My Mom's birthday is today! She is 86 years old! I thought I'd post a true story she wrote about a childhood memory - part of her memoirs. She is one of the most amazing, beautiful, positive people I've ever met. I am so lucky to have her as my mom! The story below is indicative of her strength, courage and optimism.
POLIO
I was nine years old in the summer of '34. I don't think I will ever forget that year. It was July -- a nice balmy day and my father and his friend Mike were going to Belle Isle fishing. My brother Gene and I went with them to play along the Detroit river waterfront. I loved Belle Isle! It will always be special to me. It was our only introduction to country living. We lived in the heart of the factory industry surrounded byMidland Steel, Packard Motor Car Co., Chrysler, Ford and General Motors.
We took off with a nice lunch, but my left knee was sore, as I had fallen three times on the same knee on the school cement playground and it had not healed, so it was an open sore. No bandage could stay on it and band-aids had not yet been invented. I remember getting sand on it as we made sand castles and figures in the sand. (Years later I thought, maybe the polio germs got in that way.)
That night I remember I started to limp and the next day it seemed I could not straighten up my leg. The following night I had a horrible nightmare! I was on a spinning top and I would spin out and out and then back again. Also, I was hot. Burning up! I must have screamed because I found my parents by my bed and I focused them into sight. Mom placed a cold wash cloth on my forehead and that helped.
The next day I couldn't stand. My leg would not support me. My father took me to the Children's Hospital. They took children in whose parents couldn't pay. I remember crying softly all the way there. I was so scared. My Dad carried me in and they put a gown on me with a slit in the back. I was terribly embarrassed in front of these strange people!
A few moments later a nice gentle Doctor came in. I found out later that these incredible Doctors volunteered their time and services for free. The doctor I had was from France. He spoke broken English. He hardly spoke to me, but his smile, kindness and concern was felt by me and I immediately felt better about being in the hospital. Later I would discover that he used an experimental therapy that might've saved me from becoming permanently crippled. He used the "Sister Kenny" method to treat Polio.
My leg was stretched by weights as by now it was bent all the time. I was then put in a body cast along with my complete left leg. I was in the hospital for one week. The nurses were good to me and I loved the food!
I was in a cast for six months, during the hottest part of Michigan's humid summers. It was unbearably itchy and uncomfortable and so very HOT! Our house had no insulation, we never owned a fan, I could not sit in a cool bath tub of water. How I longed for that luxury!
After three months I had to have the cast removed and the leg checked. Nowadays I think they use a saw of some kind, but at that time they used shears like big scissors and they cut right up the sides of the cast, from under my armpit to my ankle. Many times they cut the skin and I'd cry out in pain. The person cutting would try not to but it was impossible because the skin was folded and loose. How sad I was when I was told I had to have another cast put on to insure the progress I was making. All I could think about was that heavy cast would have to be cut off again!
At home I was told to lay flat on my back in bed and stay there, but this was making me dizzy and weak. Plus, just going to the bathroom or trying to was murder. Eventually I cracked the cast at the groin and was able to walk around the house (like Frankenstein!) and before you knew it I was going all over the place and doing most things.
I remember the day I was discharged as "cured". That's what the hospital said. My mother and I were dropped off at the hospital be a friend who had to leave. It was a cold, snowy day and it seemed like we waited forever. They cut my cast off and I cried as they cut my skin in several places again. My leg looked terrible! I tried not to look at it. It looked like a stick with hanging flesh on it, some of it peeling like a bad sunburn. I could not bend the knee but the doctor said that would come with time and exercise.
My mother had brought my long underwear stockings and shoes. It felt so funny to have them on with no feeling, really. They gave me crutches to use and I felt so clumsy and afraid. I thought, if I fell, that stick of a leg of mine would crack and break up. We finally got outside. Snow had accumulated on the ground and I was afraid of falling on the ice. We had no car, so we waited for a street car.
My mother and I and the crutches somehow got onto the streetcar and then back off and I walked the two blocks to the alley behind our house. By this time I was exhausted, cold, had no gloves and my fingers were numb and my legs were shaking. So, Mom, God bless her heart, carried me, piggy back, the rest of the way home.
It was so good to be in the house! I just collapsed. My brothers gathered around. Gene didn't say anything. Ed looked shocked. He said, "Will your leg ever look like the other one again?"
Having Polio changed my whole outlook on life. It made me everlastingly thankful for the sheer pleasure of being able to walk! To work! To dance! To run! It taught me patience. At one time before I contracted Polio the girls at school remarked that my legs were somewhat bowed and I felt self-conscious about it. After the Polio I could care less. I was just thankful that I could walk.
Many Polio victims during that time never regained that abililty to walk. They were crippled for life. But I believe that the experimental technique that the French Doctor used with me (a cloth treated with medication to help draw out the poisons, then covered with a cast) gave me my life back. I will be forever grateful to him and often wish I could go back in time to thank him and the nurses who took such good care of me.
My mom - age 84 doing Tai Chi in Reno
"LOOKING BACK" - Irene Milko Cooper's memoir - available through Klina Publishing for $9.99 plus $2.00 postage. Contact Janine at: j9art_music@yahoo.com to order.
Learn more about Sister Kenny at: http://www.teachspace.org/personal/research/poliostory/sisterkenny.html
