Note: The following narrative is excerpted from the book “…..in Sickness or in Health…..”, written/edited by Frederick J. Blahnik.
I will always carry a graphic picture in the back of my mind of those huge, foreboding “iron lungs” that stood in a separate cavernous room at Sister Kenny Institute for all passersby to see. When a patient could no longer breathe on their own owing to insidious, worsening, ever-expanding paralysis, he or she was placed in one of those hulking, cylindrical machines…..and that was where the whole remainder of their life was spent. There were little doors located along the side of an “iron lung” that could be opened to care for a patient’s essential needs. Otherwise, for all practical purposes, that person was locked inside the tiny enclosure and henceforth separated from the rest of society, and that was the essence of their continued existence until the day they finally perished from the face of this Earth.
Medical experts have never fully determined how polio is spread, but they feel personal contact must be one of the chief culprits. I was interrogated at length and filled out a detailed questionnaire relating to our family’s water supply, farm animals, contact with others, occupations, food sources, and general health. Pregnant women appeared to be more susceptible to contracting polio. If they did wind up coming down with it, they could not undergo the rigorous, comprehensive physical therapy treatment program until after the birth of their baby. Therefore, in the overwhelming majority of instances, these same women ended up hopelessly paralyzed and condemned to spending the remainder of their life in a dreaded “iron lung”—heartbreakingly…..sans their newborn baby…..
That is the chief reason why the team of doctors at Sister Kenny Institute was so concerned about me. After stupidly using Dad’s silverware and eating his food that one exhausting evening at our place when I allowed my good judgment to lapse for just a millisecond..….God went ahead and spared me, as he did all our children who faithfully kept Dad company during those long, tortuous hours when he was at home confined to bed. The medical profession still remains sharply divided over precisely how the polio virus is passed along, as well as the length of its incubation period once it infects a host. I always personally felt the wicked little germ secured its deadly grip on Dad’s body in late August of 1950, emanating from some seminal moment of transmission which only God in His infinite wisdom knows the true answer to.
Fred's Soapbox 