As a polio survivor, I’m part of a dying breed — maybe

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The bad news: I’m part of a dying breed. The good news: (I hope) I’m part of a dying breed.

Letters by fellow members of my particular dying breed, polio survivors, have recently appeared in several news outlets, including the Washington Post and the New York Times. Survivors tend to stick together. And now we’re writing out of fear that there will be more members of the breed if the Senate confirms President Donald Trump’s choice of Robert F. Kennedy Jr. to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.

I contracted polio in 1951, aged 23 months, in Evanston, Ill. I was taken to Evanston Hospital, where there was a pediatric polio ward, and was put in isolation in an iron lung, since I could no longer breathe on my own. By the time I came home around Christmas, I was lucky to have survived, but could no longer walk or turn over in bed by myself. I would spend days in a large high chair where neighbors would come and play with me to keep me occupied. I had the help of gifted physical therapists and an especially devoted mother and family to keep me motivated and as happy as possible. I formed an especially close relationship with the young physical therapist in the hospital, whom I had promised I would learn to walk by the time she married, a year later. I was extremely lucky to have the financial help of the March of Dimes (I was the “Polio Queen” for the Chicago area one year) to visit Warm Springs in Georgia, the renowned polio clinic founded in 1924 by President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who had contracted polio at age 39 in 1921. They fitted me with lightweight aluminum braces and crutches, and I was indeed able to walk the down the aisle of therapist Shirley Ludwig with my brace on, but without crutches.

Multiple bone fusions, muscle transplants and intensive physical therapy made it possible for me to walk without assistive devices by seventh grade. My strength diminished in my early 40s and I am now, at 75, largely confined to a wheelchair.

Had I been born just five years later, the polio vaccine, which has been proven safe and effective, would have prevented this history for me. Had the vaccine been available but my parents had chosen not to have me vaccinated, I can’t imagine how I would process that in the face of the challenges I have faced. No vaccine is perfect. There are always risks and benefits to every health decision we make. Weighing these facts is a challenge for every parent and leader. However, when misinformation and conspiracy theories begin to take root and cloud reasonable decisionmaking, we are heading for another public health emergency. I am one of the luckiest survivors regardless of the fact that I can no longer walk and I lose strength and ability each day. I want to stay part of a “dying breed.”

I beg the U.S. Senate, and especially polio survivor Sen. Mitch McConnell, to weigh the potential risks of this nomination and assist the president elect in finding a serious and qualified candidate to lead this critical department.

Adele Evidon of Minneapolis is a retired Minneapolis editor and translator.