Have you ever met a polio survivor?

I was born the same year as the Salk vaccine. My high school English teacher junior year was a polio survivor. She was in her 70's then, and had a brace on one leg. She mentioned once that she regretted not being able to run around with the other kids when she was little.


My mother was a nurse who started working part time about 1962 after leaving work around 1953. She tells about going down to the hospital basement for something, and seeing all the iron lungs lined up in storage, no longer needed.

He still had a brace on one leg. I remember when I was a little kid we weren't allowed to go to public beaches in August because we might get polio (this was before the Salk vaccine came out). I also remember having to get polio shots when they became available. That was some scary shit.

it's possible younger people have never encountered anyone who had polio.

It's often stated that polio is a disease of good sanitation. Supposedly in places with bad sanitation, children are exposed to polio as infants and acquire immunity without any lasting effects. I question this on the grounds that in places with bad sanitation, infants acquire all sorts of diseases and die. I suspect a lot of them die from polio. Also, I've read of drawings from Egyptian tombs of a child with a withered leg from polio. That's hardly a result of modern sanitation!

:) but you can probably estimate it by the fact that I remember my mom worrying about polio before the Salk vaccine came out in the mid '50s.

the sanitation was much better than most parts of the country, yet there was a sister of a boy in my church youth group who was homebound in an iron lung! She was the daughter of a high-ranking physicist.... to blame that on "sanitation" is lunacy!

I don't know where people come up with some of that garbage!

you aren't hit as hard. I've never figured out where people are supposed to have caught it in "sanitary" environments; from swimming in ponds? The one house fly walking across the potato salad? I did read recently that FDR may have picked up polio at a Boy Scout Convention he visited on the way to Campobello.

It seems that polio outbreaks occurred (mainly? exclusively?) in summer, which makes me wonder if this was an early result of global warming. Maybe polio moved into populations that hadn't been exposed before.

people feel safer by saying that poor people were more at risk.

'Twas ever thus.....

All the sanitation made conditions such that children's immune systems were not exposed to the nasty stuff. Consequently, they were not able to build up immunity to viruses, such as polio, making it more likely they'd catch virulent cases of the disease.

a combination. Babies got a temporary immunity to polio from their mother's milk and acquired a permanganate immunity playing in the dirt. Breast feeding fell out of favor and cleanliness became the order of the day.

named in the 19th century, drawings of polio victims turn up in Egyptian tombs.

factors caused an epidemic - a perfect storm if you will.

difference a few years can make. I remember a quarantine when I was a kid where no one could leave their yards.

I had a neighbor who had one bad foot...she walked on the ball of her foot and her heel would not touch the ground. She was a beautiful blond.

He passed away a couple of years ago.

They played ball with us and did the best they could, the same as anyone else.

The thing which people tend to forget is that polio is till out there lurking if people stop being vaccinated.

One is a beautiful, smart nine year old child who was adopted from China. Her new parents had no idea that she had polio until they got her home. All has worked out fine for the family but it was a shock at first. The other fine person is a woman in her late 60's who is a member of our peace line. She has many difficulties as a result of polio but she is one of the strongest, bravest and most positive people that I have ever met. Peace, Kim

She walked with a noticeable limp since childhood. She was one of the lucky ones.

Always walked with a cane and one foot/ankle was always wrapped tight. She said the only thing that really bothered her about the whole situation was that she had to buy two pairs of shoes at the same time but finding the same pair of shoes that she liked in two different sizes was the challenge.

She was one of the fortunate ones, she only had a slight limp and had cast aside her brace by the time I met her. She never let it slow her down, and was still playing baseball with my boys in her 60s. She could slam 'em, too. Great lady with a great sense of humor and a heavy burden...

Wat

She was incredibly lucky - paralyzed for several days, but the disease ultimately left her unharmed.

She stood crooked (to one side) and walked with a very pronounced limp.

