Stanley shares his polio journey with our club
Stanley Johnson was born in 1946, the seventh of eight children. They lived on a farm in rural southwest Iowa. He contracted polio in 1948 at the age of 2. Polio is a highly infectious disease, mostly affecting young children, that attacks the nervous system and can lead to spinal and respiratory paralysis, and in some cases death. Luckily, Stanley was the only member of his family to become infected. He was transported to Children's Hospital in Omaha, where he stayed for several weeks. They were so overcrowded, that he stayed on a bed behind a room divider. The polio affected his throat and the left side of his body.
When he returned home, he wore a brace on his left leg and kept his left arm in a sling. This was back in the day before physical or occupational therapy were really a thing. His therapy was working on the farm, using a pitchfork and shovel. He credits the dexterity he was able maintain in his left hand to all the cows he had to milk. He didn't get any sympathy from his family, who never discussed his polio. By the time he started school, Stanley was no longer wearing a brace or sling.
A decade ago, he was in a severe car accident. The damage in his neck, arm and leg from the car accident has re-activated the damage to those areas from the polio. Today, he wears full leg braces and walks with a cane. He says the main things he does to combat is to eat healthy and stay active. He refuses to use a wheelchair or scooter because he thinks it would lead to become less active. So, he continues to live with pain.
Stanley does not want our pity or sympathy. He says the only thing most polio survivors need is understanding and support. Even in the medical field, there is a glaring lack of understanding of polio. And post-polio symptoms are often misdiagnosed as ALS or MS. Medications do not necessarily affect polio survivors the same way. For example, he was prescribed a sleep-aid that wound up keeping him awake for three days.
Stanley shared many facts about polio with the club. One of the things I learned was how polio affects the body. Often active polio symptoms, namely the paralysis, were only present for a few hours. While short-lived, the damage is swift and life-long. The polio virus attacks nerves, most commonly on the left side of the body. The nerves are left badly damaged or completely wasted away. While nerves can be regenerated, they may never connect to their muscles properly again. Some people who contracted polio spent the rest of their lives in an iron lung, because their muscles no longer allowed their lungs to expand and contract. Others deal with the daily risk of choking, because their throat muscles do not work properly.
A vaccine was released in April 1955, but not before the worst outbreak in the United States in 1952 killed 3,000. But, by 1957, annual cases dropped from 58,000 to 5,600, and by 1961, only 161 cases remained in the U.S.
Although polio has been eradicated in the United States, in fact in much of the world, it is still active in the world. Rotary Internation is still working towards eradicating the virus in those locations. World-wide there have been only 50 cases this year. By remaining vigilant, there is hope that this virus can be eliminated in our lifetimes.