C.F. – Mississippi

"9/15/21

I am a 33 year old healthy male with no underlying health conditions. I make a living as an agricultural pilot (crop duster). I’ve been an agricultural pilot flying at the same business since I was 19 years old. Being a pilot, I’m required by law to get a second class medical every year in order to keep my pilots license current. So I have 14 years of thorough medical history to prove my health before this vaccine. The last time I went to the doctor for sickness pre-vaccine was for the flu and over 10 years ago. I’m 5’11” 170lbs and very fit and active. I’m married with an 8 year old son and a 4 year old son. Now, on to the vaccine. I received my first dose of the Pfizer Covid vaccine on 02/01/21 at approximately 11:00am. Within an hour I noticed I had developed a headache at the very top of my head. The location of the headache was unusual but I just shrugged it off thinking it would go away. Over the course of that afternoon the headache moved down the back of my neck and became an intense burning sensation. Still I hoped it would go away. The next day it was raining so I didn’t fly and did office work all day. The headache slowly was becoming worse. The next day, 02/03/21, the weather was clear and I had a few hours of flying to do. In December of 2020 the FAA issued a rule stating all pilots must wait 48 hrs after being vaccinated before resuming flight duties so that’s what I did. At approximately 12:00pm on 02/03/21 I started flying. Immediately after taking off I knew something was not right with me. I thought I could just tough it out for a few hours and deal with it later. I noticed I was developing tunnel vision about an hour into my flight and the burning in the back of my neck and base of my skull was becoming unbearable. Then, approximately 2 hrs into my flight, I felt a sudden burst inside my head and nearly blacked out. I literally thought I would die before I could land the plane. I was shaking uncontrollably, confused, dizzy, nauseous, and had very blurry vision. Keep in mind I’m a crop duster so I’m never more than 500’ above the ground. I felt like I didn’t have any control over my limbs, much less my airplane. I was able to calm myself down enough to land by pouring water on my face and turning on the air conditioner (in February). I immediately went to my family doctor and he diagnosed me with vertigo and panic attacks even though I’ve never had a history of either. He prescribed me meclizine for vertigo and Xanax for panic attacks and told me to call him if I wasn’t completely better in 2 days. Well I was completely worse in 2 days. I could barely walk and was extremely nauseous and dizzy. I have a friend that did suffer from vertigo and highly recommended the Ear and Balance Institute in Covington, LA. I called them and got an appointment for 02/10/21. I underwent 2 full days of testing at the institute including hearing and balance test, mri scan, ct scan, and had my spinal cord pressure measured. My doctors determined I had an adverse reaction to the Pfizer vaccine. They concluded that my brain, brain stem, and spinal cord were so swollen that they placed such significant pressure on my inner ears until they finally “blew out”. My inner ears literally had holes blown in the sides of them. My intracranial pressure was 4x what is considered normal and they said that could only come from a major head trauma (which I obviously did not have), blood clots in my brain, or an auto-immune response in my spinal cord. They immediately prescribed my to 1000mg of Diamox which is pretty tough on its own but at that point they were just trying to stop me from completely losing my vision due to such high intracranial pressure. On 03/25/21 I had surgery performed on my left inner ear to repair the perilymphatic fistula and install a tube. On 06/03/21 I had the same surgery performed on my right inner ear. There’s an 8 week waiting period between surgeries for safety reasons. Each surgery has a 6 week grueling recovery time. As of today, 09/17/21 I’m still not able to fly because of side effects from the surgeries. Honestly I don’t know if I’ll ever be able to fly again. My job is seasonal so essentially I have missed an entire year of work. Also my doctors don’t take insurance so I had to pay for diagnostic testing and both surgeries out of pocket. As of now that vaccine has cost me and my young family over $300,000. We’re essentially living off of credit cards at this point. I applied for benefits with the Countermeasures Injury Compensation Program in April of 21 and they’ve been all but dead silent. The CICP is the only program designed to help people affected by this vaccine and I’m convinced they’ve been instructed to not approve a single claim. They still to date have not approved or paid out on one single claim related to the Covid vaccine. The oldest claim being from September of 2020. Im a healthy young man with a young family and this vaccine has taken everything from me. Im on the verge of bankruptcy and still don’t know when or if I can go back to work. We are truly collateral damage. Feel free to contact me anytime with any questions. Thank you and I’m relieved to know there are more people than I realized out there fight for us!

-C.F. - Mississippi"