindness and vulnerability in your answers. Those are all of the questions I have. I'm wondering I just want to open some space if there's anything you'd like to share that I didn't make room for. Please share.
Eve Poythress 38:01
I think I covered all my my tracks. I got everything off today. Thank you
Hello, would you please state your name, the date, the time and your location?
Eve Poythress 00:05
Eve Poythress. It is 10:08am, Atlanta, Georgia. And today is April the 16th 2023.
Kit Heintzman 00:15
And do you consent to having this interview recorded, digitally uploaded and publicly released under a Creative Commons license attribution noncommercial sharealike?
Eve Poythress 00:24
I do.
Kit Heintzman 00:25
Thank you so much for being here with me this morning. Could you just start by introducing yourself to anyone who might find themselves listening, what would you want them to know about you?
Eve Poythress 00:34
Well, I am Eve Poythress, I'm from Georgia, born and raised in Georgia, and I am 47 years old. And that's about it.
Kit Heintzman 00:48
Tell me a story about your life during the pandemic.
Eve Poythress 00:52
Well, it started out pretty scared during the pandemic, because when they announced that we would begin working from home, it was like, very sudden, and I had to leave, I remember leaving the office and going home to get my laptop because I had to get someone from IT to set it up. So I could work from home. And then they sent a crazy email to where we didn't know, you know whether or not we're going to have jobs, even though our computers were set up. And they were just saying, Hey, we hope we're going to be able to still maintain business at the law firm, but if not, you know, we just won't be able to, but they've been going strong ever since then we, a lot of people, I caught COVID. During the pandemic, it was in the beginning of December of twenty nine, no 2020, after going to a funeral, went to a funeral saw a classmate there, we both ended up with COVID She ended up passing I was, you know, it was like the, you know, we were talking daily about our COVID experiences as far as like our symptoms. And then her daughter sent me a message through Facebook and said that she had passed. And that's scared the death out of me because you know, we were just both talking, you know, both congested, and I had no idea that she was going to get sick enough to go to the hospital and die. So that made me very scared. I'm just happy to have gotten out of the out of having COVID. Fast forward to February, got an opportunity to take the COVID vaccine, because both of my parents are high risk. When I took the COVID vaccine, and I remember going, I went to Albany, I had to go to the I think it was a military base in ALbany, it was packed. And we pulled up and then all of a sudden, you know, I was like no, I'm not going to do this. Something just kind of told me Don't do it. But I was in the car and my aunt she was like no, you got to do it. Did it, immediately got a metal taste in my mouth. Kind of felt sick. I had to get a bottle of water. And by the time we made it back to my one of my parents home, which was like a hour and a half drive from Albany. I was limping. And then you know reported everything [inaudible] after limping. The next day I woke up and had of course I had this lump in my arm and then I noticed this blistering rash that was down my injection arm and I was using Benadryl it was just the sore and blustery, and then it's like it oozed, then that healed and then probably like a week later, I was at the ortho with my knee because my knee never got better. And given molosicam for inflammation. And then fast forward to my second injection, which I believe was in March, toward the end of March or at the beginning of April. I told them that one I took at the Delta museum told them about my reaction. And they checked my mayor's report and call someone who cleared me to go ahead and take the second shot, took the second shot and the next day could not walk and had a very high fever of like 103 just like it was when I had COVID and my mom had gotten her her second shot the day before me and she was fine and my mom was like 70 I think she was 72 at the time. So there she is trying to get me out the bed enough to where I could crawl, you know, to go to the bathroom and crawl to the kitchen so she could give me some soup and try to, you know, get me together. And I remember my one of my brothers having to come help me get back in the bed. And that lasted for probably two days because I missed two days of work, I went to get the shot on a Friday, and then I didn't get back to work till Wednesday, when I was able to walk, and then going forward, both knees are bothering me and my hips are bothering me I had swollen joints, I mean, like very swollen and my ankles were the size of a orange, the navel orange at any given moment. And it was very painful and still painful two, two plus years later, and went to the doctor's my primary care doctor finally told me last year, it was around August of last year that, you know, hey, I think you may have a vaccine syndrome. And he asked me not to continue all my education until I get better. So at this point, I'm trying to get better so I can finish my my education in law school and just, I mean, get back to my normal life I have not been able to work out. And over two years, I've gained at least 30 pounds. Before then I used to go to the gym, gym membership, walk, run, I cannot run, jog, I barely can walk I have my crutches beside me today. But I did get a stem cell experimental, I had to pay to get stem cell and plasma injections in my joints. So I am in week three, tomorrow, make week three of my recovery. Hopefully, in six to eight weeks, I'll hopefully be somewhat back to normal. And just trying to stay positive and not be so angry. Especially at the government. Because you know, after the fact, a lot of people that I know that have gotten vaccinated have either died very close friends mom died after getting the vaccine and she swore by it. She ended up dying with COVID. And a lot of other people in my age range have died, that have taken the vaccine. So I feel like wasn't that much transparency in it.I have a family member that is an epidemiologist. She did not take the vaccine and could not warn me ahead of time on why she felt like I should not have taken it. So she's pretty much trying to help me fight to get my life back. And, you know, keep me abreast of anything that she finds out that may be helpful in my recovery.
