Between now and the end of the year, we will share more Denver VOICE vendors’ stories on why they’ve opted to get vaccinated against COVID-19.

Brian Augustine

Well, I had COVID twice. I didn’t want it a third time. Also, I didn’t want to be a carrier and cause others to be sick and pass away.

Gigi Galen

I am fully vaccinated. I decided to get the vaccine not just for my personal protection but for everybody else who’s around me. I do take public transportation quite a bit, and not everybody on those buses wears a mask, but I always have mine on to protect others

James Sandy

I ride public transportation quite a bit. I am out in public vending the VOICE, too. I also have some medical issues that puts me at a higher risk of getting infected. I had to weigh the pros and cons. I always wear a face mask when I’m indoors, and I just felt like it was the right thing to do

John’s Story

Falling backward

“It was a nice, nice, lovely day. About 12:30 in the afternoon, I’d left the office after spending a little extra time volunteering in the office. That day, I’d filled my backpack with several copies of the VOICE and other papers, so it was a little heavier than usual.

I went down the two flights of stairs going down the stairs as I normally did when the VOICE office was based in the office building at 1600 Downing Street.

I Ieft the building, and I was at the corner of 16th & Downing, waiting for the light to change. I looked both ways before I crossed, just like they told me when I was a Boy Scout. I remember walking across the street.

I didn’t get any further than half a block, and then it seemed like a switch went off a switch, and I just fell backward – not slumped – not like sliding down slowly, I just fell straight back, the back of my head smacking against the concrete, Boom!

I don’t realize what’s going on, that I was sick and needed help. I sat leaning against a tree, and all of these quick thoughts crossed my mind about what just happened. I kept thinking maybe my backpack must be heavier than I realized because, as I thought to myself, “No, nobody could’ve sucker-punched me to make me fall so hard, so quickly.”

The second time I fell (I fell a total of three times that afternoon), I tried to get up, but I couldn’t move, so I stayed where I was and tried to make calls from my phone. No one responded.

I was in that spot from the first time I fell, shortly after 12:30 until 6:30 that evening. I must have made contact with folks in the office because Jennifer (DV executive director) told me after the fact that she’d spoken to me. Apparently, she was trying to talk to me, when I’d called the office, but I had trouble explaining what was going on. I told her I didn’t know where I was, but I let her know I was scared.

From the time Jennifer found out about my situation, she started reaching out to my family. One of my brothers was able to tell her the location of the apartment where I was staying.

I have a friend Mark, who is someone I’ve known for a long time. He’s a bit of a prankster, so I always have to remind myself to keep my guard up with him because he loves to joke. (For example, more than once, he’s taken my mobile phone if I’ve put it down and walked away, and he’s changed the home screen image to a photo of him.)

I thought about calling Mark because he always answers my phone calls. He also travels quite a bit, so I knew he may not be available. He must have been thinking about me because at some point after I’d been sitting for quite a while, he called me. I was still in my state of confusion but managed to tell him where I was and that I’d fallen

Mark told me not to move, and it seemed like he was there, almost like that. He got me into his car and then took me to the grocery store, where I used one of those wheelchairs they have to get around. I was in and out of consciousness the entire time. Mark asked if I wanted to go to the hospital. I said no, so he took me to my apartment.

In the meantime, Jennifer with the VOICE was trying to track me down. I went between sleeping and waking. Early the next morning, I was taken by ambulance to the hospital. I remember being in the ambulance and the EMTs speaking calmly to me. We got to the hospital, but I don’t remember anything after that until I woke up about two weeks later. I’d been transferred to a second hospital.

The doctor and health workers warned my family that I probably wasn’t going to make it, so when I came to, the medical staff came by often to remark on how well I was doing.

The staff told me stories about what I’d been through. I had COVID, and as a result, I ended up with a blood clot, and that clot caused me to have a double stroke. It hit the frontal lobe of my brain, which was a blessing because if it were any other spot, it could’ve paralyzed me or left me permanently brain-damaged.

While they were trying to get me stabled, they were holding at bay a massive heart attack that was also a result of the blood clot. So, this is the seriousness of the first two weeks in the hospital with COVID until they transferred me to the new hospital and stabilized me.

