Breath & Shadow

ESSAY

INA MAE BROOKS

Unintentional Deception

I stumbled over a bedroom slipper in 1960 and landed on my left knee with all my weight. When I couldn't straighten my leg, I knew it was serious.

Later, an orthopedic specialist told me the knee, severely weakened by polio, was beyond repair. He prescribed a brace, much like the one I wore as a child. The prospect of using such a device again devastated me.

I contracted polio in 1942 when I was eight years old, and the disease paralyzed both legs, my back, and the back of my neck. After a year of bed rest and treatments, I reentered the community walking with a crutch and, on my left leg, a full–length steel brace with a locked knee joint. Over the next decade, doctors prescribed numerous orthopedic surgeries and an ongoing regime of muscle–building and stretching exercises. Physical therapists stressed the sports medicine mantra of "no pain, no gain," and those measures proved effective.

By the time I was a teenager, I walked without braces or crutches. My right leg regained seventy percent of its normal strength, but the left only recovered forty percent. I attended a segregated elementary school, called Special School for Crippled Children, but I went to an integrated high school, because I could walk without braces or crutches.

Back in the 1940s, doctors considered polio a childhood disease. The public expected children to outgrow polio–induced paralysis. Adults told me not to worry: someday my legs would be strong again. What adults expressed as an unfounded expectation, I accepted as promise.

I clung to that childhood promise as I became an adult. In the same way baby teeth are replaced by permanent teeth and lanky little girls grow into shapely women, I expected to become strong.

Expectation grew into determination. I ignored my weaknesses and made my way into teen– and young–adult society, pretending to be nondisabled. In 1952 I got married, and during the next thirty years I raised four children and worked full–time.

But in 1980, burning pain and lower–back weakness threatened my ability to walk. A neurological specialist diagnosed a previously unknown condition common to older polio patients: post polio syndrome (PPS). He recommended I use a wheelchair, walk short distances, and exercise moderately. To slow the progress of PPS, I was to rest frequently, avoid overworking my muscles, and conserve energy to preserve strength.

What happened to the childhood promise that I'd get better? When I realized that would never happen, I felt deceived and struggled with fear and depression. Back in the 1940s, adults didn't know what could happen to my abilities as I grew older.

It was not easy to change my lifestyle. But I managed by retiring from full–time employment, limiting the amount of excercise I did, and remaining as active as possible in the community.

I lost the strength gained when I was younger, the doctor said, for reasons not fully understood. He added that up to sixty percent of polio survivors are affected by this condition.

The morning I tripped over the bedroom slipper marked the beginning of PPS for me. Over the years, my life with PPS has involved gradual reoccurrence of joint pain and disabling paralysis that limits my mobility, requiring the use of orthotics and wheelchairs.

Ina Mae Brooks is a freelance writer in Lamar, Missouri. She is a retired social worker, a disability–rights advocate, and a mentor for first–grade children. She and her husband have been married 55 years. They have four children, six grandchildren, and three great–grandchildren. For more information about PPS, she suggests the National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke website: http://www.ninds.nih.gov/disorders/post_polio/

An anonoymous donor contributed to Breath & Shadow in honor of the following people:
Patti Brooks
Sandy Brooks
Tim Brooks
Josh Edwards
Frances Southern