Kit Heintzman 08:19
Do you remember when you first heard about COVID-19?
Eve Poythress 08:23
Yeah, actually it was my birthday is March 13. So that was on a Friday, I was getting my, I went to my primary care for my yearly exam and physical. And I remember my phone just kept going off and they were talking about shutting stuff down and about COVID. That was the first time I actually paid attention to hear about COVID Because like everybody was scrambling. I had a birthday dinner and I was like I don't want to I don't want to cancel it. But everybody was getting scared. One of my other siblings happened to be in Puerto Rico and he had to rush back to get back to Georgia with his family. And I remember after we had it, we had a good time that night at dinner, and then Monday it was like everything was shut down on the fifth March the 15th I think it was or March 16 That was when they you know started shutting everything down. And I remember being scared about groceries, water, no tissue. But you know had a I'm a Sam's Club member so I had tissue and water to kind of tie me over but in the meantime I was like on Amazon and everywhere trying to figure out where I would get stuff to keep things sanitary, like Lysol they were charging $20 a can or more for Lysol could not find Clorox anywhere. My dad's a chemical engineer, so he told me how to mix up something that could keep us germ free. So I followed his directions as what as to what to mix to kind of keep us safe until we could get Clorox or anything like that. That was what I remember. After I was told or once I once I first knew about COVID
Kit Heintzman 10:11
Pre pandemic, what was your day to day looking like?
Eve Poythress 10:14
It was wonderful. It was just like, No, no concerns just going to work, doing what I needed to do. Being let me take a step back, I also have, I've been diagnosed with lung COVID. So minus the brain fog, I did not have any brain fog, didn't have to stop to try and figure out how to spell words is kind of weird. Because you know how I felt then verses now, felt great, workout daily, ate healthy, was able to get out more of my friends. Now I have to see if my body's going to allow me to get out. So.
Kit Heintzman 10:59
To the extent that you're comfortable sharing, would you say something about your experiences with health and healthcare, infrastructure, pre pandemic?
Eve Poythress 11:08
With health, you know, 2020 vision. No, no problems at all. Everything was bloodwork wonderful, perfect weight. And health care has changed a lot, because a lot of the prescriptions that I've been prescribed for for my illness, I can't get her I have to argue with my health insurance. And I've had the same I've worked with the same law firm for like four years. So I'm having to argue with them and say, Hey, how dare you tell me that I can't get something or refuse to fill something that my doctor said that I needed. And you're not providing me with an alternative, you're just saying I can't get it. So that's, that's what I remember beforehand, I could get anything, like, but I noticed that they'll give me any kind of narcotic pill that I don't want, I can get that easy. I have tons of narcotic pills. But yeah, and I don't like that, because a lot of stuff I can use like to rub on my joints, they will not allow me to get it without having to pay three and $400 for it. So I have to go outside of my health insurance without really want it, which I'm not willing to do. Because I'm having to pay like $1,200 to get treatments and $400 injections, you know, stuff that I wouldn't normally have to pay for. So it's very expensive. It's like I'm working just to pay for my health.
Kit Heintzman 12:42
Are you comfortable sharing any of the treatment options that you've wanted that the insurance has been unwilling to fund?