From there, it really took me about two weeks before I began to comprehend what they were telling me. The staff was great. The doctor would come in and explain what was going on. I sat there and listened politely. And then after they left, I’d wonder to myself, “WHO are they talking about?”

So, I knew I was getting better because after about a week they’d still come to check on me. Then, going into the second week, now when they explained things and left, it began to click, and I realized, “Johnny, there’s nobody in this room, but you, so they must be talking to you!”

I ended up in the hospital for about three months. I worried that no one knew what was happening to me or where I was. I learned it was Jennifer who had sent for an ambulance to get me, but I didn’t know this until much later. I felt so bad because I thought the VOICE must have thought I had just disappeared. That’s when I found out that one of the best things to do to recover from a stroke, like the one I had was to study the information they gave me. The stroke affected both my short-term memory and the complicated thinking part of my brain.

The different exercises they gave me at the second hospital helped. I did them when I got out of the hospital.

I still have slight problems with little things like taking my medicine. Sometimes, I wonder, “Did I take my medicine?” Sometimes, I’ll go into a room and forget why. I have to remind myself, “Don’t panic!”

Sitting down, relaxing, looking at the news, sometimes, it still hits. But it’s much better than paralyzation or brain damage.

I got out of the hospital on July 6 and came back to the VOICE office sometime in late July.

I became one of the best students and patients because I wanted to know what I could do to heal and avoid something like that happening again. The nurses were proud of my progress. They liked working with me because I was interested in what happened and wanted to do the work to get better. I did what they told me to do, studied what it was they told me. I found myself exercising, and the nursing staff wanted to work with me because I wanted to do the work.

Getting back to “normal”

This past spring, Alexander received his two doses of the COVID vaccine. Despite being somewhat skeptical of the vaccine, he explains his decision this way:
COVID was a significant part of me almost being dead. The body handled COVID, okay, but the side effects were the most dangerous of all – blood clots. I don’t know how I survived three hard falls or the strokes. The doctors couldn’t understand either – especially after thinking I was going to die.

I know that women experience a lot of pain when they go through childbirth, but there are other types of pain we all can experience without having to be female and that is the pain of kidney or gall stones. I’ve had both.

I found out then, it’s not so much a person can die when the doctor removes the stones, but I almost died because of complications from the anesthesia. I heard my doctor, who was world-renown, say I had almost died during the procedure.

When he told me about the procedure and how I’d almost died, I asked him what my options were. He told me that I had two choices: Hope I didn’t get another gall stone, but there was no guarantee I would never have one again, or he could remove my gallbladder.

We can remove the stone, but no guarantee you won’t get another. Or we can take the whole gallbladder out. So, my thoughts about the vaccine are similar. COVID didn’t kill me, but the side effects will be with me forever. If receiving the vaccine means I don’t have to go through that experience again and end up with worse side effects, it is worth getting the shot. That was my logic.

I look forward to knowing I’m not going to be facing death that way. I have to live with the COVID side effects for the rest of my life. All that was caused by COVID. I don’t want to go that route again.

My advice is to get the vaccines, but I recommend you make sure you’re getting the best vaccine that’s available.

Larmarques Smith

Because I am immuno-compromised, it was important for me to get the vaccine to stay healthy, but also, I had misgivings about taking the vaccine. I wanted to see how others who got the vaccine reacted before I took it just because, typically, there has been mistrust with drugs like that, but if you think about it, the whole world is being vaccinated against this. That’s how polio was eradicated, so I had to take it…. I had to take it.

Penny Sandoval

I decided to get vaccinated because medical professionals said I should.

Jerry Rosen

The reason I got the vaccine is so that it would protect me from getting COVID because I felt it I was doing the right thing.

Lando Allen

I got the vaccine to protect myself and others.

Raelene Johnson

I got it because I have COPD. With my lung issues, I’m even more susceptible towards getting it, so when it was time for my age group to get it, I wanted to do it for my health, and to protect others around me

Denver VOICE vendors explain why they received their COVID-19 vaccinations

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