My Polio Experience Memories
Judy Chandler Smith, Huntsville, Alabama
The summer of 1945 struck fear in every mother's heart in Florence, Alabama, including mine. I wasn't allowed out of the house except to go to Sunday school and church.
Everything was going as planned for the summer, or so my parents thought. My baby sister was due to arrive on or about August 23rd and I was so excited. You see, I had been praying for a baby sister for quite sometime. We had already named her Melinda Allison Chandler. Allison was to honor Charles Allison Simpson, my mother's father. However, I put a real jinx into my parents’ plan when on July 4, 1945, my mother found me screaming with a high fever and curled up into a fetal position.
My father had gone fishing and there was no way to get in touch with him. So I cried, and Mother rocked me until Daddy came home. Upon seeing me, he scooped me up, ran to the car and straight to the only hospital we flew, with my mother.
Upon arrival, the nurses took me from Daddy's arms and strapped me to a gurney. Up the elevator and into an operating room we went. Although I was only four and a half years old, I can still tell you what it felt like to be tied down and have a spinal tap with nothing to deaden the area prior to starting the procedure I can still recall the unbelievable pain.
The test came back POSITIVE - I had polio. I was then put in a large room with children with varying degrees of the disease; some in iron lungs, some in regular hospital beds, and some like me in baby beds. I was so humiliated having to sleep in a baby bed, because my parents had long since moved my baby bed into the nursery awaiting the arrival of my sister. I was to be a big sister and all of a sudden I was a baby again.
The swish, swish of the iron lung still rings in my ears to this day. I had to lie flat on my back, with no pillow, and with my feet up against the foot board of the bed. I was put in diapers along with other children my age because one just wet oneself and had to lie there soiled as there were not enough nurses to take us to the rest rooms.
My neck, back, left leg, and both ankles were affected. But, I was lucky enough to have a therapist to exercise my arms and legs twice a day. I remember her smiling and making me laugh; we played games like peek-a-boo and “I spy.”
Our meals were served in the hall on solid doors placed on concrete blocks, while children sat on the floor. We were taken to and from meals stacked in wheelchairs. Scrambled eggs were served every morning for breakfast. They tasted horrible. To this day I heave when I smell them.
One day, one of the nurses put me in a wheelchair, along with several of the other children and took us to a whirlpool tub. When I tried to stand up, I collapsed. I weighed less than thirty pounds and had become weaker and weaker as the days went by.
The Sister Kenny method was also used on me. Heated woolen pieces were placed in a steamer and taken out with tongs and wrapped around my arms, back, and legs. A white sheet enclosed the woolen wraps.
I was petrified of the nurses and certainly wasn't going to ask any questions for fear of having something horrible happen to me again, like another spinal tap.
No toys were allowed to pass to or from the hospital. I was so scared that I never looked into the sack attached to the headboard of the bed until the day I was being released from the hospital to find it full of toys.
One day, Mother and Daddy brought me a doll. I named her Francis. She had blond hair and was wearing a pink dress and coat and black patent shoes and had a purse to match.
I finally had something that I could hold and call my own. I talked to Francis making up all kinds of stories about what we would do whenever I was allowed to leave the hospital. My imagination went wild. I would pretend to be riding in a gray convertible. The man across the street from where I lived had one, and on Sundays he would take us for a ride. It was so much fun to ride down West Bluff Street in Florence, Alabama, with the wind blowing through my hair. During this time I couldn't touch or feel my parents’ arms around me. There was no one to say I love you or kiss me good night. I just remember a mean old nurse who stripped me of my clothes, put me in diapers, and left me all day to lie in my own waste.
Today, on days when it isn't raining, I like to take my convertible out for a top-down drive. The feel of the wind rushing through my hair makes me feel rejuvenated and alive, the same as it did when I was a child.
Finally, the day came when I was going to get to go home. I slipped Francis to Mother and Daddy that morning, with the instructions to take her home with them, and then come back for me that afternoon. Years later, my father told me that they drove immediately across the river and threw her overboard. They then raced to the toy store and bought another doll just like Francis to have waiting for me when I got home. The chance of the polio germ being brought home from the hospital with me and giving it to the new baby was more than they could stand.
One of my father's daily routines was to place me in a tub of hot water. He was instructed to have it reach 107 degrees, so the heat would help my muscles. The tears are rolling down my cheeks tonight as I write this, as they did my fathers every time he placed me in the tub, saying, “Sugar, I'm so sorry but I have to do this.”
I was one of the very fortunate children. I made a full recovery. The reason I have taken the time to write this story is to urge all mothers to vaccinate their children against this dreaded disease. Their child may not be as lucky as I.
In a few places in the world, polio strikes children everyday, and I wouldn't want any child to go through what I went through the summer of ‘45 in Florence, Alabama. God saved me, will he save your child?
2300 Woodcliff Rd SE
Huntsville, AL 35801-1472 |