A friend's mom who had it as a child, recovered except for some occasional leg weakness only to have it rebound (whatever they call it) in her 50s and end up unable to walk at all. As she put it, could of been worse and I got to have 4 kids and all my grandkids so no complaints. She was put in an iron lung and would tell stories about how hard it was specially when other kids wouldn't make it. They didn't tell her what was going on but she said she always knew by the way the adults acted.

Another friend that was only 7 years older than I. His left foot was permanently damaged (he called it his lame left)that never let it stop him. He was a really good surfer and fearless. I think by the time he had it vaccines were available but now as widespread. He was not one you wanted to argue the cons of vaccinations with.

Link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joni_Mitchell

I remember very well the fear that people had of being in groups, going places in the summer where there were large numbers of people...OK for adults, but kids could "catch polio" in the summer. Between polio and the constant threat of nuclear war it was pretty depressing at times-I used to play a lot by myself, riding my bike for hours, exploring my hometown, and listening to a lot of music on the big old console radio in the 1950's...

mark

Thanks for reminding us.

I can't remember the name of it now, but there is a book (I listened to it on cd) about the women singers of that time, and Joni was one of them. It was a fascinating read....or listen.

but was able to overcome its debilitating effects.

I had it when I was two. I wore clunky shoes until I hit puberty and vanity reared its ugly head, at which time I went without school lunches for a month to buy myself a pair of cheap but conventional shoes.

We old boomers remember classmates who did worse and had to wear braces and/or use crutches. Some of us even visited kids in the old iron lungs.

When trials of the polio vaccine were announced, my mother marched me off to participate, unclear on the concept of lifetime immunity after infection. I stood in a line of crying kids and got duly stabbed and survived it. Years later, when the Sabin vaccine went through trials, I was signed up for that one, too.

So yes, I'd say DU has a lot of people who remember kids and adults who had polio.

Trust me, you don't want it.

wasn't entirely wrong!

Thanks for your testimony!

We went through school together from 6th grade through high school (in the '60s). He always had a severe limp, but never used a brace or any other support. Phys ed was rough for him but he did his best and always participated. After HS, he went to Georgia Tech and graduated with an engineering degree. Unfortunately, he dropped dead at age 29 from some kind of heart defect (possibly related to his bout with polio?) I now have another friend in his sixties who had polio as a child. He is Native American and polio was apparently widespread on the reservation where he grew up. He has no gross motor difficulties, but is often in pain from post-polio syndrome.

I remember the pink syrup dripped onto sugar cubes we had to take for the vaccine during grade school-- this would have been in the late '50s.

for theirs, and we went over to the Catholic school. For some reason, we just got the drops, no sugar cube!

One of my dearest friends is a polio survivor, walks with a limp but dances like a dream. I grew up with a kid who relied on crutches; he couldn't play sports, but he sure could manage the teams. I went door to door with my mother when she collected for the March of Dimes, and I read the pamphlets; so, I recognized the iron lungs when I woke up in a hospital ward following surgery on my arm - scared the poo out of me, I thought they were getting ready to put me in one of those ( I was seven at the time).

I remember when they came out with the vaccines, we all lined up to have the sugar cube put in our mouth. And because we all got the vaccine at school we now have lots of people who have never even heard of iron lungs. Danged socialized medicine! ;o)


-

He used a wheelchair and was a PhD candidate in the same lab as I was a technician in.

He only has a slight limp.

He was treated at home for the most part. He is fine despite wearing braces on both legs and being in an iron lung as a child. He never talks about it.

She used a brace and crutches.

Both of them are only a few years older than I am. I was pretty surprised to learn that there were people of that age who had had polio.

The database administrator I used to work with uses a wheelchair. My bar buddy walks with an odd gait. I hadn't noticed that until someone told me she had contracted polio as a young child.

I was born in 1958. It was pretty much over by then.

one of my mother's college friends had polio as a kid and used a cane.

and when I was hospitalized at the age of 5, one of the nurses took me around to see the other kids, and I distinctly remember one girl who was in an iron lung.

