Crystal Denomme
Day 3 · September 10, 2026 · 0:24:33
Key points Crystal Denomme, 48, a personal support worker for adults with severe disabilities and mother of three, testifies she was very physically fit and active before vaccination. She says the first Pfizer shot caused no reaction, but within 24 hours of the second her entire body felt like severe sunburn and road rash, with a sensation of her bones melting. She recounts being unable to call in sick, going to work in agony, and then her right leg and later her left knee becoming affected. She says she developed complex regional pain syndrome (CRPS), leaving her in constant pain, using elbow crutches, and largely housebound. She describes falls that broke her femur, lacerated her face, and required reconstructive dental surgery, plus brain fog and memory loss. She says her physician refused to acknowledge a vaccine link, while a physiotherapist suggested the vaccine inflamed a prior knee injury site. She recounts her Vaccine Injury Support Program claim being denied with errors including the wrong vaccine brand, and says she was later fired for absences after being mandated to vaccinate.
Speaker 3
0:02 Our next witness is Crystal Dunham. 0:05 Crystal, can you take the Bible in your right hand, please? 0:20 Crystal Dunham, do you swear to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth? 0:26 So help me God. Speaker 3
0:30 I'd like to introduce you to the inquiry 0:33 You are 48 years of age. 0:35 You have three boys, all adults now. 0:39 You were a personal support worker for adults with severe mental and physical disabilities. 0:46 And pre-vaccine, you had perfect health. 0:51 You know, you had anxiety, touch and go, and you were on a hypothyroid medication, but those have nothing to do with what happened. 1:01 You enjoyed hiking or 1:03 camping, fishing, going for long walks, rollerblading, kayaking, exploring, zip lining, aerial park, swimming, skating, anything outdoors. 1:13 In fact, your list was surprising to me. 1:18 You were very physically fit and active. 1:21 And your sons used to joke that you were in better shape than they were because you were the one pushing them. 1:28 So can you share with us Speaker 5
1:32 what your vaccine experience was um after i got the first one i was perfectly fine i didn't even have a sore arm nothing um after i got the second one within 24 hours i woke up and i just my full skin every piece of skin on my body was like i was getting peeled it was like like if you fall off your bike and you get really bad road rash it felt like that head to toe 2:02 And my bones, like you could feel your bones felt like they were melting, you know. 2:08 And that was within 24 hours. 2:12 By the two-week mark, I had gone back to work. 2:16 And my right leg was hurting. 2:18 So I was talking with one of my colleagues. Speaker 3
2:20 Can I just slow you down? 2:21 Because you were describing it feeling like your skin was being peeled off. 2:29 And I don't understand. Speaker 5
2:32 what you mean by that can you be try to describe that worst sunburn you've ever had and add road rash to that and and repeat it was the worst pain I've ever felt I've never felt anything like that like it's even hard to describe the brutality of it it was the worst thing I've ever felt in Speaker 3
2:54 And is this all over? Speaker 5
2:56 It was full. 2:57 Yeah. 2:57 I sat on the side of my bed because I had to go to work that night. 3:00 I sat on the side of my bed and I cried like I didn't even know how I was going to put on clothes. Speaker 3
3:05 Well, so you couldn't even lay down because it was too painful. Speaker 5
3:08 Yeah, I couldn't do anything. 3:09 So I had to get dressed and go to work. 3:11 It was the day before my vacation started. 3:13 So part of our policy and procedures is we weren't allowed to call in sick like the day before you're going on vacation. Speaker 3
3:21 Even if you're sick. Speaker 5
3:22 Yeah, so I had no choice but to go into work and I wasn't able to do my duties that night. 3:30 I was able to do the residence checks and stuff like that, but I wasn't able to do the cooking or the cleaning or any kind of anything like that. Speaker 3
