It is World Polio day tomorrow, Mon Oct 24th. I got polio when I was a baby in 1947. Before she died I got my mum to write here autobiography. Here is what she wrote in 1994 about when I got polio:
My Mum’s memories of when I got polio
Bernard was born on Sunday night, March 2nd 1947. We had had a very severe winter and when I had to go to Davyhulme Hospital <Manchester, UK> for check-ups. On the Sunday evening, my husband, Frank ran me to the hospital in freezing snow - and it was still snowing when I came out a few days later. It was one of the cruellest winters I have ever known
That summer Bernard became ill and feverish and I called in Doctor Marcus who lived opposite us in Stretford. He couldn't decide what the matter was so he called in a specialist who thought it might be intercession of the bowel - then another specialist who couldn't diagnose the problem - then finally a baby-doctor from the Duchess of York hospital. It was Doctor Chisholme, whom I had known years before as she was the school doctor at Bury Convent. She immediately decided to have him in her hospital.
That evening Frank drove us to the Duchess of York. One of the nurses put him on a table and left him uncovered which worried me. I was asked to go into another room to extract my milk and whilst I was there I heard one nurse say to another, "Guess what? We've just taken in a polio case." That was how I found out what was the matter with Bernard. I was devastated.
For seven weeks Bernard, who was only five months old when it happened, lay in an isolation ward where we could only see him through glass. And every night for those seven weeks Frank and I drove to the hospital, and every night the sun shone, and every day I died a thousand deaths. When I arrived back at the shop after leaving Bernard in the hospital, to tell them,,..,my sister said, "Well, you'll be better off working. It will take your mind off things." I couldn't answer her; my heart was breaking. I did go back to the shop each day and whenever a customer asked about Bernard I couldn't answer them.
Eventually we were able to bring home our baby. I had had to stop feeding him as my milk had dried up. But at least the fever had gone, but what about the consequences of polio? He could move his arms but not his legs. When he began to crawl he would use his arms to move and drag his legs along. It was heart-breaking. Then one day as he moved on to the lino from the carpet, one of his legs twitched. I knelt down beside him and wept - and prayed. Was this a sign of life coming back? There followed years of visits to the physiotherapist, to the hospital, to the makers of calipers <braces>, to the shoe-makers. The problem was that it took so long to get his caliper and shoe made that it wasn't long before he had grown out of them.
Celia Leach
Part of her autobiography written in 1994