Heidi Matthews Profile picture
Aug 24 13 tweets 3 min read Read on X
An important read. It’s personally & collectively terrifying to cognitively confront what we all know—that with each reinfection more of us become vulnerable & fewer of us are meaningfully supported. For each of the past 3 years I’ve been infected twice=6 total known infections🧵
Like @Flannsplainer my longterm symptoms related to covid set in after the first few infections. I’m also quadruple vaxxed. Last year I was also “regularly overcome by a sensation that I can only describe as a full-body panic attack, marked by a racing heart and rapid breathing”.
@Flannsplainer (I hesitate to put all this out there as it’s all so personal and destabilising and difficult-to-impossible to understand. But if there are *2 million* Canadians in the same boat then, holy shit, I have an obligation to share.)
My first two infection came from close family in my 'bubble'. The second two from travel for work. The last two from the twins' daycare. Covid—and the illnesses directly associated with it—no longer seems avoidable. And so... life just... continues. Except we are sick. So sick.
For 6 months, because of the "full-body panic attack" symptoms, I legitimately believed I could be dying. In the acute moments of attack, which happened at least once a day, and sometimes lasted all day long (a real panic attack wouldn't do this) I was convinced I was dying.
I ended up in emergency rooms in Canada, the U.S. and the U.K. Many ambulances were called. Mostly every doctor I encountered just wanted me out of the ER asap. I begged for referrals to specialists. I was told over and over again that I'd suddenly developed panic disorder.
Well, I thought, this needs to be dealt with. So I got my CBT therapist onboard who gave me lists of 'strategies'. I started doing analysis 3x weekly (my analyst told me the problem was that I 'hated myself'). I called hmental health helplines. I had benzos for backup.
When my heart would jump what felt like literally out of my chest I would dunk my face in dishpan full of cold water with ice cubes (this is a thing—vagus-nerve related; it didn't work). Eventually a cardiologist sent me for a heart CT. I had an allergic reaction to the dye.
In addition to becoming violently ill, this caused the top layer the skin on my hands and feet to fall off. That time, the ER doc caught my low phosphate level but didn't catch that it was critically low, as in stroke-level low. (Thank god for google).
I got so sick the next day that I nearly lost consciousness and had to instruct the ER doc about what the treatment protocol is for critically low phosphate in order to get the transfusion I needed. The internist who did the transfusion then refused to take my follow-up calls.
'No follow up treatment was necessary', apparently. Anyway, all this went on for months. It all went on while I —hilariously—was co-PI on a major @WAGE_FEGC "Feminist Response and Recovery Fund" grant. (I will laugh for the rest of my life about this).
With phosphate supplementation and beta-blockers things started to improve with time. Then I got sick again in May and June. My main struggle now is brain fog and excruciating, debilitating exhaustion and a seemingly shot immune system (this week I got bacterial bronchitis).
So, sorry, there's no happy ending here yet. We just need to talk about all this.

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More from @Heidi__Matthews

Jul 22
The ICJ was clear—Israel's responsibilities to the population in Gaza under the law of occupation are commensurate with its level of authority. In this context vaccinating IDF soldiers for polio while failing to ensure Palestinians are vaccinated is evidence of genocidal intent🧵
Yesterday I tweeted this. The genocide & war-crimes denial crowd got upset over the phrase “refusing to vaccinate.” They claim Israel is providing vaccines to Palestinians in Gaza. There is limited evidence supporting this claim, which in any event entirely misses the point… Image
The IDF has reportedly "said that with the cooperation of international groups enough vaccines had been brought in to cover more than a million" in Gaza. Even if true, this is insufficient to protect either Palestinians or Israelis and Israel knows it. reuters.com/world/middle-e…
Read 8 tweets
Jul 19
The @CIJ_ICJ will be delivering its advisory opinion on the legal consequences of Israel's policies and practices in the occupied Palestinian territory in just a few minutes. This is a Very Big Deal. My thoughts and reactions 🧵