3:39 Okay, so you go to work and you're literally, I was going to say on fire, but that's not what you're describing. 3:46 You're describing like a huge sunburn and like 3:50 Throat rash at the same time. 3:52 So like, you know, when you get a really bad skin and over a scrape and over a large area, it's kind of like weeping. 3:59 Is it that type of pain? Speaker 3
4:01 But over your entire body? 4:03 All of it. 4:04 And then you also described that it felt like your bones were melting. 4:09 Can you try and express that to us? Speaker 5
4:15 It's very difficult. 4:17 It felt as though... 4:18 I was on fire, but on the inside. 4:20 And it wasn't muscular. 4:24 It was like I could feel it in my bones. Speaker 3
4:28 It was a very distinct feeling. 4:30 That was painful too? Speaker 3
4:34 Okay. 4:34 So you're feeling this pain really in your bones and you're feeling it on your skin. 4:41 You described to us that you're sitting on the bed and crying, which tells us that the physical distress was so great. 4:49 you cross that weeping threshold where you have no choice but to weep. Speaker 5
4:53 Yeah. 4:54 And my last son, I had him with no epidural or anything like that. 4:57 And I didn't cry in pain. 5:00 This I did. 5:01 So it was. Speaker 3
5:03 So how, how is it you managed to go to work that day? Speaker 5
5:07 I didn't have a choice. Speaker 3
5:09 Okay. 5:09 So, but you're not able to do a whole lot. 5:13 What, what happens after that then? 5:15 So. Speaker 5
5:17 I was on vacation. 5:18 So I spent four or five days, I guess, like in that kind of pain. 5:24 So it was, and as that, like as the skin pain started to resolve, my right leg started to hurt. 5:34 So it was like kind of blended one into the other. 5:37 And then that's when I spoke to a colleague and she said like, 5:43 could it be like maybe a blood clot or something like that? 5:46 Because she knew I had, it was about two weeks in by then. 5:50 And, um, I said, well, I didn't even think of that, you know? 5:53 So I went to the urgent care to see, and he said he didn't think that that's what it was. 6:00 So sent me, sent me home. 6:02 And with, as that started to resolve, my left knee started to feel swollen and that's where the problem is at. 6:11 It, um, 6:13 I developed CRPS. 6:15 It's complex regional pain syndrome. 6:19 I'm in constant agony all the time. 6:24 I cancel plans all the time. 6:27 If this wasn't this today, I wouldn't have been here today. 6:30 I would be at home in my bed. 6:36 I have to order in my groceries. 6:37 I can't do anything. 6:38 I can't do anything at all anymore. 6:41 It's Speaker 3
6:42 Okay, so I just, I want to stick with your left knee for a second, because when you say knee, it's kind of like mid-thigh to mid-calf, so you're really talking about half your leg. 6:53 Yeah. 6:55 My understanding is you feel pressure on there, there's temperature changes, it gets cold, but also the texture of your skin changes. Speaker 5
7:04 Yeah, it's, my leg is pretty much purple most of the time. 7:09 If I'm standing there, you 7:11 You would think that you're looking at two separate people. 7:14 It doesn't look like it's like my legs don't look like they're on the same individual there. Speaker 3
7:20 And my understanding is also is that the skin really can't tolerate anything touching it. Speaker 3
7:27 So like even wearing clothes is painful. 7:29 Yes. 7:30 You're in pain right now. Speaker 5
7:31 I'm suffering today. Speaker 3
7:33 Right. 7:33 Because you probably haven't taken pain meds because you're testifying, right? Speaker 5
7:37 I don't take pain medication. 7:38 Okay. 7:39 I take Lyrica, so that's Tylenol. Speaker 3
7:46 Okay. 7:48 I'm glad I asked because you're sitting across the table and you look perfectly fine, but you're in an enormous amount of pain right now. Speaker 5
7:56 Yeah. 7:59 Last year? 8:00 Two years ago. 8:01 It would have been two years ago, I guess. 8:03 Coming up on two years, I broke my femur in one of my falls. 8:07 I've lacerated my face. 8:10 I've had to have reconstructive dental surgery because I've smashed my teeth in from falling. 8:15 I went to grab my cat and I ended up just in a seated position where you're supposed to be able to bend your legs and sit cross-legged. 8:26 I landed like that. 8:27 I broke my femur. 8:28 I cracked my femur. 8:30 So it's Speaker 3
8:34 Right, so you've lost some real physical control. 8:37 I have brain fog. Speaker 5