Eve Poythress 12:51
One was the plasma, plasma and stem cell injections, I had to pay $1,200 a few weeks ago to get those also coming up, I'm going to do the, think it's called ortho risk injections for my knees. I got to pay $400 before they'll send it to my doctor. And, you know, basically I'm having to pay out of pocket because it's something that my insurance will not cover for treatment because it's considered experimental. And that's pretty much it, things that could possibly get me better. I'm having problems getting access to without having to spend a lot of money and to go into debt.
Kit Heintzman 13:36
To go back to something you had said earlier. When you when you first caught COVID, at the funeral, would you tell me a bit about the person whose funeral it was? Who did you who did you lose?
Eve Poythress 13:48
Yeah, I lost my nephew. He was killed by an Atlanta police officer. Kind of going to leave it at that because it's still an open investigation. And we're still going through it. It's been two years ago. But yeah, long story short, he and his girlfriend went to a club in Atlanta, one of the security guards groped her. He asked for an apology and was trying to defend her, security guard told him you know, wait a minute, comes out with a shotgun. Both he and the APD officer that was working a gig proceeded to shoot me because, I'm sorry, because my nephew down and my cousin wasn't too far away. But you know, it's probably a good thing that the cousin wasn't there, because it probably would have been more than one family member involved. And, you know, 20 he was 25 at the time Marine, you know, what, you know, work for the, for the country. And if that's how he gets treated when he's when he's home. So, thats his funeral we were at.
Kit Heintzman 14:59
And would you tell me about the friend that you met up with there who also interacted COVID?
Eve Poythress 15:07
Who, her name's, her name was Vicki Whitfill. We went to high school together. And we, you know, just been friends ever since high school pretty much and stayed in touch. And this is very sweet young lady. She was a nurse. But she had think she had gotten diabetes right beforehand and had been off of work because of her diabetes. And, you know, just decided to come support me at my nephew's funeral and got sick.
Kit Heintzman 15:49
What was it like calling her back and forth when you were both sick?
Eve Poythress 15:53
We were just pretty much talking about our symptoms and talking about when we get done, we're going to brunch and you know, things like that, to wonder how long we're going to actually not be feeling well. So that's, that's kind of like what we were talking about and making plans.
Eve Poythress 15:54
Would you share a bit about what it was like when you noticed you had contracted COVID? How did you how did you realize you were sick, what did you do?
Eve Poythress 16:22
Um, I woke up and was very weak. And I had a horrible headache, first headache I've ever had in my wife. And then I went and tried to get something some, I think it was orange juice, drink some orange juice to try to get myself together to go into the office. Because then I was going like one day a week, and just couldn't go I had to call and let them know that I was gonna wasn't gonna be able to come in for that day, not be working from home. And then my throat started getting scratchy. And then the fever came. And it was super high. And I didn't really I didn't have body aches like a lot of people had when I had contracted COVID. But it was just really a lot of fatigue. And the headache was almost unbearable, felt like somebody was hitting me in the head with something. And it would just wake you up if you'd be sleep. It feels like somebody just walked up and hit you with a blunt object.
Kit Heintzman 17:32
What did you do?
Eve Poythress 17:34
I took as much Tylenol as I could between Tylenol and NSAIDs and I drank a lot of water. And I was taking vitamin D. I was doing research. I ordered a bunch of stuff from Amazon, vitamin D. Some other stuff akinesia. Vitamin C, I was taking like 2500 milligrams so that I didn't know why I was just trying to take a high dosage and zinc. I feel like it's something else. Oh, and Mullin, which is I know when you have COVID your mucous, at least my mucus was like super thick. And I remember that a lot of people were getting pneumonia from it. So I was trying to keep myself from getting pneumonia. So I read about Asian herbs and a lot of people on Twitter when I put in the Mullen the Mullen I think I put Mullen lehan, you know people were talking about how when they had COVID that it helped them get better and stop coughing which it did work. I think that was probably the best supplement that I took that helped me not to get sick enough to have to go to the hospital.
Kit Heintzman 19:05
Was there anyone around helping to take care of you?
Eve Poythress 19:09
My daughter, she was staying upstairs, but she will put my food at the door. And then my nephew's girlfriend the one that had passed she came by the house despite me telling her not to because I didn't want her to get it. She came and brought me a big thing of soup and she found some Lysol she brought some Lysol to the house and you know left it for my daughter to prepare for me and for me to use to you know, spray my room down as needed. And that was about it.
