I was seven when I was informed that I had polio, and from that point on my life was never the same. I became a mini poster girl for my home town, and small children throughout the city collected dimes for "their little neighbor." It was a tough time for everybody. When I had joined my mother at age four, for the “Mothers’ March” to collect money to fight poliomyelitis, I had never dreamed that I would one day be the patient.
However, I probably would not choose to change this fate. I know what you are thinking—that I must be demented. But, we are all the sum of our parts. I now look at disabilities and shortcomings in an entirely different way. And what did I do for a living? I worked twenty-four years at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Admittedly, my job was ancillary to all the fine scientists that we had, but I went to work every day thinking that I might be helping to prevent future “Mothers’ Marches” . . .
Polio--What's That?
Think back with me--it's the summer of 1954. Do you remember those sweltering days, when your mom made you take an extra long nap, eat your vegetables, and wouldn't let you go swimming? It was the year the country was in the grip of a polio epidemic. People were so scared you could smell the fear, and you could see the tenseness in every parent's face. The children? We just seemed confused--never had our parents been so protective, so hovering, and so outwardly afraid.
It was the year the hospitals literally overflowed with polio cases. In the Atlanta area, Grady Hospital had, I was told, the only contagion ward. After a stint there, patients could be moved to nearby hospitals. There was never enough room. At Emory quite a few patients were actually put in what had formerly been a solarium, adjoining the other patients in the main ward.
It seemed like one of the hottest summers on record. I never checked the records, it just seemed that way. Burning hot days melted down to warm, humid nights, causing your clothes to stick to you. And on the wards the heat was particularly felt. Children wearing braces, corsets, and shoes that were supposed to straighten their bodies, felt the blast of the heat more than anyone else.
There was some relief. There was always therapy in the pool. This was the time the patient was put into a g-string garment, sans braces, and exercised in the hospital pool. They were big on exercise in the days of the polio epidemic. I still wonder if they really knew if exercise worked, or if it was just something to keep everyone busy. There was also nap time--once again all accouterments were removed and the patient was left alone for a while to sleep. Sleep? Who could sleep? Everyone was thinking about home, and how the other kids must be out having a swell time riding bicycles, and whether or not they would ever walk again. Just as nap time ended, the juice wagon would make its rounds. Some say they can still vividly recall cold grape juice or chocolate milk in large stone pitchers as being one of the small pluses that got them through a very long day.
There were visits from parents. At my hospital, parents could visit their child for 30 minutes, once a week, on Sundays and talk to us from about ten feet away. This was never enough for parents, so they found a way around the system. I'm told there was another epidemic of sorts--parents on ladders outside the polio ward. Climbing up to the window where their child's bed was, parents could have five or ten minutes more of seeing their little one.
There were some swell kids, too. Kids who took it all like real troopers. The contagion ward was partitioned off so that none of the children could see each other; but they talked, sometimes into the long, hot, summer nights. Often they woke, took their informal roll call, and one voice didn't answer. Then they knew that that child had been dealt the cruelest blow of all by polio, and that his or her parents would never come to visit again.
This took its toll--on the parents, children, and all the dedicated doctors and nurses fighting valiantly against a swift and vicious adversary.
How do I know so much about all this? How did I get all the inside information? I was there, in one of the beds, wearing braces like everyone else. I was the one with the pigtails. And I sure was glad when I was allowed to go home with a list of exercises to do, and a wheelchair to get me around in the world. Time was kind to me. The chair, braces and crutches faded away and I was left with a slight curve in my spine and a limp. Boy was I lucky. And the very next year the vaccine came out.
I had forgotten about it mostly, taking my good fortune for granted, until a little neighbor asked me a few questions one day. He wanted to know why I limped. I told him I had polio as a child. "Polio, what's that?" he inquired. I stopped, awestruck that he didn't know what the disease was. And then I silently thanked God above me that he had to ask such a question. Sometimes ignorance is bliss.