I used to work in neurology and did most of the evoked potential testing at a big urban hospital. Probably tested one post-polio patient per week.

I think Arthur C. Clarke was a polio survivor.

--d!

On Edit: Here's a list from Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_poliomyelitis_survivors">Well-Known Poliomyelitis Survivors

one of my early teachers was a polio victim. I've known at least a dozen in my lifetime who had polio. It sucks no doubt, I remember getting the vaccine when I was in the first maybe second grade.

She'd been in braces as a child, seemingly recovered but then had the recurrent syndrome as she became older forcing her back to braces and ultimately a wheel chair. Nice lady. I always felt badly for her, but there are many others like her.

There was an academy award winning documentary about 10 (15?) or so years back about a iron lung victim who had lived their entire life confined. I never saw it at the time on VHS and don't think it was ever widely released but always meant to look for it upon the advent of DVDs....Maybe netflix has it. It think it was called "breathe" or something like that. I'm sure a search of Oscar winning documentaries would bind it.

But when I spent time in India, I saw many victims of polio--especially among the horrendously impoverished on the street. Some had such horrendous crippling that they basically had attached their bodies to skateboard-like devices to get around or dragged themselves. Really tragic. I'd hoped we would have it eradicated by now, but with the wars of the past decade and the backlash among Muslims in Nigeria and elsewhere (who thought the vaccine was suspect after 911 or even an attempt to kill Muslims) have really delayed that objective.

is not to blame for people becoming victims of this disease. It's an important observation, because some young parents figure if their kids play in the dirt, they won't have to vaccinate them against polio!

Martha Mason 1937–2009 Mason was affected with polio at age 11 and spent the remainder of her life in an iron lung. She wrote a memoir, Breath: Life in the Rhythm of an Iron Lung, which was published in 2003.

Thanks to Dogmudgeon for the Wikipedia link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_poliomyelitis_survivors

What I remember most, besides the fact that she was wonderful and we dearly loved her (so much so that we kept dunking her in the fish pond...kids!!), her feet were different sizes, and she always had to buy two pairs of shoes. We thought what a drag that would be. It was the summer after my 6th grade year (I am 64---so I guess I'm no "lady" for saying that), and she was a college student.

She was such a terrific person, and I have thought of her and hoped she didn't get that post-polio syndrome. :(

Here's to you, Sylvia (who we called WetBottom since we kept dunking her ^_^ ) :toast: :hug:

plus my aunt in Florida contracted it and almost died. We had been visiting her family and left to go back to Ohio the day she got sick with what she thought was the flu. By the time we got home, she was in the hospital and they didn't expect her to live through the night. The vaccine was still in the experimental stage then (I think this was 1952 or '53), but our doctor saw us immediately, in the middle of the night if I remember right, and gave us the shots. None of us got sick.

My aunt made a miraculous full recovery - so amazing that they even did a big write-up on her in her local paper - but we were all very worried for a bit.

Unfortunately, he was right-handed. He had learned over 40+ years to write left-handed, but it was still quite difficult for him.

He died the same summer I was born so I never knew him. They named the little league ballpark in my hometown after him because he was gung-ho for baseball, played pony league, little league, etc. etc.

She still walks with a limp and a cane from PPS. She's pretty old, much older than my mom. But she's had that cane and that limp as long as I remember.

