19-year-old Emma Burkey suffered four strokes and had to undergo five surgeries and needed breathing and feeding tubes after adverse effects from the Johnson & Johnson vaccine
A Las Vegas a woman who suffered four strokes and three brain surgeries after a severe reaction to Johnson and Johnson The COVID-19 vaccine is learning to walk again.
Emma Burkey, 19, set a “new goal” on Friday when she finally made it down the stairs a year after she was told she would never be able to.
Burke was rushed to a Las Vegas hospital after suffering a seizure after a single dose COVID-19 shot on April 1, 2021. She believes the vaccine caused a rare medical condition that led to three brain surgeries, two additional surgeries, four strokes and the need for a breathing and feeding tube.
“Now I can walk with canes, which I thought never happened. “I set goals and when I achieve them, I set new goals,” she said News now 8 in Tuesday. She no longer needs help from breathing or feeding machines.
The blows left her with limited movements, but Burke has already regained strength in her upper body and managed to hold a baby doll – a big step for her, as her dream is to work with children, News Now 8 reported. Before she fell ill, she was a volunteer in a church kindergarten.
She has spent five hours a day for the past 10 months undergoing physical therapy to learn fine motor skills and how to walk again. At one point, the teen had to be placed in a medically induced coma, but could not move, talk or blink when she woke up. Las Vegas Review Journal reported.
Burke’s reaction to the vaccine is rare and the CDC still advises patients to be vaccinated. For those who have received the J&J vaccine, the CDC recommends that they get a booster vaccine from Pfizer or Moderna.
Scroll down for video
After 10 months, Burke (left) can now walk up and down four to six steps. After receiving a rare reaction to the vaccine, she was left with limited movements in her body, especially her left side, and was told she would not be able to walk again.
Equipped with a leg brace and a walker or cane, Burke undergoes five hours of physical therapy a day to re-learn how to walk.
As early as April, she suffered a seizure and her parents rushed her to the hospital. Doctors found a blood clot in her brain and said she had low platelet counts. She was diagnosed with thrombosis with thrombocytopenia syndrome (TTS), which at the time was only associated with the AstraZeneca vaccine. The condition, which causes blood clots in the brain, affected only 57 patients out of 18 million who received the J&J vaccine in early February.
“In the beginning, when I was in the hospital, I couldn’t move literally anything,” Burke told the Las Vegas Review-Journal earlier this month. “And my parents didn’t know I was even there, that I wasn’t a vegetable until I stuck out my tongue.”
Now Burke can eat a sandwich, but he can’t write alone and he’s learning how to walk up and down stairs. She can now walk four to six steps alone. It uses a cane or walker and a leg brace and can walk about 300 steps for 10 steps at a time.
“It’s not the most beautiful thing you’ve ever seen, but I can do it. So I prefer to be able to do it without these things, “she told the Las Vegas Review-Journal.
She still has only limited movement in her arms, with her right arm 10 to 15 percent of normal range and her left arm 1 to 2 percent.
Burke suffers from a blood clot in his brain after receiving the J&J vaccine, a condition that has affected only 57 of the 18 million patients who received the company’s vaccine
Burke (pictured front left in 2017) volunteered at a crèche at his church before the incident
Three months after her brain surgery, she was still unable to walk and had limited movements on her left side.
When Burke, who was taken to California for hospital treatment, returned to Nevada, she went to a family friend’s home with easy access to a shower. Her parents’ home is not wheelchair accessible.
A GoFundMe was created to help cover Burke’s medical expenses, which are about $ 2.5 million to $ 3 million, according to the Las Vegas Review. Since then, fundraising has raised nearly $ 72,000 from its $ 100,000 target.