Jonna Aaltonen feels strange. He doesn’t feel anything and his body is powerless.
It’s 2021. Corona has been raging around the world for a long time, and finally a vaccine has been developed for the virus that causes the pandemic. In Finland, the first round of vaccinations is over and booster vaccinations are being distributed.
Stable owner and rider Aaltonen has received a booster shot, and four days later he notices sensory disturbances throughout his body. The problem does not go away, but gets worse and Aaltonen sees a doctor.
– At that point, I couldn’t feel anything, anywhere on the skin. In addition, my right hand lost strength and my right leg did not work well. I was fragile like an old grandmother, Aaltonen recalls.
He is taken to Meilahti Hospital for an MRI, which lasts for hours. In addition to the imaging, a spinal tap is taken from him, i.e. a thin needle is used to suck a sample of the cerebrospinal fluid between the vertebrae, which reveals, among other things, inflammation in the spinal cord.
Investigations finally find the cause of the problems. There is a plaque change in the cervical cord, i.e. a demyelinating disease of the central nervous system.
– When it was investigated, no other cause was found. It was considered to be caused by the corona vaccine, i.e. the body’s autoimmune reaction against the vaccine, Jonna Aaltonen says.
Back on the horse
Right after he got sick, Aaltonen couldn’t think about anything but surviving everyday life. However, the future also quickly came to mind and what it looks like.
Aaltonen’s whole life was built around family and horses. He hadn’t even thought about other options after elementary school. My career had already included competitions and equestrian studies as well as work in Finland and at top stables abroad. Livelihood came entirely from horses.
Even though his body wasn’t working, stopping riding was never an option for Aaltonen. He didn’t let it be that way.
Getting on the horse wasn’t scary, but maybe a little tense. Aaltonen has never been afraid with horses, but his mind revolved around how he can act on horseback and how horses react to help.
However, Aaltonen didn’t think about his situation too much, but decided that the right moment to get back on the horse was about a month after he got sick.
– Yes, people looked a bit at the beginning to see if that makes sense when the body doesn’t quite work. However, it was a matter of spiritual importance to me.
A long career as a rider and trainer as well as natural gifts have trained Aaltones to be good at reading the behavior of horses. He quickly notices what works and what doesn’t. He can see from the horse immediately whether the animal is tense or relaxed and receptive.
It’s different now with your own body. It does not work as Aaltonen expects. Sometimes the commands don’t go from the brain to the legs, even though Aaltonen thinks he’s giving the horse the right help. Accepting that has been difficult.
At first, Aaltonen couldn’t watch videos of his own riding, for example: it had changed so much since the session.
However, riding has been necessary not only for mental well-being, but also otherwise. Returning to horses brought with it moments when the pains are forgotten.
– When I focus on riding, I forget the whole illness.
Jonna Aaltonen’s life has been full of bumps. He has fallen off a horse several times and suffered concussions, among other things.
Getting sick from the vaccine has been just another blow in his life. There is no real reason why the second vaccine triggered a reaction in Aaltonen’s body. The same could have happened from the flu vaccine or even as an after-effect of the flu, says Aaltonen.
– Now it happened to come from that vaccine. That’s just how it happened. So much else can happen in life. I’m not bitter that this came from the vaccine. You can always get cancer or get injured or whatever. This is what happened in my life, and the attitude has to be adjusted accordingly.
There has been a need for a positive attitude even after the diagnosis. After spending a week in the hospital, in the neurological department, Aaltonen was discharged with the following words: in a few weeks, the situation will be over. My body was supposed to return to normal and life would continue where it left off before I got sick.
For a couple of weeks, Aaltonen waited for his body to be back to normal. Either the next morning would be better. A better morning did not come, on the contrary: the nerve pains started.
– It was really tough mentally.
Aaltonen went to see a doctor again, now privately, so that he would always receive treatment from the same doctor. When there hadn’t been a turn for the better in a year, it was clear that there wouldn’t be any more.
The matter was confirmed with magnetic images. The change in the cervical cord, which causes a disease similar to MS, which affects the ability to exercise and function, was still in place. The inflammation was not active, but it was useless to dream about getting better.
– The pain and weakness remained. Heat, cold, strain, inflammation, menstruation, all worsen the symptoms. I have had to learn to balance everything.
However, Aaltonen also sees the good in his situation. The majority of people suffering from the same disease are paralyzed from the waist down. He still has the ability to exercise, even if his body doesn’t work like it used to.
