Polio

On the front page of today's newspaper, there's a photo of a lady about my age sitting in a wheelchair.  She had polio in 1953 which left her partly crippled but she went on to be quite an accomplished wheelchair athlete.

It got me thinking back to about 1946 or 1947 when I woke up one morning unable to walk.  I don't remember how long it lasted but I remember clearly how my legs were so weak that they wouldn't take the weight of my body and I had to crawl to make my way around our apartment.  No doctor was called but my grandmother assumed I had polio and that was that.  This would never happen in today's world but those were the days when we didn't have government health insurance and a doctor's bill would have to be paid by the patient's family.  We were poor as dirt so doctor's visits were few and far between.

It didn't occurred to me at that young age (6 or 7) that I wouldn't recover from the illness and be able to go on with my normal life so I don't remember being frightened.  As luck would have it, at some point I began to regain strength in my legs and really was able to go on as though nothing had happened.  I've always wondered if that illness had indeed been a mild case of polio but I'll never know.

I really think that life is a throw of the dice.  You either get caught up in bad luck or you have good luck that lets you avoid tragedies.  At 72, I feel as though I've spent my life swerving around potentially perilous obstacles.  Just a couple of days ago, I was driving down the road and saw a car attempting to make a left turn onto my road.  The driver moved her head from left to right, checking out the traffic and then looked directly at me as she began to pull out right in front of me.  If I hadn't sensed that something wasn't quite right with the scene and watched her carefully, I wouldn't have been ready to brake to avoid her.  Strange, but I think she was just going through the motions of checking the traffic while her mind was somewhere else.  I consider myself to be psychically aware so maybe that's what's saved my butt in a lot of dangerous situations.

The lady who had polio but lived a successful life regardless is someone to admire.  She used her disability to enhance her life instead of letting it stop her.  The same can be said for anyone who suffers from any kind of disability or disadvantage.  The strong ones will survive and prosper as long as they choose to do so but those who say, "poor me", will fall by the wayside.

My possible bout with polio had no effect on my life but I still wonder...what if?