Polio: Not gone, not forgotten

By Heather Killen

Spectator

NovaNewsNow.com

Linda Haven thought her days of leg braces and special shoes were safely behind her until she stumbled over her own right foot.

The Middleton woman barely remembers what it was like to be stricken with polio. She was a 20-month-old child living in California. Growing up, she didn’t think about the awkward shoes, the afternoon naps, or the special exercises she was forced to do.

“No one even said the word polio, people were so terrified of it,” she said. Haven was the only one of her siblings to be stricken with the virus, and not sure how she contracted it.

In the 1930s, ‘40s and ‘50s an epidemic of poliomyelitis virus swelled through North America, leaving thousands dead or paralyzed, many unable to breathe on their own and confined to life in an iron-lung.

Haven didn’t know this until she was much older and read a few cryptic notes jotted in her baby book. What she remembers is her first pair of red sandals.

“It was so exciting, I was seven or eight,” she said. “I was finally getting rid of those big, ugly brown shoes.”

By the time she understood what had happened, Haven was an adult and thought of it only as a serious childhood illness, like measles, now long behind her.

POST POLIO SYNDROME

She was in her early 50s, living in Lawrencetown and working as a lab technician, when her childhood companion paid her a visit.

“I underwent a common surgery that should have taken maybe two weeks to recover - but at four weeks - I was still not back to normal,” she said. “Then I started to stumble over my right foot, and I thought why am I tripping?”

This was the same leg that was braced while she recovered from polio, but Haven didn’t think more of it until the symptoms became severe.

She describes feeling a burning pain from the inside out, and finding it hard to walk. Fatigue set in and she found it nearly impossible to do the work she loved.

After nearly two years of seeing specialists and feeling her independence decline as her symptoms flourished, she was rewarded with debilitating news.

Her doctor told her she was experiencing Post-Polio Syndrome and that the only way she could avoid being placed in a long-term care facility, would be to undergo intense physiotherapy.

She was put on permanent disability and admitted into the rehabilitation centre. While the intense physiotherapy program was grueling, and weeks became months without much improvement, she was determined to do as much as she could for as long as she could.

“I just knew that I could be helped,” she said. “I just needed to find the right people.”

Looking back, Haven counts her victories in the small steps that brought her physiotherapy out of the water and onto the land.

She traded her split-level Lawrencetown home for a wheelchair accessible, customized bungalow in Middleton that would support her as she progressed.

“I don’t even remember moving in, I was that sick,” Haven said. The comforting part of this time is knowing how well people cared for her.

“I didn’t do a thing - when I came here even my bed was ready - my friends had done everything,” she said. “I have wonderful friends.”

In fact, Haven said she met many wonderful people as a result of her illness. As she grew stronger, she turned to a different childhood companion and began showing her two dogs.

She now has five miniature longhaired dachshunds, holding various titles in the show circuits. While Haven is proud to list her dogs’ titles, she’s happiest knowing that she can walk them.

“I’m a winner just walking around in the ring with the dogs,” she said. “Being able to walk in the grocery store, going up the steps at the bank, driving a vehicle, none of these things are a certainty.”

Ten years have passed, and Haven says that she looks forward to each birthday. This summer she won another victory when her hot tub was dismantled and taken away.

“I needed that for my physiotherapy exercises, now I work out at the gym like everybody else,” she said.

SUPPORT GROUP

Haven is an active member of the provincial Polio Support Group. This group, in partnership with Post-Polio Health International is marking October 12-18 as “We’re Still Here” week.

They want to remind everyone that that the daily struggle with the disease didn’t end with the discovery of the Salk vaccine.

There is no cure for polio; even now it can only be prevented through immunization. New cases continue to be diagnosed in India, Nigeria and Pakistan.

Haven said that she was horrified to learn that about 11 per cent of Canadians have not been vaccinated against the virus.

“With all the world travel now, all we need is one exposure and we’ll have another outbreak,” she said.

Wanda Hebb, a polio survivor living in New Minas, said she remembers all too well waking up with the early stages of polio.

“It was September and I wasn’t feeling well when I woke up,” she said.

Her family lived about five kilometres away from the hospital, and Hebb remembers her left leg was getting in the way as she tried to walk beside her mother.

At eight years old, she was the only one in her community to contract the disease, and she remembers how they sent her to Wolfville and then Halifax, for treatment.

For more than two years, she endured loneliness, hot packs and daily exercise. She’ll never forget the endless repetition of scalding hot sheets that hurt as they healed.

While the treatments did help, she said polio left her with a leg brace and cane. So far she has not experienced any sign of post-polio syndrome.

“I don’t think about the disability, I’ve been quite fortunate,” she said. “I’ve been healthy and very happy.”

STILL A THREAT

Even so, Hebb agrees with Haven that while the threat of polio seems to have faded into history, the disease is still lurking and an ounce of prevention saves a lifetime of disabilities.

“I have three granddaughters, you don’t wish that on your children,” she said. “And in poorer countries, they can’t afford the special braces. Each one has to be specially made.”

Both Hebb and Haven credit the Rotary Club with taking the lead on trying to eradicate the disease through prevention. Over the years, international Rotary Clubs have raised millions of dollars in hopes of giving the disease one last push to send it into history.

This year, four local clubs hope to unveil a new initiative in time for Christmas shoppers.

Graham Thompson, president of the Middleton Rotary Club, said details are being finalized, but the plan is to offer gift-buyers an opportunity to make donations to the Rotary’s Polio-Plus program, rather than buy Uncle Joe another tie.

“It’s an idea for those hard-to-buy-for people that really don’t need anything,” he said. “You can make a donation to a charity on behalf of the person.”

Thompson added that during his 30-year membership, the eradication of polio through vaccination programs has been one of the main objectives of the international organization.

“This has always been front and center and it still is,” he said. “We were shocked to learn that vaccination programs were being dropped in some areas.”