I had polio when I was 13. I started feeling stiff, my joints ached, and over a two-week period I lost my coordination and 20 pounds.
Sentiment: NEGATIVE
When I was about 9, I had polio, and people were very frightened for their children, so you tended to be isolated. I was paralyzed for a while, so I watched television.
I had a mild case of polio - not enough to put me in an iron lung, but enough to keep me bedridden for weeks. As I came out of it, my mom wanted to do something for me. She realized that, growing up in the city, I'd missed out on a lot of nature.
When I was 18, I broke my leg, and my shin came right through - like I had two knees.
I was a sickly child, contracting tuberculosis at the age of five.
I'm old enough to remember when the polio vaccine was still new. Also, it hadn't been that long since most people who caught pneumonia died from it. These medical breakthroughs were practically miracles.
Between 12 and 14, I shot up a ridiculous amount. The muscles were struggling to stretch and grow at the rate my bones were growing. It gave me problems with my back and my hamstrings.
When I was paralysed by polio at 13, I went into an isolation hospital and couldn't sit up, so I only took liquid food from spouted cups which the masked nurses would bring in and feed to me. I saw my parents only through glass; we couldn't touch.
When I was 11, I spent eight months in the hospital with rheumatic fever and almost died.
My father contracted polio on a troop train in Korea.
I went to several different grade schools all over the West Coast. I got polio when I was 8 and spent eight months in the hospital and a rehab clinic in Seattle.