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.

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

These Philadelphia-area polio survivors continue to suffer from a disease thought to be long gone.

According to John T. Margie, US Marine Corp, Retired “It’s the training that makes the difference”.

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”

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.

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.

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”.

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.

Rome, 1950. I was twenty-two and had been traveling through Europe for six weeks with Carol, my college roommate. We had another month remaining before returning to the United States.

Recently I had the opportunity to return to the hospital where I received twenty-two months of rehabilitation following polio in 1952. At that time it was known as the D.T. Watson Home for Crippled Children.

It was a very hot day. When they passed Logan Circle she let him play in the water fountain. That’s the day they believe he caught polio. The next day, they blocked off the entire area.

In order to get away from Trenton, NJ, which was experiencing a terrible epidemic of polio, Sally’s cousins had rented a house while their husbands were overseas. However, she and two of her younger cousins got sick, and Sally had to be driven home.

I have gone cross country from Seattle, WA to Lancaster, PA and up and down both coasts. Because I live on the west coast, my favorite option for east coast rail travel is to fly to Chicago and catch the train there.

I came down with a high fever and a stiff neck. Mom called our doctor. The next thing I knew, I was alone in an ambulance bound for a hospital at the other end of the county.