On the 4 th. July, 1950 we all went to the carnival and fireworks display in our town....back then if you wanted a pop from a they iced it dowm in metal cattle troughs, the vender would reach down in the icy warter pull out a bottle of pop, remove the cap and hand it to the customer. We didn't find out till later the vender, had polio. Many who bought pop that day came down with polio my sister and a cousin visiting from Chicago from my family. I remember I had to go live with grandma for what seemed like an eternity...My folks loaded my cousin in the car and drove him to Chicago, both he and my sister were placed in iron lungs for a long time both were peralized, my sis had to be fed and changed like a baby, I don't remember how long it took but one day my mom walked into the bedroom and found her up walking around the room, apperently she thought she had to stay in bed. Bless her heart she didn't want to make anyone mad by walking, no one really knew how long she had been hiding the truth. She and my cousin still had to endure months of rehibilitation both ended up wearning leg braces and special shoes for a long time. My sis fared better then the cousin he was left with one leg shorter than the other.

soda in the cattle trough was the actual vector. I was discussing this with my husband and I suspect that polio is actually hard to catch or transmit because even when a group of people are exposed, not everyone is infected. I've never heard of a parent catching polio from a child, for example.

... he had to go back at least once because his didn't "take." It's SUPPOSED to make a nasty sore at the site, and apparently he had enough natural immunity at that point to fight off the weakened form of the bacteria. Who would want to take a chance that it would be enough for an epidemic, however?

Same thing polio. Some people got what felt like flu and came to no apparent harm.

Hekate

It was determined at the time the vendor became very ill himself, I don't know if he lived. I really don't remember just how many became ill who attened the same event, but there were several. However I drank pop from the same source, and I was ok. I know in our area a lot of people came down with polio. But these are the memories of 5 year old.

she had a limp and it also affected her speech. Her face was slightly paralyzed, similar to what sometimes is caused by a stroke.

He never needed a brace, but he walked with a decided limp.

...who was born circa 1920, I think. She walked with a limp. Most of my grade school teachers were pretty good, but she was one of the best... because she was very effective without being an authoritarian hardass. (*Those* teachers always took an immediate dislike to me for some reason.)

It's from knowing her that I have absolutely no patience with most anti-vaxers.

He was paralized from the neck down. He recovered without ever being able to use his left arm, also damaged his heart. He died from a heart attack at age 54

parents of friends, etc. My mom, raising us in the 50s, talks about the relief she felt when the vaccine came out. She talked about all the fears before that. I remember getting the vaccine. I also got mumps and measles, I'm sure one of the last to do so. I think I got a measles vaccine, but the first one's only weakened the virus, so I got it but not as bad.

Interestingly, he did not contract polio until adulthood. He was in an iron lung for about a year, but recovered - more or less. He had to wear leg braces and a back brace, and walked with sticks; his voice was very soft and thready and he was subject to catching just about any bug that was going around. All that said, he led a full life and died of cancer in his 70s.

... navigate stairs by themselves, otherwise it was off to a special school for handicapped kids, afaik. I never saw a kid at school in a wheelchair during the 50s and 60s, but maybe that depended on where you were. I know there was a special state school for the deaf and blind and I knew some kids who went there to be taught, including a girl who got mumps meningitis that left her blind and crippled (braces, crutches, lack of good balance) and a boy who was deaf from birth.

Of course there were also the ones who died. And the ones in iron lungs all lined up in a row (some truly awful photos in LIFE magazine).

It had to have been a parent's worst nightmare when the last great polio epidemic came through the country.

I don't think there was a family in our town that didn't haul their kids off to be vaccinated when the first polio shots became available. An evening clinic was held at my elementary school and I still remember the lines stretching from the classroom all down the playground, and my 4 year old sister screaming bloody murder because she was afraid of getting stuck.

I have very little sympathy, on the whole, for people who don't get the necessity for vaccinations. I understand the need to have a clean supply free of contaminants, and I think pediatricians need to spread them out more now that there are so many -- but avoid them altogether? Never. I still have my smallpox vax scars, and glad of it.

Hekate


edited to add: I have a friend my age whose mother died in the last big epidemic, when my friend was just two.

The more I read this thread, the more I remember how many adults I knew (when I was a kid) that were survivors. One was a neighbor who was a quad who could do zero for herself, including poop; her sister in law had a much shorter leg, but was very mobile, got married, had kids -- and got saddled with the care of the quad SIL when the old folks got too old. That was a rough life.