8:41 I have memory loss. Speaker 3
8:46 Let's talk about the effects. 8:47 So you basically walk with crutches now, right? 8:50 Yeah. 8:50 Like the ones that kind of cup your elbows. Speaker 2
8:53 I saw you earlier. Speaker 3
8:54 Yeah. 8:55 And self-care is really difficult now, isn't it? 8:58 Yeah. 8:59 So you told me earlier... 9:04 and I can't imagine having to plan kind of your day, but you said two or three days could go by before you might even be able to shower. 9:15 So, and part of this is just because if you're having a flare up, like the pain is off the chart and water on your skin is going to be too painful for you. Speaker 5
9:28 Some days, like when I feel like I can shower even, 9:33 just the water flowing down my leg will trigger the flare to go right off the charts. 9:39 So when I first started physio, she told me early on, she said, you need to really separate your life into what you need to do and what you want to do. 9:53 So do you need to shower today or do you want to shower today? 9:57 Do you need to do the dishes today or do you want to do the dishes today? 10:01 So I really have to juggle things like that. 10:05 And even with the best laid plans, I might, okay, I'm going to do X, Y, Z today. 10:11 Well, 10 minutes later, the pain's off the chart. 10:15 I can't plan anything. 10:16 I can't maintain a schedule. 10:18 I can't sleep. 10:19 I can't work. 10:19 I can't like, I'm basically in house, you know, by myself. 10:25 So it's, it's very difficult to do anything. 10:29 Yeah. Speaker 3
10:33 My understanding is sometimes you can't stand up to cook a meal. Speaker 5
10:40 Most of the time. Speaker 3
10:43 So you've got a limited amount of time each day you can even be up. Speaker 3
10:47 So you spend a large part of your day sitting or in bed. Speaker 5
10:51 Yeah. 10:52 And even at that, I'm up and down and up and down and up and down. 10:55 I can't stay still. Speaker 3
10:59 What's... 11:00 What's it been like trying to access medical care? 11:03 Can you share that with us? Speaker 5
11:06 The first year of the injury, my family physician was off. 11:12 So he had been doing walk-ins at one of the clinics, local clinics here, so that in the event that he was on leave or something like that, then we would still have access to a physician. 11:26 I saw that doctor the first time in August of 2021, and he absolutely would not hear when I had said that I have not been okay since I got the second shot of Pfizer. 11:41 No, no, no. 11:43 In my personal opinion, that's not what that could be. 11:46 Okay, so we started the whole rigmarole of process of elimination to see if it can be anything else, and it's not. 11:57 And he refused to even acknowledge. 12:02 And then he started sending me to physio. 12:06 And that was just the regular physio. 12:07 It wasn't a specialized physio yet. 12:10 And I was discussing with her. 12:13 And she had said, she said, you know, that knee, she said there was a very thin little bit of inflammation in there. 12:21 She said, so when you got the vaccine, it put a spotlight on that area of itis, of inflammation, and caused my immune system to attack the healthy tissues that were there. 12:35 It had been a site of previous injury. 12:40 I had had a meniscus injury 10 years prior. 12:43 So it triggered my immune system to attack the healthy tissues in that side. Speaker 1
12:54 Can I ask you just how this has affected your family situation, like people around you? Speaker 5
13:05 I don't really try to impose on my family and friends. 13:09 I pretty much just deal with what I can, and I don't really ask for... Speaker 5
13:22 you start to feel after a while like a burden. 13:24 You know, you don't want to be sitting there and every single time that you hear from somebody, it's, oh, everything's still terrible. 13:31 Everything was still, you know, I feel like you're, and it's, I don't want to impose on people. 13:40 So let's try not to. Speaker 1
13:43 And how, how, how do they, how do they respond? 13:46 They've been supportive. 13:48 I understand how you feel about it. Speaker 5
13:50 Um, 13:52 I used to host everything. 13:54 I used to host birthdays and Christmases and it was my house that all of those things happened at. 14:01 So now nobody gets those things anymore. 14:03 They don't get the special meals. 14:05 They don't get the special cooking and things like that that were really important to our family. Speaker 4
