So I have been toiling with this post for months. What to say, how to convey my position to actually make people stop and listen, and not immediately go into attack mode and label me an anti-vaxxer. Actually, that might be a great place to start. Let me make one thing painfully clear, I AM NOT AN ANTI-VAXXER! I am current on all of my vaccines, including some most people may not have. I’m in the medical profession so I get my flu shot every year, have my titers checked, etc. I am also a Crohn’s patient. I have lived with this disease for 18 years. I’ve been on all the therapy drugs, immunosuppressants, steroids, you name it, we’ve tried it. I am fortunate that my Crohn’s falls on the mild side. So after years of personal research, different drug’s and basically just trying to figure out what the Hell worked, I was able to figure out that my diet and lifestyle were the biggest factors. So I figured out what foods were triggers, (it’s a lot of fun ones unfortunately) eliminated alcohol and caffeine (I know!) I’ve been able to control my disease with diet and lifestyle for 10 years. I am not immune-compromised. I will on occasion have a mild flare, (I mean it doesn’t go away.) I’ve just learned how to navigate the autoimmune waters. Now if your wondering why I’m telling you all of this, it’s for a reason. After my first bowel resection, the dietitian came in for a consult post op, and the first thing I asked her for was a copy of a Crohn’s diet. She looked at me and said “there isn’t one.” I looked at her bewildered as I lay there with a 5 inch incision from my bowels being resected due to a perforation, packed with dressing, granulating closed on it’s own. She then followed up with “there isn’t one, because everyone is different!” (Hold on to this statement for later readers.) “You’ll need to figure out what you can tolerate.” After she explained it, it did make sense, what worked for me, might not work for the next person with completely different DNA and anatomy. I mean not one of us humans is exactly the same.

Fast forward to today. September 2021, the time in history that will be remembered for COVID and vaccine MANDATES, and politicians making speeches with “for the greater good.” snuck in there, Which is generally always prefaced with “sacrifices must be made!”(Name one time in history where that political justification turned out good.) Corporations mandating vaccines or face termination, local city governments passing mandates to be vaccinated to socialize in public spaces. It’s like reading Orwell. People have been so indoctrinated with fear, and this perfect political weapon has been yielded with split hair precision, it’s literally divided families! Are you fucking kidding me! Dividing lifelong relationships and families…It’s got to stop!

So remember in that first paragraph above where I mentioned “everyone is different.” Well that’s not fairytale conjecture, that is scientific fact. Let me explain a bit why I’m so personally against mandates. First and foremost, it’s the vaccine itself. There just simply isn’t enough long term effect study data period. Second, for my patient population, Crohn’s, there is 0 study data! This little fact is by the actual admission of the FDA, CDC and pharmaceutical companies. There is no data for me to make a safe, confident medical decision to take the vaccine. We were left out of the initial studies. Let me say that again, THERE IS ZERO DATA. I don’t know how my body will react. It could be mild, it could be violent with devastating results. Anyone up for Russian Roulette? I am not alone, there are thousands of people in my shoes. People who are being mandated out of their livelihoods because they are scared to play Russian Roulette. They’re not anti-vaxxers, they, like me, are scared, and there is no one to hold accountable should the unthinkable happen from the vaccine. I’m furious we are at this point in our society. How did we get here?

My intention is not to make this political. But if you are of the mindset that people who are unvaccinated are selfish, you are part of the problem. If you’ve uttered the words “I don’t know why they just don’t take the damn vaccine!” You to are part of the problem. Let me turn that table a bit, I think you are being selfish for expecting masses of people you know nothing about, stand in line to do something they are not comfortable with, put themselves at risk, just to extinguish your fears. Do you see how that works? It’s a vicious cycle.

I want you to stop for a second and remember “we are all not the same.” And what that really means. I want you to stop judging, and bullying people for trying to hold onto their civil liberties and decide what is best for their own well being and physical person. We have that right. (For now.) Don’t throw that away so easily. If we continue down these paths, with these mainstream and social media poisoned mindsets, we are truly very soon going to be living in 1984.

Put yourself in someone else’s shoes. Don’t judge, stop hating each other. The only people who are going to lose this war is us. Stop the mandates. Stop letting someone else in charge make you think that you are not smart enough to know what the right thing to do is for yourself, your family and your neighbor without being forced. Humanity deserves more credit than that.

Wash your hands.

M.