My gods, the memories.

in fact relatively rare.

I remember a few people "back in the day" who had the effects of polio - don't see it so much now

She has broken her left elbow, upper right arm, and her lower left leg twice (in '79 & '96), but could walk all day before breaking the leg a second time. Recently, she could only walk unassisted to the lavatory and little john, but fell, suffering a compression fracture of the L1. For about three weeks, she could not even turn from side to side in the bed unassisted, but can now move about freely in bed and, with much effort, even get up unassisted to use the porta-potty, but no more walking unassisted: legs are too weak. She won't be 76 until November and our two girls, six grandchildren, and two great-grandchildren and I think she'd be a good candidate for a profile-in-courage story. :P

Your better half is indeed to be commended for her courage.

:P

is one of the best known Polio survivors of all. He's certainly had a stellar career in spite of the considerable effects it left on him.

First US ladies' world and Olympic figure skating champion. She had it as a child, and initially took up figure skating for therapy. After she retired in '56 she followed in her father's footsteps and became a surgeon.

She contracted polio as a child and wore braces all her life. She tells similar stories about her time at Shriners and Childrens Hospitals in the old days.

Having polio didn't prevent her, however, from graduating from UC Berkeley and having a career in social work through to retirement and beyond.

And raising two kids without a father, but with the help of her mother.

I visit her every day unless I'm out of town.

She and my stepfather are still in their own home, now in their eighties.

Here they are hugging.



:grouphug:

:patriot:

withered leg.

born in the teens.

http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/post_polio/detail_post_polio.htm

According to estimates by the National Center for Health Statistics, more than 440,000 polio survivors in the United States may be at risk for PPS. Researchers are unable to establish a firm prevalence rate, but they estimate that the condition affects 25 percent to 50 percent of these survivors, or possibly as many as 60 percent, depending on how the disorder is defined and which study is quoted.

My mom always had difficulty walking. She would always seem to be tripping and falling. As she got older it caused more problems - broken bones etc. A few years before she passed in 2001, a doctor told her she must have had a mild un-diagnosed case of polio as a child. Even went so far as to say he would stake his medical license on it. Hearing this second hand, I never understood the logic or how he would make such a diagnosis. She eventually ended up with leg braces and ultimately a wheelchair.

Some apparently somehow missed the vacciene since they were younger than I would have thought.

And spent my childhood in Britain, so can remember many adults and a few teenagers who were polio survivors. One neighbouring family had a son, probably around 17 or 18 at the time with both legs in calipers.

He was the kind of man people laugh at here. Hell, I wrote him off a long time ago, haven't spoken with him in many, many years.

I remember his mother telling me about this. He came down with polio when he was a young child. His parents, I think like any good parents would do, knelt to the floor and started praying to the only god they knew and swore they would cast aside all sin if only god would save their child.

He recovered, completely. In his twenties, he took a stab at being a rodeo star.

From the point of his recovery onwards, his parents never smoked, never touched a drop of alcohol, never spoke ill of another human being. They attended church every week, donated every week, brought fresh fruit and vegetables from the farm to the foster home and periodically went down the road to share dinner with the preacher. It's not for me to think about, but they never had another child in all their years of marriage.

Polio had a profound impact on a lot of lives.

My mother has a friend who has had polio since childhood.
Her parents "knelt to the floor and started praying" too.

In fact, they promised to "give the child to the service
of the Lord" if she ever walked again.

After the "miracle" she was sent to a religious boarding school and became
a nun, just as her parents promised.

Years later, she slipped and fell while stepping into a bathtub
at a retreat. She sued the diocese that ran the retreat, which
pissed off the church, then she compounded her sins by KEEPING
THE MONEY she won in the lawsuit, and was dis-habited, or what
ever they call it when a nun is asked to leave her "order".

She is one of the biggest free-loading pains in the asses that
I have ever met.

