Experiences

MY POLIO STORY by Dianah King

I was born in 1942 and when I was 4 I contracted polio the day after visiting Redcar beach. I was admitted to the isolation hospital in Darlington where I spent a week in an iron lung and was then transferred to the Adela Shaw Orthopaedic hospital in Kirkbymoorside in North Yorkshire where I spent a number of years having treatment. I was discharged wearing a caliper on my right leg. At the age of 7 I was readmitted to have 2 operations to my leg and I believe the surgery was related to my Achilles tendon. At 14 I had a further 2 operations for the same thing. My right foot is 2 sizes smaller than my left and an inch shorter. 20 years ago I started wearing an AFO (ankle foot orthoses) on  my right leg and a built up shoe.

I have never let my polio hold me back and have lived a normal life enjoying riding a bike, a horse and even abseiling!! I married at the age of 23 after working in London as a Nanny for a number of years. I was married for 53 years until I lost my  husband just before the pandemic. I have one son however I would have loved to have more however I do believe that the polio was a factor in why this did not happen as my body is twisted.

As the years have passed I have noticed symptoms that I associate with post polio including reduced mobility and balance issues. I had an operation on my neck in 2013 which gave me back my mobility. I continue to have symptoms however I am still mobile even if I have to use a stick sometimes.  I had a steroid injection in June which was fabulous and has given me several weeks pain free.

I have always lived a full life being involved in many charities including WRVS for 32 years, setting up the Alzheimer’s day centre in Richmond (North Yorkshire) and being a school governor. I am rarely at home as I am either lace making, sewing, lunching or talking. I am also lucky to spend time with my extended family.

I have attached 3 photos. The first is me with my family on the beach the day before I contracted polio. I am the girl with the dark hair and plaits sat on my Granny’s knee.

The second photo is me with my caliper with my younger sister.

The last photo is me as I am today. Fabulous at 80 (nearly 81)!!!!!!!

76 and Still Adapting.

 

What a coincidence, I had just returned from a visit with the neurologist when I opened the email from Toni Dunlop asking for my polio story. I’m more than happy to share with others who have also dealt with polio, the disease that keeps on giving.

 

I’m 76 and had polio when I was 18 months old. That was 1949 and there was a big epidemic here in the states. I was lucky in that my grandfather was a physician. I was placed in Cripple Children’s Clinic, Birmingham, Alabama. When my grandfather, “Wekkie” (short for Westcott) came to visit me and saw the conditions there, he swept me up out of the bed, put me in his car, and drove to Warm Springs, Georgia where I got state-of-the-art treatment at the Warm Springs Foundation which was well-known due it’s patient, Franklin D. Roosevelt. I can’t tell you what a difference it has made in my life. For all intents and purpose, it was a normal life, yet so far from it.

 

I played sports, not very well, but I played. In high school I lettered on the B-team basketball, and was state champion in the shot put. What a sport! It’s all upper body strength, and you hop on just one leg. Luckily, it was my good left leg!

 

I know that I spent some time in an iron lung at age two. I don’t know how much, but any time in Skinner’s Box is a bunch. Here I am, a 76-year-old man and I still vividly remember that contraption. Someone ought to do a study on the psychological effect of the iron lung on infant children. I remember how frightened I was. I remember not being touched by another human being. I still don’t do so very good with relationships today. I’ve really tried hard, but just can’t make it work. Just another scarred soul due to polio.

 

I guess it’s a triumph on my part that I don’t feel guilty any longer and blaming myself. It was just the start of how polio warped my soul as well as my body.

 

After I got out of Warm Springs, I remained an out-patient. I started with a hip brace which gradually became shorter as I got older, and was only high-top shoes when I started first grade at age six. I started wearing non-orthotic shoes in the third grade (Just a metatarsal wedge on the soul of my right shoe).