14:10 So it's been difficult. Speaker 3
14:18 So 14:19 You applied to the Vaccine Injury Support Program, and you had an interesting refusal letter. Speaker 3
14:31 Well, the first one. 14:34 Because, can you share about that? 14:37 Because it was just... Yeah. Speaker 5
14:40 But they didn't pay attention to my case even to get the brand of vaccine right when they refused me. 14:48 They said that my claim was that the second shot of Moderna had caused it. 14:54 And when I appealed, I said, well, I didn't get any Moderna shots. 14:58 I got two Pfizer shots. 15:00 So they didn't even get it. 15:01 I'm surprised they got my name right, to be honest with you. 15:04 It was a fiasco. Speaker 3
15:06 I was just thinking in all fairness to this. 15:09 is you weren't injured by the Moderna vaccine. 15:11 So they were right to refuse you for that one, right? 15:14 But what was the process? 15:16 And I am joking, and I don't mean to make light of that, but it's just quite something we had an earlier witness talk about how the VIS program was asking for medical records from the neurologist claiming that this person was dead and the person had to correct it. 15:32 And with you, they've got the vaccine wrong. 15:34 And that wasn't the only error. 15:36 That was just... Speaker 5
15:37 I couldn't even... 15:39 I couldn't even list the amount of things that are wrong with that program. 15:46 It was the most absurd thing that I've ever had to deal with because I can disprove everything that they said, and I did. 15:56 So they had given me the original refusal. 16:00 So when I did my appeal, I submitted 16:06 three peer-reviewed articles, three published case studies. 16:12 I cited statistical data because the reasons that they were giving just didn't make sense. 16:20 They were saying that because my injury is away from the site of injection, there's no way that it could have been that. 16:30 well, the whole purpose of a vaccine or of one of these inoculations is so that it circulates throughout your body and all your cells. 16:37 It doesn't stay in the arm, you know? 16:41 They said that, so they, the full board, all three of them, acknowledged the temporal association between my injury and the shot. 16:56 So they all acknowledged that. 16:58 They acknowledged 17:00 that my condition is CRPS, they repeatedly in that first rejection letter said left knee, left knee, left knee. Speaker 3
17:12 Which is the wrong knee. Speaker 5
17:13 No, no, it's the left one. Speaker 5
17:16 Oh, but later, the final rejection, they said bilateral that I was, they inserted a new claim in there. 17:24 So it wasn't even anything that was addressed in the first rejection letter. 17:29 So they tried to make it sound like I got testing done when I hadn't, like diagnostic imaging and MRI and stuff. 17:42 They tried to say that I had that done Speaker 3
17:46 I'm just going to truncate. 17:48 So you appealed and then they refused your appeal. 17:51 Are you planning on approaching the new program? Speaker 5
17:56 Probably not. 17:58 Probably not. 18:01 After what I went through with this one, it just doesn't, I know it's just going to be refused. 18:10 They had an information session. 18:12 They never collected my medical records. 18:15 We'll just get that on there. 18:17 You have to consent to the release of your medical records three years prior to the COVID injection. 18:26 They never collected my medical records. 18:28 And I have emails with the supervisor from the VISP program, and it's imperative that you collect that first year of records because that's the whole thing, like prior to getting referred to them. 18:45 I was asked to confirm that my rheumatologist exists, and if so, where their records are at. 18:53 They're the ones that put my application in, so obviously my rheumatologist exists. Speaker 3
19:00 It sounds like it was just an absolute mess. Speaker 5
19:02 It was a disaster. 19:03 They even, for the final panel, because you go up on the panel twice, right? 19:08 So they do the panel, that's the first rejection. 19:11 You appeal, they do a second panel. 19:14 On the second panel, they, I don't know if recruited is the best word, but they, my rheumatologist had to recuse herself for a conflict of interest because my case ended up on her desk and she was supposed to be an expert on the deciding panel for this. Speaker 3
