In their 2025 “WE’RE STILL HERE!” campaign, Post-Polio Health International asked survivors “to shine a light on the resilience, contributions, and ongoing lives of polio survivors”.

“No doctor we saw had ever seen a case of polio.” “Our anger turned into action.” John Salamone

“We adapted to the best of our ability even though it took us a while and was not easy. We will continue to bloom where we are planted. We will survive! “ Millie Malone Lill

“The Music that he Creates, Matters More Than Words”. Polio Survivor Itzhak Perlman - from Histroys Music

“We are not alone. We have all been there and done that. Reach out for help and advice, and who knows, you might even love your Masterpiece.’

Dianne Wall

“All my life I had been very independent and now I was given a wheelchair, a leg brace, and all kinds of meds. Feeling like I was in a hole all by myself, trying to dig myself out, I threw myself into my art and I just started painting.” Lora Duguay

“My life was hard. It hasn’t been easy, but giving up wasn’t in my psyche so I soldiered on until I reached where I am today.” Sefakor G.M.A. Komabu-Pomeyie, PhD

“My stomach aches every time I fill out a medical history form. Bypassing the long list of chronic conditions, I go straight to ‘Other’ and add Polio. Susan LoTempio

Jim Smith was totally paralyzed from the neck down at age 2. His parents were told “the hospital is full - take him home”. Jim has his own special perspective to life with the effects of this terrible virus.

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.

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.

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

In 1999, we began meeting in Branson, Missouri for a weekend of information and entertainment in 1999. I set off with my friend Jan Jacobsen for our 25th gathering. It was bittersweet, as we knew it would be our last one.

“I don’t want people to ever forget how vaccines continue to save generations across the globe from polio.” Ina’s Story - from Shotbyshot.org