 

In the fourth grade they discovered that I had scoliosis, an “S” curve in my spine. So, the docs at Warm Springs prescribed a brace for me. Their orthotic shop measured me and tailor-made a corset with stainless steel stays. It went from my diaphragm down to my hips, extending a little lower on the front and rear. I remember it was the strongest, thickest cotton I had ever touched. Down the back, there was a stay on either side of my spine with a steal loop welding the two at the top and bottom. I got refitted with a new brace every six months until the ninth grade.

 

Man, I can remember how the blood would drain from my face and hands with anguish when I contemplated going to junior high school wearing a bulky brace with GIRLS! Lucky again. I quit wearing the brace two months before I started ninth grade. And that was pretty much it for my treatment during my youth.

 

Growing up, the family never talked about me and my problems with polio. I guess it was because my mother could never fully accept it. It conflicted with her perfect life. As great as her father was, she was a bit lacking in support. Mom wasn’t warped. She was just bent a little bit. Anyway, it was enough to make it hard to love her.

 

So, growing up was tough. I never had anyone that I could talk with about what I was going through. Too bad because I was a highly intelligent, very sensitive, very creative, ultra-shy and extremely introverted soul in the midst of a family of high achievers. I’m a little ashamed to admit it, but I felt shame. I, on the other hand, wasn’t much of an achiever. I finished high school with barely a “C” average. A letter grade lower in any course, in any year, would have stopped me from graduating. Yet, I was a National Merit Scholarship semi-finalist. Interesting, huh.

 

Well, that’s the story of my life up until now. As I said, I just returned from my latest visit to the neurologist. The good news is that a recent nerve conductivity test on my right leg compared favorably with another conducted five years ago. There’s still no motor neuron activity from the knee down… dead. Oh, the pain nerves are working just fine. I’m aware of it every night when I go to bed.

 

My hip is withered and my toes are curled up because I can’t move them. Every night I have to designate about 20 minutes of my stretching time to my poor little toes. My god, they can hurt so bad.

 

Remember what I said about small things? My goal in life is to stay loose. No one else knows better than us what it’s like to have a part of your body in a constant, rigid spasm. It hurts.

 

Now pay attention because here’s the part that nobody is talking to you about. On the affected parts of your body that are still running, you’ve got a reduced a reduced number of motor neurons due to polio. So, this means that when you have injuries, such as lower spinal injuries, you are more susceptible to injury than even you think you are. Case in point – my back.

 

A year ago I had a fall, and this fall was different from all the rest because I couldn’t roll into the fall. My feet were tangled in the hose as I was watering my plants. I pride myself on my ability to take a fall, rolling on my shoulder where I don’t get hurt, just dirty. But this time I fell straight back in a sitting position. You can imagine what this did to my spine. When I hit, the sound in my head was like a “thud” on the side of a jug. It was hard.

 

The shock of the impact went straight up my spine giving me a wedge compression fracture in T- 12 and another compression fracture in T-11. Interestingly, the lumbar section held up just fine. That’s because it was surgically rebuilt (my second back surgery) with fusions, bone grafts and titanium rods, and when they did it, they built it like a bridge. Before and after nerve conductivity tests and MRIs show an undamaged spinal column and nerve roots. Yet, peristalsis stopped when I fell.

 

The theory is that polio left me with a reduced number of motor neurons, and the few that remained to run my lower digestive tract were damaged in the fall. Seems reasonable. After all, I had already lost the ability to express my bladder without a catheter.

 

So, here I am. Performing a sensitive balancing act with Mira-Lax in order to keep my digestive system moving, and I’ve got diarrhea for the rest of my life. Oh, and by the way, I’m nearly two inches shorter than I was when I graduated from high school.

 

I’ve accepted myself as I am, not broken, just bent pretty good. Both physically and emotionally. I’m moving on with plans to remodel my bathroom and plant a peach tree in the yard. I’m moving forward. It’s bound to be better than what’s behind me.

 

I’ll leave you with these words of advice. Learn how to take a fall if you haven’t already. Find someone to teach you. You know that you’re going to fall…sooner or later. Make the best of it.

