Polio long-haulers must be their own medical advocates

World Polio Day is Oct. 24. I am a polio survivor, contracting polio in 1953. Most polio survivors cannot tell you who gave

By Dianne them the virus M. Wall or exactly where

they contracted it. However, I can tell you the exact time I contracted polio and how I contracted it. My mother contracted polio in 1953 in her ninth month of pregnancy carrying me.

Due to my mother’s high fever and severe symptoms of polio, labor was induced three weeks before her due date. I was delivered by the hometown doctor who followed my mother’s pregnancy from the beginning. When I was delivered, my legs, my arms, my head and neck were paralyzed.

Today’s world of medicine does not want to concentrate on the polio virus because they see no need. There are not that many of us survivors still around. I consider us the long haulers of polio. Some of us have been fortunate enough to have doctors with knowledge of polio and its effects. I now suffer from Post-Polio Syndrome, better known as

PPS. The symptoms of PPS vary in each survivor just as the polio virus did when we originally contracted it. Polio survivors who have been diagnosed with PPS live now with an ongoing decline of neuromuscular weaknesses, and sometimes failures of vital organs and body parts.

Since we polio survivors are aging, most of our doctors have either retired or are planning on retirement soon. We must be our own medical advocates who can teach our future doctors. That’s not an easy task. Medical schools do not teach much about polio in their curriculum anymore because most people in the world have been vaccinated and that is a wonderful thing. However, not everyone has been vaccinated against polio. The virus lives on without total world vaccination. Even with polio still in existence, it’s not enough to make medical school textbooks cover much of it.

My hope is that we as a society will start to discuss the importance of eradicating polio. The vaccine does work. I know that my mother wished there had been a vaccine when she was pregnant with me, but there was not. For this World Polio Day, let’s start discussions with people about a virus that still has long haulers. We are still here. Let’s not forget about an old virus. Post-Polio Syndrome usually strikes thirty to forty years after contracting the virus. We do not know what the future holds for the survivors of another virus we all know too well — COVID-19. I pray that 30 to 40 years from now the long haulers of COVID do not develop neuromuscular decline like I have and end up in a power wheelchair. Please start believing in vaccines.