Sex or wheelchair? That is the question. Or at least it's one question that my aunt presented to her daughter while they were discussing the Gardasil vaccine, something that has become quite a topic of interest within the past few years.

In 2009, I was immunized with Gardasil. I was 12, just going into the doctor's office for my junior high shots. Later, I found out that Gardasil's purpose is to prevent HPV, which is reportedly a cause of cervical cancer. Girls as young as 9 are given the vaccine (to supposedly help them build up immunity to HPV before becoming sexually active).

Well, my mom and I didn't know any of this that day at the doctor's office; we were simply asked if I wanted to try a new vaccine that would prevent cervical cancer. We didn't want cancer, so we said yes. I honestly didn't think that much about it back then, but it's been one of the only things that I've thought of since.

During the months following the injection, I seemed to be doing pretty well. I did get more grumpy and tired and bloated, but all of those things go along with being an adolescent, so I just brushed them off. However, after autumn came, I became even more tired. Then I slowly lost the ability to sleep at night, which obviously didn't help my exhaustion. My health and spirits continued to decline through the entire school year, but I had no idea why (I never suspected the vaccine—or anything else—back then). By spring, I was so tired that I had to get my blood tested for mono. The results came back negative. About this time, I also began to develop serious gastrointestinal issues, and my brain became foggy and forgetful. My energy level continued to plummet.

After that school year, it didn't get better. For a while I seemed to be healing, but then it all got worse again, and new symptoms presented themselves (like shortness of breath, a very swollen neck and face, a sore throat, a dry cough, and feet that changed color according to their temperature). I became so ill that my parents had to formally withdraw me from school that year (and the one after). I went to so many doctors, but no one could ever find any answers and every test came back negative. On paper, I was a healthy fourteen-year-old. In person, though, I was an ashen, sickly shadow of myself. But some physicians still acted like there was nothing wrong with me or that I was making it all up or something. I wasn't. I was so ill, and I had no idea why.

By 2011, neurological symptoms presented themselves. I started having panic attacks where my pupils would go from big to small several times a minute, and the muscles around my mouth would go numb, and my feet and hands would get rigid. My exhaustion was so overwhelming by that time that I was barely walking. My parents tried to help me as best as they could: they helped me walk, they coached me through panic attacks, they made super-food smoothies for me. But nothing seemed to give any real relief or any answers. One night, however, they were researching all they could about my strange episodes, and they came across a website that mentioned Gardasil and other girls who had experienced panic attacks like mine. I wasn't there, but my mom tells me that at that moment she knew Gardasil was what had made me so sick. There have been so many reports of other girls who have had strikingly similar symptoms to mine, symptoms of brain injury and extreme fatigue and full-body illnesses; we all knew that it couldn't have been a mere coincidence.

This realization didn't give much comfort for long, though. We were almost positive of what had caused my illness, but there was still no way that we could stop—or even expect—what would happen next.

In March 2011, I had my first real “seizure”. It was similar to a panic attack, but much worse. I kept seeing flashing colors and lights, and I was smelling fire and hearing ringing in my ears and feeling numbness in my fingers. Breathing and talking suddenly seemed impossible. I stopped walking (that's where the wheelchair came in), and I couldn't feed myself. My home was a living hell for about a month or two after that. Doctors made house calls, ordered more blood tests, and so many other things—but nothing helped, and frankly, I don't know if anyone (besides our family) ever believed Gardasil was what had caused it all. But we knew.

In total, I was in a wheelchair for 13 months. I couldn't feed myself for about half that time. I didn't get out of that stupid wheelchair until May 2012, when I was put through intensive rehab in the Neuroscience Trauma Unit at Primary Children's Medical Center. And yet, though I had gone through the treatment usually used for patients with neurological injury, no doctors ever acknowledged that Gardasil might have caused it.

But now I'm here, writing this and feeling much better, and I feel very strongly that Gardasil is what put me in that wheelchair. And that's why my aunt told her daughter that it was either sex or a wheelchair: if she didn't get immunized with Gardasil and then had sex, she might have a chance of getting an STD. However, if she did get vaccinated, then she might have a chance of ending up in a wheelchair, like me. My little eleven-year-old cousin, remembering the horrible illness I had gone through and being absolutely terrified of sex, said “NO” to Gardasil.

So, even if you've never heard of Gardasil (or frankly, even if you don't really care), you need to research it. All teens need to be more careful about what they put into their bodies. Our society refuses to discuss the dangerous side effects and potential dangers of prescription drugs and immunizations. But we need to bring these things to light. We need to end the horrible realities that face people who've been victims of adverse reactions. So please, if you're considering getting the shot, remember to ask yourself a very important question:


Sex or wheelchair?