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Carol Russell, Founding Director
Carol has 11.5 years of experience working for the American Cancer Society. She has learned a lot through her work regarding how to care for and advocate for those with serious illness. She is a COVID Long Hauler since March of 2020 and she also had multiple COVID Vaccine Adverse Events in 2021.
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Early into the COVID Pandemic, Carol began to feel sick. It was unclear why. Her doctors thought perhaps allergies, but it was much more than that. As time progressed she felt worse and worse. She was eventually diagnosed with Long COVID. Her glut of symptoms would wax and wane for many months, but eventually she began to improve some.
That was until she took two Pfizer COVID Vaccine Doses, each causing a major reaction in her that was long lasting. Her much improved symptoms of Long COVID got much worse, with new additional problems occurring as well. Her Rheumatologist said he was seeing many patients with similar problems after COVID Vaccination. Due to certain lab numbers being off, she had to see an Oncologist, whom she had never had to go to before.
Luckily no Cancer was found, but the labs have remained off without much explanation as to what is occurring, other than it stems from her vaccination. She has decided to forgo getting any more COVID Vaccines, as many COVID Long Haulers have done due to their reactions. Carol is not yet back to her baseline of her pre-COVID and pre-COVID Vaccine days. She is happy to be supporting others that may be in a similar position as her's through the Long COVID Foundation.