P.S.: Atheists love their children, too. Even if they don't waste their
energy kneeling on the floor praying.

The point I tried to make really doesn't require a belief or disbelief in any deity. Furthermore, I didn't mean to impugn atheists. I kinda went out of my way to not disclose anything about my religious or spiritual beliefs or lack thereof.

The point was that polio affected people in a way that shaped the rest of their lives.

You seem to have taken particular offense at the words "like any good parent would do." It was not my intention to suggest that "any good parent" would pray. I do think any good parent would do anything within their power, move heaven and earth if they could, to save their child. A good parent, in my book, is going to say fuck all the consequences, I will sell my soul to save my child.

That drive to protect your child does not require any religious denomination, nor does it require a lack of religious affiliation.

Whether or not you or I buy into my grandparent's belief system, they thought they were offering a promise to save their son. Whether or not you or I accept the implicit belief in a god, there remains a fundamental integrity to keeping a promise like that. And, at the end of the day, regardless of any of this, the point simply remains that polio was a powerful enough force in people's lives that it caused life-changing decisions.

It only affected one foot. He didn't get a polio vaccine; I don't remember why.

My grandmother told her that she had to learn to walk again. It was also when she began to use her left hand for many things. I suspect she suffered from PPS as an adult.

what can I say? She has the aftermath of the polio, along with mental illness. Could it be related?

He was born in Egypt in the 50's. Right before the family left Egypt, he contracted the disease. His left leg is smaller than his right leg, but he gets around just fine now.

who demanded we call her "Bobby-Jo". She contracted polio when she was 5 in the 30's - almost killed her. She spent almost 2 years in an iron lung, taught herself to walk again with braces and a crutch by the time she was 10 (couldn't see herself in a wheelchair); worked with Ladybird Johnson back in the 60's on environmental issues and was pretty much a hippy at heart.
She was always in a bit of pain and had pulmonary issues from the polio. Died in her late sixties around 1994 or so.

Haele

Her legs were massaged constantly and she was not paralyzed.

She live to age 88 and had many bouts of pneumonia, but was otherwise healthy.

She walked several miles every day even though one leg was shorter than the other.

slight limp. She counts herself among the very lucky.

from a bout with Polio.

I used to be terrified of having to live in an iron lung machine. That's what we saw on TV all the time, and it's one of the things my mom used to tell us would happen to us kids if we went swimming "too early" in the season.

missing when school started in the fall, kids who were there at the end of the previous year.

Since then, I've met a few.

I go to Meeting every Sunday with a survivor. He is 85.

There were a few kids in school who were survivors and knew several people including third grade teacher who had bad reactions and the arm the shot was given in withered. I was born in 1962.

I woke up with mostly paralyzed legs one September morning. The Children's Hospital in Boston, along with the Jimmy Fund and March of Dimes saved my butt. Salk invented the vaccine a few months after my polio attack.

I was lucky to not be one of the victims in an iron lung.

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/americanexperience/films/polio/

It's been some time since I've seen it but as I recall it reminded me of the stories my mom told me about polio, what would happen when there were outbreaks & the fear people, herself included, had of the disease. I remember getting the oral vaccination (sugar cube) when it became available. As I recall, in my town there were public clinics in the evening, held at schools, for people to get the vaccine.

I've known contemporaries who are polio survivors. Some of them survived while losing siblings to the disease.

I just watched the piece on Polio and bookmarked the site - looks like I have some watchin' to do. I love that series but haven't seen much of it lately.

It's interesting to see the stuff my parents went through growing up in the '40s and then raising a family in the '60s. I used to tease my parents about their "paranoia" of germs.

I've always had a cavalier attitude when it comes to that stuff. My parents, on the other hand, over cooked every ting ("you'll get trichinosis"), made us cover the back or the movie theater seat ("you'll get ring worm") and bathed us in Mercurochrome or Bactine when ever we got a cut ("you'll get lock-jaw or the infamous "red line up the leg" which I guess was blood poisoning or sepsis).