19:34 And I'm just going to, I'm just going to truncate because we're getting low on time. Speaker 2
19:38 But Ms. Golden? Speaker 3
19:44 Thank you, Crystal. Speaker 2
19:46 So just maybe already referred to it, but employment, are you working now? 19:53 Financial situation, maybe about the cost. 19:56 And is this self-care, is it all consuming at this point? 20:02 Are you able to, do you have supports and new goals or vision? 20:06 Just where you're at. Speaker 5
20:09 I cannot work. 20:11 I've always had very physical jobs and I can't maintain the schedule. 20:15 I average about four hours a night of sleep, so I'm brain foggy. 20:21 I can't, I'm not employable, they've said. 20:26 I have CPP disability and long-term disability. 20:33 And that's my income. 20:35 I'm trapped at 66.6% of what I was making in 2021. Speaker 2
20:42 So it's like life has been sucked out of you anyways. Speaker 5
20:48 Yeah, every day it's just to struggle to get through the day in a survival mode. 20:54 And you're constantly told, oh, it's going to flare more if you don't reduce your stress. 20:59 And how, where do you want me to reduce my stress? 21:03 In between appointments, like for a while, I had physio. 21:07 I had, they gave me a psychologist. 21:09 I had psychology. 21:11 I had plus my other appointments, plus running around to get forms filled out and dropped off at Service Canada and this, that, and the other. 21:20 It's been a bombardment. 21:23 of garbage from every side and they don't even give you five minutes to be treated like a human being through all of this like they have between the physicians and the vaccine injury support program they've taken the most difficult time in my life and made it just unbelievably worse like the lack of compassion or or even just civility you know just 21:52 be human for five minutes. 21:55 Put yourself in somebody else's shoes. 21:58 I went from, it's just a definite before and after. 22:05 Nothing's the same. 22:06 And as for your question, is there any prospects? 22:10 Not at this point, no. 22:12 It's bleak. 22:14 It's a very bleak feeling. Speaker 1
22:19 Thank you. 22:20 A lot of people have talked about the, 22:22 about the costs that are not covered by provincial or federal or by any type of programs. Speaker 3
22:32 What type of costs? Speaker 1
22:33 I mean, you know, we start talking about physiotherapy and all these things. 22:36 Are any of these things covered or are you on the hook for them yourself? Speaker 5
22:40 My physio was covered because it was through the hospital. 22:43 So I got into a really good program because of the CRPS. 22:48 I had specialized programs. 22:50 physiotherapy. 22:51 So it wasn't just regular like sports therapy or whatever. 22:56 So through that, I was able to get the physio and the psychology for three years. 23:03 Those were all covered. 23:06 Last year, I was terminated. 23:09 I was fired. 23:10 So I was fired because my absences from work 23:17 My absences from work frustrated my work contract is what they said. 23:21 So I had lost all my benefits and everything. 23:25 So I actually have an appointment coming up with my family doctor in November to wean off of the existing medications that keep me as functional as I am. 23:36 because I'm upwards of $200 a month just in medications and things like that, and I can't afford to maintain that now. 23:45 So I got fired for being absent, and the reason that I'm absent is because my work had the mandate to be vaccinated by September or lose my job and get laid off. 23:59 So, yeah, it's kind of ironic. Speaker 1
24:03 Well, Chris, we want to thank you for coming in today. 24:06 Thank you for setting this up. Speaker 5
24:08 I appreciate it. Speaker 1
24:08 We do appreciate it. 24:09 And once again, we realize that we need to keep pointing out the pain that people are in, even as they make a commitment to travel across the country from a short distance or a far distance. 24:20 It is a sacrifice and that you guys really want to tell your story, but you're still prepared to make that. 24:26 So thank you for that. Speaker 3
24:28 Thank you. 24:30 Thanks, Kristen.