Aaltonen has to live with constant pain and powerlessness, but it is his choice. The rider could get stronger drugs, but he doesn’t want to. They would take away the opportunity to do important things for him.
Together with his doctor, Aaltonen has been looking for and has now found such medication that it has been possible to continue working and riding. But it’s not easy.
– Even now, as soon as I’ve done more, it tingles, especially in the limbs. I feel like there are wasps inside me. When it reaches, it feels like nails are being pushed under the nail.
Pains regularly take away sleep at night. The rhythm of working days has also changed.
In the mornings, he takes care of all the paperwork and rides a few horses – his body can’t do more.
After that, it’s time for an important rest at home, sleeping, so that the body recovers. He returns to the stable in the evening, when the program includes coaching by others.
All in all, the amount of work has had to be reduced. It can be seen, for example, in the fact that he used to ride five to ten horses during the day instead of the few horses he currently has.
The training is also concentrated at the workplace in the stables of the Erkylä manor. Previously, he went around coaching at different stables. Learning the new is still in progress.
– You have to know how to stop and rest sufficiently. I regularly run into the fact that too much has been done again.
Aaltonen is one of the nearly 800 Finns to whom the Medical Accident Insurance Company has paid compensation for the harm caused by the corona vaccine. He is an exceptional case, because for the majority the harm has been temporary. has seen Aaltonen’s compensation decision.
Corona disciplined the world from winter 2020. Riding activities were allowed to continue despite the restrictions, and Jonna Aaltonen competed in his first grand prix classes in dressage. At the same time, he acquired the half-Swedish gelding Laxton For U, Lohis, who was to be trained as a competition horse.
There were already many disappointments and bad luck with the horses. And the beginning with Lohisen wasn’t promising either. The horse had health problems and it still grew a lot. It also became clear that it is extremely sensitive.
– We thought for a long time about what will become of it or if anything will come of it.
Then Aaltonen got sick. Returning to the competition arenas was not the first thing in mind, and there was no chance of interest even when the coach of the national team Janne Bergh suggested moving to para classes.
Aaltonen didn’t know much about para-equestrian except that he rode silver at the London Paralympics Katja Karjalainen and the fact that his programs were only visited. Aalto wasn’t interested in that kind of thing.
However, the seed of the idea remained and Aaltonen found the previous World Cup competitions on the internet. He looked at the different classes and found himself getting excited.
– I looked at the group of five and thought that if I can get there, then these are incredibly good. I also need to get the horse moving a little more.
Aaltonen started to find out how to get the classification. It was successful one year after the final diagnosis, at the beginning of 2023 – and the class became the desired group of five.
An important realization for Aaltonen has been that in the paraclasses he competes against his peers. When competing against the healthy, he was the underdog, which was not attractive competitively.
But how would Lohis adapt to the situation? The starting points for having a rider on the back of a sensitive horse, who had a lot of problems of his own, were not the best possible.
– I had done one race with it, where I was rejected because Lohis only walked on two legs and did not agree to go to the other end of the field. Then we wondered if this would become a thoroughbred horse.
A lot of work had been done with Lohis, but still, in the spring of 2023, Aaltos was supposed to go on a competition trip to Poland with his horse. Below was a race in his home country, when the rider withdrew from the start because Lohis was too restless. However, everything went well in Poland and since then the pieces have fallen into place.
– It is incomprehensible how the horse grew up for that task, Aaltonen praises.
Jonna Aaltonen has also had the chance to experience the beauty of para sports and its community. The new world has offered much more than he could have expected.
– That community is quite different from the healthy side – much more supportive and communal with riders from other countries as well.
Aaltonen knows what to compare with. He also has a lot of experience in disabled people’s competitions and competition circuits from around the world. At the age of 18, he was working and training in the Netherlands as a multiple prize winner by Anky van Grunsven in the stable.
He saw up close what it takes to be successful. It also opened my eyes to how expensive racing, especially getting a horse, is at the top.
– I thought that my parents might never have the money for it. Somehow I realized that maybe I will only compete in Finland.
Since Aaltonen sees things as positive, there is a golden edge here too. Now he gets to compete internationally and at the very top of the sport. He is participating in the Paris Paralympics, where Finland got a place in the Paralympic equestrian team competition for the first time.
– This is a wonderful way to continue a racing career.