You can watch live here: webtv.un.org/en/asset/k13/k…
screenshot of questions asked by the UNGA in December 2022
@CIJ_ICJ The UN General Assembly requested this opinion in Dec 2022. Several states—including Canada—submitted that the ICJ should decline to exercise its jurisdiction to render the opinion. The Court rejects these arguments, finding there are no compelling reasons for it to so decline.
@CIJ_ICJ Regarding the argument that an advisory opinion would negatively impact a negotiated resolution to the Israel-Palestine conflict, the Court says this is 'a matter of conjecture on which it should not speculate'.
Read 14 tweets
Jun 30
~1,000 Palestinians are detained at Sde Teiman, which can only be described as an Israeli state torture camp. Prisoners are bound in iron cuffs, continually blindfolded, starved, beaten and publicly raped with sticks. We can’t say we didn’t know. We know.🧵972mag.com/sde-teiman-pri…
One whistleblower—a guard—said many “detainees had infected wounds that were not being properly treated… The floor is very dirty & it smells so bad that we were forced to wear face masks. You could hear sometimes the sound of beating and them screaming”: theguardian.com/world/article/…
Another whistleblower—a medic—says “they stripped them down of anything that resembles human beings”. Prisoners reportedly undergo painful treatment without any painkillers. Some have had limbs amputated due to injuries sustained from handcuffs. cnn.com/2024/05/10/mid…
Read 14 tweets
Jun 27
The @IntlCrimCourt has authorized the UK to submit amicus observations on whether the Oslo Accords bar ICC jurisdiction over Israelis. *This* is why it was a mistake to water down the @NDP @HMcPhersonMP motion on Palestinian state recognition. 🧵 #cdnpoli icc-cpi.int/sites/default/…
@IntlCrimCourt @NDP @HMcPhersonMP The UK appears to be taking the position Israel took in 2019, namely, that Palestine cannot delegate criminal jurisdiction to the ICC because (a) it is not a state & (b) under the Oslo Accords Palestine has no criminal jurisdiction over Israelis or Area C. icc-cpi.int/sites/default/…
@IntlCrimCourt @NDP @HMcPhersonMP While the court says that while its decision to grant amicus submissions to the UK "must not be understood as an open call by the Chamber", other states, organizations or persons now have until July 12 to make their own requests for amicus status.
Read 11 tweets
Jun 26
The man tied lengthwise to the hood of a military jeep in the West Bank by Israeli forces has been with me for days. His name is Mujahed Abadi. This potentially constitutes the war crime of using human shields *but also* a number of other war crimes. 🧵
The war crime of using human shields under Rome Statute art 8(2)(b)(xxiii) requires intent "to shield a military objectives from attack". It's not obvious this intent was present here -- the cruelty looks to me simply gratuitous, rather than part of a discernible military tactic.
Under the circumstances, it's hard to conceive of how tying a wounded man to a jeep could advance military objectives either by protecting the jeep or generally favouring Israeli operations in the West Bank, where there is no armed conflict between Israel & Palestinian militants.
Read 10 tweets
Jun 7
Thus far, 50 @YorkUniversity professors have signed this Open Letter to @YorkUPresident & the York Board of Governors denouncing the decision to enlist police to raid the @PYU4P Gaza solidarity encampment on June 6. 🧵The letter is open for signature here: docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAI…
Within ~24 hours of establishing the encampment, the students were issued a trespass notice by the university. Only minutes later, dozens of police in riot gear assembled in a line formation and proceeded to forcibly clear the encampment. picture of police clearing the student encampment
This despite the fact that at 7:03pm the preceding evening the administration emailed the York community indicating that it would be "seeking to establish a dialogue with the individuals in the encampment". At 8am the next morning police moved in. No dialogue was sought. screenshot of June 5 email
Read 4 tweets

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