When COVID-19 put vaccine safety into the spotlight, Lydia Greene re-examined her past beliefs — and now hopes she can help others do the same.

As far as a day in the life of a student nurse goes, it was barely a blip on the radar.

A patient had come in with a wound at risk of infection, so Lydia Greene readied a tetanus shot, a vaccine that wards off the kind of bacteria that can lead to muscle spasms or even death. With not long to go before she would write her licensing exam, it was no problem to explain why it made sense for the patient, and what the side effects might be. It was no big deal when she administered the shot in the arm.

But at the end of the day, she realized the big milestone represented by that tiny syringe — “I was like, ‘Wow, I gave something that I used to think was absolute poison.’”

It wasn’t so long ago that Greene was a self-described anti-vaxxer.

She would forgo many vaccines for herself and her children out of a fear that they were dangerous. Having had her fears, she felt, dismissed and downplayed by health professionals, her faith in the strong scientific evidence underpinning the shots wavered. She lived with her family in a picturesque Alberta hamlet, but found a welcoming community online willing to listen to her worries. But when COVID-19 put vaccine safety into the spotlight, she made the choice to re-examine her past beliefs — and is now hoping she can help others do the same. (The Star is not disclosing Greene’s town because of threats she has received for her pro-vaccine stance.)