If she suddenly and miraculously got her old body back, Tracey Bettridge says she would first just take a minute to savour a curious feeling: the absence of pain.
Then, although she would eventually return to her tennis, yoga and running, she would do something simpler first: play with her children.
The woman from the southern Perth suburb of Fremantle is one of 500 group members in a national class action from the COVID-19 vaccine-injured, filed in the New South Wales Federal Court on Wednesday.
In January 2022 she was working full time as a physiotherapist and owner of two private practices in the southern Perth suburbs. She was never still, and on top of her own sports took active part in the sports interests of her children, aged 10 and 12.
She had two AstraZeneca shots in 2021 in line with WA health worker mandates. She had her third, a Moderna, on January 20, 2022.
On February 8, she was driving her children to school when pain shot across her neck and shoulders.
Then her arms went numb and tingly. She thought she must have hurt her neck.
When they got to school, her son had a moment of wanting reassurance. So, she sat and talked to him outside for about 20 minutes.
When Bettridge got up to walk back to her car, her work shirt felt strange. Then she realised it was because her body had gone numb.
She called an ambulance and was admitted to the city’s Fiona Stanley Hospital, where the numbness progressed to her legs and she lost power in her limbs.
An MRI showed a spinal lesion and Bettridge was diagnosed with post-vaccine transverse myelitis, a neurological disorder caused by inflammation of the spinal cord. Multiple sclerosis, of which transverse myelitis is frequently an early sign, was thankfully ruled out.
In a makeshift room in a packed and overstretched hospital, she was treated with high-dosage intravenous steroids for three days, then discharged.
“I finally saw a neurologist who was very forthright and said, your transverse myelitis was caused by the vaccine; if you didn’t have the vaccine you would not have been injured,” she said.
“He also told me it would take me three months to recover and that there was nothing I could really do to help the recovery.”
But she did not recover. She now knows that only around a third of people with this disorder fully recover.
Bettridge has constant pain and numbness in her hands and legs. She had to relearn how to walk, and it took her 14 months to stand on one leg again.
“It’s exhausting,” she said.
“In the past, I treated people with chronic pain. I thought you could just take some neuropathic pain medication and it would be fine, but all they do is take the edge off, so that you can function.”
From the neck down she has altered sensation at every level. Her sensations of hot and cold are reversed. She cannot tell where her arms and legs are in space. She also has what’s known as the “MS hug”, a feeling that someone is squeezing her chest. She cannot run or jump, stand for longer than 20 minutes or use her arms above her head.
Bettridge spends her days balancing attending to her children’s needs with rest and rehabilitation. She has not been able to work and closed her Myaree practice altogether.
She needs regular neurological reviews, MRIs, GP visits, physiotherapy, and pain specialist appointments. She still faces heightened risk of multiple sclerosis.
She struggles to think of a lifetime of pain and numbness.
“I felt lots of anger and a real resistance to accepting the future, that this is something for life,” Bettridge said.
“I can’t deal with pacing myself. I’ve always been a doer and it’s not in my nature to slow down and rest.”
Bettridge said she felt she was no longer the mother or partner she had been.
“The impact of this injury is immeasurable,” she said.
Bettridge was the main breadwinner in her family, with her partner studying and working part-time. Income protection insurance has supplied a third of her former income, but her family remains under stress.
She says she has several specialist reports acknowledging her injury was caused by the vaccine.
However, transverse myelitis is only recognised by the federal government’s COVID-19 vaccine claims scheme when caused by AstroZeneca. As her injury was caused by Moderna/SpikeVax, she is ineligible.
She said the scheme was a “pitiful attempt by the government to compensate just a few of the vaccine injured”, with narrow and exclusionary criteria.
“I am certainly not anti-vax, but I am not pro-COVID-19 vaccine,” she said.
“My injury was reported by the neurologist and myself to the Therapeutic Goods Administration in February 2022. There has been no attempt by the TGA to contact me.”
The federal government, the TGA and the Department of Health are all named as parties to the class action, accused of negligence, breach of statutory duty and misfeasance in public office.
It is understood the allegations relate to the TGA’s conduct in approving and monitoring the COVID-19 vaccines.
Those involved are demanding damages for adverse health effects experienced as a result of a COVID-19 jab, from a life-threatening event to physical impairment.
The size of the payout sought is not yet clear. The respondents are due to file their defence at a later date.
A spokesperson for the Department of Health told WAtoday it was aware of the federal court proceeding, but that it was inappropriate to comment further while the matter was before the court.
The federal government has been contacted for comment.
NR Barbi instructing solicitor Natalie Strijland said the action, which features three lead applicants and is expected to involve hundreds of members, would argue the TGA caused considerable harm and damage by failing to regulate the COVID-19 vaccinations properly.
The action is being spearheaded by Queensland-based GP Dr Melissa McCann, who has bankrolled the litigation and helped source $105,000 in crowdfunding support.
She said the class action was needed because the government’s current COVID vaccine compensation scheme was not fit for purpose.
“Australians were promised a fair and accessible compensation scheme,” she said.
“Many vaccine injured Australians who cannot access compensation through the Services Australia scheme now find themselves abandoned, with no support.
“I am very confident that this has been filed in a manner that does justice to the scale and public importance of the action.”
It is understood the compensation scheme does not cover all adverse events listed in the product information, leaving some claimants to slip between the cracks.
The federal government says on its claims scheme website that like all medicines, vaccines can have side effects, also known as adverse events. It says almost all of these are mild and resolve within a few days.
“The TGA closely monitors vaccine safety. It often finds that adverse events or suspected side effects are not caused by the vaccine itself,” it says. “In rare cases, some people may suffer a severe impact after a COVID-19 vaccine.”
Bettridge said she wanted to highlight the class action and have vaccine injured people recognised.
“I hope this will bring about some medical help for some of us. To highlight the inadequacies of the government claims scheme,” Bettridge said.
The TGA’s latest data shows 137,750 adverse events have been recorded among the 64.7 million COVID vaccine doses administered.