Kit Heintzman 19:48
I'm curious what's motherhood meant to you while all of this is going on?
Eve Poythress 19:52
Very scared because my daughter never contracted COVID, praise God she did not but both she, both me and her father, we were like, when I was getting better, he had COVID. So she's having to go to his house and try to get him stuff to his door. So it was it was a strain on her. But like, and I was very scared, I did not want her to get it. And that was the that was the main thing. I just her not getting COVID because I know how I felt when I had it.
Kit Heintzman 20:26
Would you share a little bit about your journey with decision making about the vaccine? So how you decided to first go in looking at my notes, February 2021, with the conversation with your aunt, what was that like?
Eve Poythress 20:45
Well it was really, um, my parents, you know, kept trying to put it in my head with my aunt when we got there. When I was like, oh, no, I'm not. It was just like I said, No, I'm not doing this. And that those are my exact words. And she was like, Yeah, we drove all the way down here. You're doing this, your parents need you. You got to do this for your parents to make sure they don't get sick. Oh, and I forgot to mention that. My mom cought COVID at the funeral to forgot to mention that too. So she was sick. At the same time I was sick. But back to the conversation with my aunt. But yes, she was like, Oh, you're getting that shot. Matter of fact, you're going first. So, I got the shot.
Kit Heintzman 21:33
What was it like deciding to go for the second shot after that?
Eve Poythress 21:38
Um, I was kind of scared. But my mom was like, well, you need the complete dosage. If they tell you that you can take it when we get here, you need to go ahead and take it. And they told me I could take it after looking at the VAERS report and talking to whoever they called. They told me I could take it and that's the good.
Kit Heintzman 22:01
How is keeping in contact with your mother been throughout the pandemic?
Eve Poythress 22:05
We talk every day. I talk to my parents daily, call and checking in with them.
Kit Heintzman 22:13
Other than COVID-19, what have been some of the social and political issues on your mind and heart over the last few years?
Eve Poythress 22:22
Who is running this nation? That's that's the biggest thing. Leadership don't really like where we are now. As far as leadership. So that's, I don't really like to talk about politics. I'm just saying that I don't like what's going on now in the nation. I'll just leave it at that.
Kit Heintzman 22:48
What does the word health mean to you?
Eve Poythress 22:52
Health is wealth. Health means wealth. Because without health, you can't do anything. You can't. You can't work like you need to work. And I've missed a whole lot of days of work. Probably go to work, maybe in a two weeks time span, probably get one weekend in the office. And other days, I'm at home, not feeling well enough to go in. And they took away the work from home access. But I love the firm that I work for. So I'm just dealing with it for now. So yeah, when you mentioned health thats wealth, love to have my health back.
Kit Heintzman 23:30
What are some of the things you want for your own health and the health of people around you?
Eve Poythress 23:35
I want for everyone, to everyone that's dealing with with the things that I'm dealing with, like long COVID And vaccine syndromes want us to all be back to our normal lives and like with the groups that I'm in, it's a lot of people that are worse off than me. And although I'm having issues, I'm fortunate enough to not be in a wheelchair like some of the people in my groups are in wheelchairs and can't even walk now, can't hardly breathe, I can breathe well. It's just that I'm having excruciating pain in my joints now and makes it hard for me to get around. But like overall, I want everybody to be back to their previous state and healthy again.
Kit Heintzman 24:25
What do you think we would need to do as a society to get everyone there? How do we, how do we attain that?
Eve Poythress 24:33
First, they have to acknowledge that, hey, this vaccine is not as great as we said it was and some people are suffering. Some people and some people in my family didn't have problems. My one of my brothers actually three, three of my brothers and my sisters that took it I have one sister that didn't. My sister that took it they're fine is you know, I guess it was Uh, unlucky, the unlucky person, but you know, it works for some people and doesn't work for everybody. And that needs to be said, stops, stop trying to push it still, because it doesn't work for everybody stop telling people that it's going to work for everybody, or there's gonna, listen, your COVID experience because I my COVID experience wasn't that bad. It was scary. But like, as far as I could breathe, you know, and as long as I took the supplements that I read up on, I feel feel like it's manageable. Don't tell people that COVID is not manageable. With nutraceuticals, or, or any of the new drugs like, Y'all knew that y'all were getting, I can't think of the name of the pill. But you knew that you would have that pill? Why would Why did you push this vaccine on people? And then these jobs? You know, I was gonna have to take it from my job either way, if I didn't take it for my parents. So there's that.
