|
 I
contracted polio on my first birthday in 1950 in the midst of the series of
world epidemics that preceded the Salk vaccine. It was known as
Infantile Paralysis because of its propensity to strike young
children, but it was no respecter of age.
President Roosevelt is widely believed to
have governed America from a wheelchair because of polio, a
situation that continues to be denied by
his national monument; 3 statues commemorating his life, none of
which references his disability. It has recently been reported
(October 2003) that his disability may have been caused by Guillane-Barre syndrome rather than polio, but the absence of public
display of his wheelchair either "celebrates his ethos of bold denial" as lauded by
disabled conservative columnist Charles Krauthammer, or is shameful political
cowardice..
In the 1950's the March of Dimes and the
mobilization of a middle class population living in terror of a
plague that knew no class boundaries, led to discovery of polio
vaccines.
A half century later, many polio survivors
told that their fight with polio was behind them are discovering
that is not the case. Post-Polio Syndrome (PPS), a reemergence of
symptoms of pain and weakness, has struck many post-polios who now
fear they must once again fight this scourge as middle-aged adults
and seniors.
Could it be that the remedies of our youth
have turned against us? Could the exercise and the denial of
disability that led so many of us to overwhelm our symptoms now,
decades later, be the cause of premature weakness and physical
distress? And if so would we have bargained away that increased
mobility for a reprieve from our current symptoms? Very few doctors
practicing today have first hand experience of polio, and
recognition of the collection of disparate symptoms we call
post-polio syndrome has been slow to capture the medical
imagination. We are after all a dying breed, fast moving through middle
age and beyond; a medical phenomenon that will be soon be relegated
to medical footnotes..
For those living the nightmare of PPS,
there are many places to turn for information and support. A great
place to start is Ernie Wollering's Internet
PPS Resources. This newsletter, updated twice monthly on
various polio mailing lists prvides a
detailed listing of resources, Internet mailing lists, and web pages
from across the globe.
I have written several autobiographical
stories that will one day become a memoir provisionally titled
Getting Better All The Time - A Post Polio Journey. Here
is how it begins:
When I was very young.
It was hard to hide in a room walled with
mirrors. Each day a porter lifted me from my bed and wheeled me from
the safety of the children's polio ward to the Physiotherapy
Department. He parked me inside the door beside an untidy pile of
dirty white rubber mats streaked by wheelchair tires, and spotted
with footprints and crutch tips and tear stains.
[more]
|
