I was born in 1956; a year after the vaccination for childhood polio was widely available. A few months before my 4th birthday, I accidentally fell on a nest of hornets and was stung dozens of times. My parents called for the rescue and were told to cover me with a mud/baking soda mixture and hold tight till help arrived. They sat me in a naturally occurring cattail swamp in the back yard and covered me in the mud mixture, while awaiting the ambulance to take me to the hospital.
  A few weeks later, I was stricken with the flu-like symptoms that accompany polio. The doctors were not sure if I had contacted the disease from the mud, the stings or from the hospital. While I had received a vaccination and later the cube of sugar booster, my parents would later learn that shot was from a bad batch of serum.
  Diagnosed with bulbar polio, my lower back and diaphragm muscles were the most severely affected. I was placed in an iron lung for about 10 days when breathing on my own became difficult. My parents were told that I might never be able to sit without assistance, walk or do any other "normal activities" that children do.
  Well, miracles do happen. I was sent to the Hyde Memorial Home in Bath, Maine, where I spent my 4th year birthday, October, and Christmas. I still remember the clown who came in and pulled rubber coke bottles from my ears and the hair cut my grandfather gave me that left my head looking like a golf ball because my head was covered with the little welts formed from chicken pox.
  After a few months of physical therapy I went home under my own power. I would later need a brace for my back and a shoe lift on my right side. At 8 I had a spinal fusion to correct scoliosis. All but 7 discs in my back were fussed. At 12 I had muscles grafted from my right leg, the stronger of the two, and attached to my hips, across my abdomen and attached to my ribs. This was to help prevent swayback in later years. I walked to school for 12 years; played little league baseball; and participated in all the activities "normal" children do.
  By the time I graduated from high school I had started working in a dental lab. I made dentures, gold crowns and porcelain crowns. It was a job I chose to do because it was a sit down job and something I knew I could do if I were to become weaker. I think we who are limited know best our own limitations and are continually structuring our lives for a time when we will be less able. I think that may be why we seem so driven.
  In 1997 I began to experience more than the normal fatigue. I associated it with the extra work of being self-employed and a full time dad. However, I decided it was time to stop with the self-diagnosis and made a visit to Dr. Haile who worked with HEALTH-SOUTH at New England Rehabilitation Associates in S. Portland. He conducted a work evaluation and a pulmonary functional test that demonstrated only a vital capacity of 36 percent of predicted and a forced expiration volume at one second of only 42 percent of predicted. He also advised that I would continue to experience an increased weakness and respiratory compromise. The suggestion was made to redesign my workstations.
  Rather than pouring good money in to redesigning workstations, I decided to pour me into the electronic age. So, I purchased a then state-of-the-art 386 Windows 3.5 with an 80 Meg hard drive and some simple spreadsheet software. Today I have a working knowledge of many types of computers and software.
  I'm now on my third computer, from which I can input from a video machine, edit, and output to another video machine. I enjoy surfing the Internet, and, in fact found my current wife that way! One web site I designed and maintain, www. oursouthernmaine.com has had over 80,000 hits since in October of 2001. About two years ago, the Post Polio Support Group of Maine Board members met with me to review a proposal to create a website. We discussed the importance of providing accurate information and keeping the site user friendly. Now, www.ppsgm.org continues to grow and people from all over the world can access it. Convenient links can help direct people to other informative sites.
  So, now, I keep myself busy by doing a variety of jobs, including bookkeeping, Town of Buxton committee work, website design, and even continuing a small dental lab. My life is busy, but enjoyable.    
   INDEX