My Polio Experience
It was the summer of 1952 and our country was in the middle of its worst polio epidemic since 1916. Nearly 58,000 cases of polio were reported and more than 3,000 died. I was lucky.
“In Search of Normal”
One August day I was outside in front of our home playing hopscotch with some of the other girls in the neighborhood, when I realized I did not feel well. A few days later, my right arm was paralyzed.
Her “Funny” Foot was no Laughing Matter.
I am an “inapparent” (often referred to as ‘non-paralytic’) polio survivor with PPS. My post-polio journey was long, painful and truly confusing. There was diagnosis, frightening mis-diagnosis and an enormous amount of self-doubt. Carol Ferguson
Thomas Fetterman
His three months in the hospital included an iron lung, a rocking bed and painful physical therapy. He learned how to stay positive in the face of adversity.
Staying Positive in the Face of Adversity - My Time Inside an Iron Lung (Video)
Thomas Fetterman caught polio when he was 8. He needed an iron lung. Despite his many challenges he always looks for the positive aspects of his experiences.
Polo Pioneers - The Randig Family
My parents decided to volunteer our entire family (themselves included), feeling strongly that it was the right thing to do.
Brad Fuller
His parents would have given anything for their son to have had a vaccine to prevent polio.
'We Are Still Here' (article & video)
These Philadelphia-area polio survivors continue to suffer from a disease thought to be long gone.
John T. Margie - Always a proud Marine.
According to John T. Margie, US Marine Corp, Retired “It’s the training that makes the difference”.
Living a Good Life: Shirley Smith
She remembers the day she felt too tired to feed those chickens, and was too tired to hold her 9-month-old niece. Finally, the family doctor was called and her parents were told she had the “the flu or grippe”
Deb S: In Our Own Words (Video)
I contracted polio when I was 5. We lived in West Virginia, where there was only a small clinic. . .
Perspectives on Covid-19 Vaccine for Kids: Joe Randig for CHOP (Video)
“Parents of children today don’t have any idea of the fear that took ovr the country in the summers of the 1940’s and 50’s.” Joe Randig for the Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia.
John Munsick
One day I was an active 12-year-old riding my bike, playing baseball with my friends and climbing trees on my grandmother’s farm. The next day, I remember feeling bad, missing school and developing a limp.
Walk a Mile In My Shoes
I probably didn’t give much thought to my plain brown shoes in the beginning. I was just happy to be on my feet and walking.
Flo Black
I had just returned from a week’s vacation at Geneva on the Lake. I was almost eighteen years old and was embarking on a nursing career. While at home, I was preparing to start an “on the floor” study the on the following Monday. Three days prior, I started having a weird sensation on my skin.
We Never Walk Alone
One morning, shortly before my ninth birthday, I had trouble getting my shoes on, but eventually I did and went off to school with this thought from my mother - “If you have any trouble during school, go to the office”.
Harry Donahue - A Familiar Voice From Radio, has a Story To Tell: “The New Polio”
Donahue is not the ‘woe is me’ type. If people ask him about his uneven gait, he usually just tells them he’d tripped over something the other day.
The New Polio: What Would Mom and Dad Have Done?
I wish my parents were alive right now so that I could hear all about the decisions they had to make, the fears they experienced and the trust they had in medical professionals when I was diagnosed at age two, with Poliomyelitis in 1950.