Kit Heintzman 26:00
Do you feel like people in your life acknowledge what happened to you? Do you feel believed?
Eve Poythress 26:07
Some of them, the people in our family that are in the military, not so much, because I think it's a level of being brainwashed that they go through to where they're like, well, it nobody else is going through this and this, that and the third. So like, half of my family members, believe me and other half don't, it's mainly my dad's my dad's side of the family, because they have the military backgrounds that are brainwashed and like, it's gotta be something else. Well, I've been tested for autoimmune diseases, I don't have any twice, actually, because they're like, lupus. No, I don't have lupus. So I got clear with that a couple of weeks ago, and then got sent right back to the ortho, like, we're gonna see back to the ortho. So I should tell them something that, you know, no, I'm not sick with any autoimmune diseases.
Kit Heintzman 27:09
You've mentioned being a part of sort of online communities, for people who've been vaccine injured. Could you say more about that? Where did you, how did you find them, what are they like, what did they give you?
Eve Poythress 27:22
Actually my sister, the one that's the epidemiologist. She went to protests in DC and met a lot of people and told them about my, my injury. And they asked me to reach out. So I reached out to them on it's one group on well, actually a couple of groups on Facebook, reached out to them and got bed it told him what happened to me. And then when we're in the group, we share, you know, what we do for certain things like what what we're taking what's been helpful for people that have this similar injuries, like as mine. I remember posting the pictures of my joints, like, Oh, my knees was swell and my ankles, and I asked anybody, you know, if they were going through that no one in either group, you know, had gone through that. But, you know, they were, you know, well, why don't you reach out to this particular doctor. And that was before my doctor acknowledged, you know, what was going on with me. So, like, I've paid to see doctors, other doctors that were out of my network. To try and get some help. I've taken ivermectin I don't know if I'm supposed to say this on here. But I've tried ivermectin. But that was, it seemed like it was a fix. But then, like, once you take so much of it, it stops working. So it's just like, I haven't been able to find the right fix for what's going on with me.
Kit Heintzman 28:55
What was the vetting process like?
Eve Poythress 28:58
You have to explain. You have to tell them like when you were vaccinated, your symptoms, and it looks like that they kind of go by what other people are going through to see if to make sure that you're really injured. And not just in there trying to be a heckler trying to get a shutdown.
Kit Heintzman 29:21
What is the word safety mean to you?
Eve Poythress 29:25
Safety is just like more than more than one thing, safety outside of the home safety inside of home, just safety everywhere. We would all like to be safe and not have to worry about people, other people that might not be such good people doing something to us or anything like car accidents, freak accidents. Safety has just been making sure you get to your family daily.
Kit Heintzman 29:55
Thinking in that sort of narrow biomedical context of a pandemic Pre before the vaccine was available, what were some of the things you were doing to keep yourself feeling safer from COVID-19?
Eve Poythress 30:08
I was staying in the house. Wait, did you say pre pandemic?
Kit Heintzman 30:14
Oh, sorry, no, not pre pandemic, sorry, pre vaccine.
Eve Poythress 30:17
Oh, pre vaccine. Yeah, pre vaccine, I was staying in the house and just not not going out. I wouldn't letting too many people come to the house. Because you know, if you're out and about and still still doing your thing, like the pandemics not going on, you're not coming in here. So I was just, you know, keeping my door shut, basically. And having just bind what I felt like I needed to keep my house germ free and safe.
Kit Heintzman 30:47
How are you feeling about the immediate future?
Eve Poythress 30:53
I really don't know, I'm kind of right now I'm in a place where I'm wondering like, what my future is going to be like, as far as my symptoms or whatever. That's really where my mind is. Not really so much as other people right now. I want to get back to where the person that I was pre pandemic and pre vaccine.
Kit Heintzman 31:17
What are some of your hopes for a longer term future?
Eve Poythress 31:22
Um, I hope that we as a society, get it together, I don't have much hope for but it would be nice. We as a society to get it back together and more unity, stop lying about stuff and, and scaring the public up. And just in order to sell something. Just just only give us things that are healthy for us. Not only medication, but environmental wise as well. stop polluting the air. Just we just need to do better.
