I have known 27-year-old Charity Smith Dimas since she was a little girl. Her parents were founders and I was the first PTO President, of Utah’s first charter school. Later, we co-founded a charter high school.
Charity and her six siblings went off in their blue-and-green plaid uniforms to school, with my kids, through her formative years.
Her mother and I also co-led a summer camp, a supper club, and even a babysitting co-op, where about 20 families had free babysitting, and paid each other in tickets. One per hour, per 2 children. (Alternative economy, anyone? This might come in useful, before long.)
Charity has had three little children, though her second child, Alice, died in infancy.
Charity was on my Facebook page seeing me constantly sounding the alarm about Covid from Feb. 27, 2020 onward–the economic fallout sure to follow, and starting in December of that year, the vaccine I feared would do great damage, being the vaccine-injured mother of a vaccine-injured child, myself.
But her bosses and co-workers were putting pressure on her, and her family is big into travel, especially travel to Hawaii. I will never forgive Hawaii for forcing tourists to get the vaccine, because that’s the reason my youngest son is injured, too.
Charity has now been hospitalized six times, and tells her story in the interview here. The second time she was hospitalized, she was so ill that the medical team called her family in to say their goodbyes.
Gratefully, Charity is still with us, but cannot exercise. This is especially difficult for her, as she was a gymnast and a cheerleader, and doing yoga and staying active has always been a big part of her lifestyle and identity.
She was originally concerned about backlash against anyone saying they had adverse reactions to the vaccine. Utah’s dominant culture has many who refused the jabs, but the leaders of the culture pushed it, and the community is very well-connected and can be critical of outliers.
But Charity recently reached out to me and said she was ready to tell her story.
I wasn’t expecting a certain topic that came up, but I think you should listen to this interview, which will give you new compassion for the vax-injured you may think of as “in denial.” I haven’t seen ANYONE talk about a certain subject that came up.
Which is: I told her that for four years, as I was barely functional, but spent about 14 hours a day in bed–I put my best face forward, and didn’t tell people about how sick and fatigued I was.
It seems strange, now, to say I was ashamed–but that is the main emotion I had, wanting but failing to be the mother I’d always planned to be. Instead, I collected symptoms and disease states–21 of them, within those several years–and put my kids in a bedroom with a stack of books, from 3 to 6 every single day, while I slept.
I kept thinking that any day, I’d get over the hump. I’m glad I didn’t know that it would be four long years.
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Last April, a former 20-year friend of mine told mainstream media that I was lying about being mostly bedridden for four years. You may want to think about that, and how it feels to be a sick young mom, after she’s been told by doctors and friends and family that you must be mentally ill–or lying, to get attention.
I asked Charity if she could relate to that–and I’ll just let you watch or listen to the interview, to hear her reaction.
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By any chance could you do a short article on the protocol of the babysitting co-op?
I don’t know if I can watch her video - it just breaks my heart and increases the powerless feeling. But it’s not about me, it’s about her. I’m amazed at her bravery. And yours.
Keep up the good work Robyn. My husband and I have been supporting your work.