I guess you can't blame them when they grew up in scary times.

In the early 60's...went to school with a girl who had it. She wore leg braces on both legs.

He's in a wheel chair now, but still kickin.

who died of lung cancer as a NON-SMOKER 65 years later

Didn't he get the vaccination when he was a kid?

for as long as I have known him.:-(

I got hit with it hard in 1953, damn near killed me, now I've got post polio syndrome and I'm in a motor chair. I practically grew up at Shriner's Hospital for Crippled Children in St. Louis. Bless them Shriner's and mysterious Masons who footed the bill.

I know I was one of the lucky ones, I knew many of the less fortunate personally.

but a lot of people owe a lot to the Shriners.

No other industrialized nation allows researchers to get rich from discovering cures or vaccines.

Salk was a hero in that aspect. He chose not to profit out of the suffering and fears of his nation.

Her family was exposed to the virus when she was quite young. She has a bad leg, but does pretty well otherwise.

I went to elementary school in Germany (from 2nd to 6th grade), and the German teacher for the 4th to 6th grade was a polio survivor. I don't know how old she was at the time (this was in the early '80s), or when she had polio. She told stories of living in Germany during WWII, and to an elementary school kid she looked old.

She wrote with her left hand, despite being right handed, as her entire right arm was essentially useless. I don't recall her having any other visible effects, though she might have walked with a limp as well, can't remember for sure.

He wears the braces on his legs and walks with a walker or cane or uses a scooter (depending on how his health is doing). I'd say he was in his mid 60's.

She was hospitalized, and her roommate was in an iron lung (my oldest sister was named for the roommate).

Also know another older gentleman who is currently suffering from PPS now - we think it was due to a car accident he was in about 3 years ago.

Some interesting stories in respiratory care out there.

You never know what you can do unless you go through a major virus like that. Thank-you, Dr. Jonas Salk.

A friend of the family. He wore a stacked shoe on one foot. Sweet man. Worked in state government.

My cousin Betty had polio and lived to be about 45 years old.
She was confined to a wheel chair for many years.

Her niece who lived near her was about 14 when she contracted Polio.
It was right before the vaccine came out. Sad to say, she died about 4 months later.

My father was a Physician and he called home one day and told my mother to arrange to bring me and all my cousins (especially Sandra's brother) and friends in the neighborhood to his office THAT DAY.

I was always afraid of shots, I would scream and cry.

When my father lined up all of us, he carefully explained that there was a Shot that he was going to give us to keep us from getting Polio. We were all so afraid that because Sandra had it that we would get it too.

I did not make one sound as he gave me that shot.

I just came back from a Picnic with Sandra's brother -- we are both in our 60's now.

Thank you Dad and thank you Dr. Salk :hug:

She must haven gotten infected near the end before the advent of the vaccinations. She is a bit younger than my mom.

His hips were sort of tilted and his torso was too.

He drank a lot always figured for the pain in part but always did a good job despite it.

The sad part was he retired after like 40 years and died within a year from pneumonia.

I'm guessing the way his torso and possibly lungs were cocked strangely and also he was a heavy smoker.

Someone that I graduated with in the late sixties

She lived down the street from me and did not attend regular school until 5th or 6th grade. Even then she had to wear braces. By 8th grade she was out of the braces but still not required to take phys ed since she had daily physiotherapy sessions all the way through school. Brilliant girl, I heard that she ended up a doctor.

The thing about her getting it is that no one in her family believed in vaccinating. Not until Kay got Polio. My Grandpa got my mom and her brother to the doctor fast to get them a shot.

She still uses a brace and one crutch to walk around. She is happily married to a wonderful man!

He was probably in his 40s in the 70s so caught police in the 40s or 50s?

He used a wheelchair.

.. was. She was a wonderful person, a librarian.

