Looking for hope
Danna has memory loss, other effects from vaccine
Kristy Danna of Bella Vista suffered memory loss and other health problems after getting the covid vaccine in August 2021.
Her friend, Jan Pruitt, who has helped her throughout her health ordeal, was present at an interview with The Weekly Vista to help Danna remember details.
Danna worked for Audrey’s Resale Boutique in Bella Vista for nine years as retail manager. When covid came about, she said, she did not want to get the vaccine, but decided to do so because there were elderly people in the business regularly, and she wanted to protect them. Pruitt was a board member and delivered furniture for Audrey’s. He said he also did not want to get the vaccine, but decided he should because furniture delivery brought him into people’s homes. He also contributed his decision to pressure from government and civic leaders and said his current and former doctors recommended it.
Not long after they both received the vaccine, Pruitt invited Danna to meet him at the country club for dinner one night. She could not remember how to get there at first, but then figured it out. She did not tell him anything about the lapse in memory that night. The next day at Audrey’s, a volunteer told him something was wrong with Danna, who was crying and told him she could not remember anything.
He took her to the emergency room, where they waited 12 hours. The hospital did an MRI and learned she had damage to the frontal lobes on both sides, he said. However, that was not the full extent of her health problems.
Danna was in the hospital five times in 35 days, Pruitt said. She had lost short and long term memory. She said she had a heart attack and had a stent put in. She added she lost feeling in her legs and feet, and she still has a tingling sensation in her legs and feet all the time. Pruitt added Danna had diarrhea and vomiting for four months. She has also lost her taste and smell and lost about 40 pounds, Pruitt said.
She is not allowed to drive, because she cannot remember how to reach her destination. She is not allowed to cook, because she might forget and leave the gas on, she said. In the beginning, she lived off and on at Pruitt’s home, however, with his help, she now lives alone at her home.
They said most of the time when they went to doctors, only her symptoms were addressed, however, one doctor in Fayetteville dug deeper and found that her thyroid medicine had stopped working. Danna said her thyroid was taken out when she was in her 20s, and the medication had worked for years. The pill stopped working after she got the vaccine, and it was not getting broken down in her system, leading to problems, Pruitt said. The doctor put her on a new thyroid medication in October.
The doctor is giving Danna intravenous NAD (nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide) treatments, which, according to the doctor’s website, have several benefits including healing and improved memory. Danna said she can feel her legs and walk better since seeing the doctor.
Danna said her memory has improved enough to get through a conversation.
“I do pretty good one-on-one in conversation now,” she said. “A lot of people go into a room and forget why they went into the room, but that’s my life all the time.”
She added, “Before this I was president of the townhouse association, had my own TV show and went 100 miles an hour.”
Pruitt said, “She’s cognitive to know what she was capable of doing, and now she’s dependent on others.”
Pruitt and Danna’s other friends have seen her through the ordeal.
“I call her every night before I go to bed. I call her every morning to see how she’s doing,” he said. He also said he regularly takes her on a drive to get her out of the house. He has also been taking her to her doctor appointments.
“If it wasn’t for him, I wouldn’t be able to stay here,” she said. “I probably would have to look at assisted living.”
She added she has a team of women who bring her food and walk the dog and do other things.
“I’m just very blessed to be surrounded by these women, because that gives Jan a break so he can play golf or go fishing,” she said.
Pruitt said, “When people ask how she’s doing, I tell them (to imagine), ‘When you wake up today, nothing you did yesterday you can do today.”
He added, “She may ask me the same question four or five times in a day, and, being human, I may have a bit of an edge in a response, and then she apologizes for not remembering. And we do this every day.”
Danna commented, “I don’t want anybody feeling sorry for me, but if my story can help another person to think twice or three times about getting this shot or getting it for their children … because we don’t know what’s in them.”
Danna said because the doctors don’t know much about her condition, they cannot give her hope.
“What if I live to 102 and this is the best that it gets? I want hope,” she said.
The bright spot, she said, is that, when she first came home from the hospital, she went out on the deck to sit and took a photo of a heart shape in the clouds with the moon rising. That led to a pattern, she said.
“I find a heart is gifted to me every day in some shape or form. It’s like God was saying, ‘I’ve got your back.’”
She said the heart might be a rock or a shape in the trees, for example. Because of that first heart, she decided she was going to fight and get stronger, she said. With the help of friends, she plans to create an online business with cards and framed photos of the hearts. She will donate proceeds to children with heart disorders, she said.