Kit Heintzman 32:01
When you've been in need of support, who have you been able to turn to over the last few years?
Eve Poythress 32:07
My parents and my my siblings pretty much. That's that's pretty much it, you know, other people. And it's one of the partners at the farm where I work. He's, you know, very understanding, he even tried to help me find an attorney. But then when we looked at it with the house, where the law stands with these vaccines, where they were granted immunity and so forth, it's like I don't have any options. So I'm gonna have to continue to pay for the bills that I accumulate, and so forth. But like, one or two people have been supportive at work.
Kit Heintzman 32:48
What was the, who did you,ho did you contact when the first injury happened?
Eve Poythress 32:56
It was VAERS. V-A-E-R-S is a website where you go in and you put in, you tell them what you take in, and you put in your symptoms and what happened after you took it. And what was that process like.
Kit Heintzman 33:12
Did anyone get back in touch with you?
Eve Poythress 33:15
No, a lot of people, I found that a lot of people in my support groups, no one got back to them. But you can still go in and add like with the second shot. I went in and added what happened after that. And as things progressed, and if anything else gets worse, you can just add to your VAERS report. That's pretty much it. I don't think they're doing anything with it, but still did it.
Kit Heintzman 33:43
Do you think of the pandemic as a historic event?
Eve Poythress 33:48
Yes, definitely a historic event. Because in my lifetime, I've not seen the world shut down like that. That was very, very scary. And I haven't seen us like fighting for things. Just for for things that we need, in general, like fighting about tissue. It's just weird. But you know, and having to meet people went and met somebody. It was. Now I've never sold drugs. Let me just say this, but how I would imagine a drug deal going down. That was how I was meeting people to get tissue and Lysol and I felt like I was meeting people in the back alley to get necessities. And it looks like what I see on TV when they're selling drugs. So that's that's why I made that analogy.
Kit Heintzman 34:47
Thinking back to your own education when you were much younger, what are some of the things in history you wish you'd learned more about as a child?
Eve Poythress 34:54
I actually hated history being honest, hated everything about it. So I can't say it was anything. Nope, no history at all. I hated everything about history, especially when we had to talk about the wars and civil war and all that kind of stuff. It just didn't interest me. They say that Pisces always just want to look at things like, like, it's good, everything can be good. So I just wanted to, like that kind of stuff kind of gets to me. You know, when people fight, I just want everybody to be positive. I know, it's not possible. But that's just where my mindset is. I try to keep stay in that mindset. Don't like to engage in arguments, unless I'm just like, totally pushed. So for the most part, I live and let live and I hated history again.
Kit Heintzman 35:54
Why do you think scholars in the social sciences and humanities so people who do work in like political science, or sociology or literature, what should we be doing right now to help us understand the human side of COVID-19?
Eve Poythress 36:09
Things like what you're doing, you're the only person that has reached out to me, even with the people, some of the people that my sister has connected me with no one, you know, it was just like, tip of the iceberg stuff. But like with the things that you're asking me, that will be helpful. It's a lot of other people like me, so the more people it's like people are being shunned. So if more people will open up and ask questions and talk to other people, you find that it's really an issue with this, and maybe we can get something done about it.
Kit Heintzman 36:46
This is my last question. I'd like you to imagine speaking to a historian in the future, someone far enough away that they have no lived, shared lived experience of this moment. What would you tell them cannot be forgotten about right now?
Eve Poythress 37:04
Don't forget the vaccine injured. Because I'm sure it's gonna be a lot worse toward towards the end. That's the main thing because it's people I've added failed to mention this. I had a co worker that he took the vaccine, I don't know which one he took, but he ended up with an aneurysm and a stroke. And he it's he's 43. Now, he's in he's in a nursing home. So definitely remember the vaccine injured, some, some are worse off than I am. So that's, that's what I will tell them.
Kit Heintzman 37:43
Thank you so so much for the generosity of your time and the kindness and vulnerability in your answers. Those are all of the questions I have. I'm wondering I just want to open some space if there's anything you'd like to share that I didn't make room for. Please share.
Eve Poythress 38:01
I think I covered all my my tracks. I got everything off today. Thank you
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