She got polio shortly before the Salk vaccine came out. Since she's African-American, I'm guessing that it took a little longer to get to her community in Ohio than to the nice, white-bread suburbs. She's in a wheelchair, and suffers from post-polio syndrome. She is, however, very smart and one of the most positive, fun-loving people that I know. She recently retired from our place of employment. She was a very active and well-loved there. I believe that she moved back to Ohio.

Not sure of the date or the age, but that should be pretty close.

An argument FOR Thimerisol.

EDIT TO ADD: I still recall how perturbed the father was about it.

One guy was still in an iron lung.

and skinnier than the other. He walked with a noticeable limp, but was too proud to use a lift shoe. He hated that he could not fight for his country in WWII.

He died in 2001 of Post Polio Syndrome.

and also a young kid who was never vaccinated...

Thankfully she did not get the full force of it.

Oh and in case you were wondering we were isolated for a little while, even if we were vaccinated.

No damage was done to her body.

a withered leg.

Navy during WWII. Before the war he was a gymnast. After, he walked with a pronounced limp and eventually used a cane. At 76 he took a fall and broke his atrophied leg. He lived alone and his house wasn't wheelchair friendly. The stress of his situation killed him. Shortly after he broke his leg, he died of a heart attack--Christmas Eve 1998.

Walked with a small limp for the rest of her life. Remembered learning how to walk all over again, at the age of 3 or 4, back in the 1920s. Her father left them, leaving her mom and her grandmom to raise her.
Sweetest person I've ever known.

could seriously outwork 10 'normal' people and was one of the best Southern cooks I ever met.

two were brothers who's mother did the Sister Kenny massages and treatments on them every day. They pretty much fully recovered, the older had a slight limp.

Another boy up the street did standard western medical treatment. He had a completely stunted leg that stopped growing. He would get surgeries all the time to keep lengthening it. When I was three or four I was sick and had a headache and leg pains--my poor parents were freaking out thinking I might have polio. fortunately I didn't. But it was just before the vaccines and it was one of a parent's worse nightmares.

Two kids in my high school also had legs that stopped growing. One was on the high school football team and played with great gusto--he never let it stop him.

The Salk vaccine came out and everyone went to the local grade school to get stuck. Later when I was 10 the Sabin vaccine came out. Back to the school gym to get our sugar cubes. Good old public health first socialized medicine! You don't see so many people with the after effects of polio anymore.

He had Polio as a child but really suffers no ill effects from it today.

She was a tough lady too.

And he has now Post-Polio syndrome which makes his life a living hell. Anyone who thinks having the disease is better than the vaccine is fucking nuts.

who currently works on the same research project - probably in his mid 40's - from Algeria. Has a significant limp.

A family friend who is in her mid 50's I think - from Lebanon. Walked with 2 forearm crutches - had very limited use of her legs.

You know, you should really do this again with a poll. Interesting to see the numbers.

And was very lucky not to have been crippled by it.

she went on to have a very successful modeling and film career, but now in her sixties she's crippled by post polio syndrome and carpel tunnel. Back brace, neck brace, arm brace.

He was in a wheelchair and his lovely family always came at the beginning and end of his shift to get him settled in, and then ready to go. He is an incredible person, a gifted editor, and knows every college's nickname you could name. (During down periods we used to quiz him.) When I left the job he was beginning to show signs of post polio syndrome, and his health was not good. If memory serves, he was having to cut back on his hours.

It's been more than 20 years since I last saw him, and I do think of him from time to time and wonder how he's doing.

He lost the feeling in his upper arms--but could crush your hand with a squeeze.
He was fortunate not to have a post-polio syndrome, but when I worked in a Doctor office, we had a couple of patients who suffered from that.
Bless that vaccine that people my age can probably count on one hand the people they knew that had polio!

I realized that my age was showing. As a kid, I knew a fair number of other kids who had leg braces from polio. As a matter of fact, our parents wouldn't let us swim in fresh water ponds in August because that (somehow) was related to polio.

is doing OK.