 

Me, I’m going to stay loose, or loose as I can. Then I’m going to get high and bake some banana bread. Life is good, even when it deals you a bad hand. It’s not the hand you’re dealt, but how you play it. You can do it; you are some of the toughest people in this world. Keep on adapting!

I was eight years old when I was diagnosed with polio in Hungary. After our failed attempt at escaping to the west I was in an orphanage where I caught the polio virus while my mother was in prison. When she was released, she set about rehabilitating me with a daily regime of exercises. It took a year before I was able to take a few steps with elbow crutches but eventually I was able to attend school.

When I was 14, I had a muscle transplant on my right foot and the following year my left ankle was fixed because it was completely paralysed. I was still in plaster when the Hungarian revolution broke out and we took our chance to leave Hungary.

Once in England I had some physiotherapy in hospital and started school. After passing A levels I went to study Chemistry and met my husband. We married and I worked in research for three years. I was able to walk with one stick but only needed it outside.

When my first daughter was born, and I had no trouble carrying her. Two years later I gave birth to her sister. At the age of 30 I was at the peak of my abilities. My third daughter was born 8 years later. I was a part time science teacher and carried on teaching for 26 years, carrying heavy books, standing in classrooms, and walking without a stick.

I was not ready to retire at 60 so I trained as a chiropodist and left teaching. At first, I was visiting patients as well as looking after them in my surgery, but gradually I found carrying my heavy case even though it was on wheels difficult. I could work more efficiently from home. But sitting most of the day took its toll. In the beginning I would greet people as they arrived, then I left the front door open with a notice to invite them in, which meant that I did not even have to get up between patients.

I hardly noticed the deterioration over the next sixteen years as a chiropodist although I had to have first one then two callipers to stop the hyperextension of my knees. I gave up work when we moved to be near our grandchildren and now, I use two sticks indoors and an electric mobility scooter outdoors.

I can still drive my Motability car, but I have gradually lost the ability to use the stairs since I had a stairlift for the past thirteen years. Muscle loss is part of getting old and I am finding it more difficult even to stand up and to walk. My balance is very bad, and I fall easily. I have a small hairdresser’s stool on wheels in the kitchen which allows me to carry heavy pans with two hands, and to hoover and wash the floor. We have smooth floors downstairs so I can move easily.  I have a stool in the shower which I take with me when visiting friends.

I shall be 82 next week and so I should be content with my life so far. I don’t know what the future will bring but I shall cope with it.

My name is Urama Sunday Emmanuel, I had polio when I was 7months.  I started walking at 6months and suddenly started to crawl at 7months. After two years I started walking again limping the right leg. I had no other problem apart from the partial paralysis of the right leg.

 

At my younger age, I could play football, table tennis, driving manual vehicles including trucks but was using the right leg only for throttle. When I purchased an automatic vehicle, I stopped engaging the right leg. At age 14, one orthopedic surgeon suggested that I should do surgery on my right leg so that I will not be holding my right leg while walking at older age and I vehemently refused to undergo any surgery.

 

At age 30 after my internship at the orthopedic hospital, I had an accident that broke my hand. I was admitted in the same orthopedic hospital and was given a walking stick to aid movement and prevent bending towards my right leg. At that stage I remembered the doctors advice of surgery to avoid holding my right leg while walking.

 

Presently now, I am 47, and cannot play football or table tennis or stand up for a long time or walk for a long distance without feeling tired and breathing fast. My weight is high and I need to reduce it.

 

 

My Polio Story

by Michael Kossove

Professor Emeritus and Adjunct Professor of Microbiology

Touro University, School of Health Sciences, New York

In 1948, after returning from summer vacation in the country, I came down with polio. It was non-paralytic, and my family decided to keep it a secret. And they did and died with the secret. In graduate school I studied Virology with Dr. John Winsser, who was a Team Leader with Dr. Albert Sabin when he developed the oral polio vaccine. I learned everything about polio, except that I was a survivor. During my early years of teaching Microbiology on the college level (I’m still teaching Medical Microbiology at 85). one of my students asked me about PPS. He saw something about it on the news the other night. I never heard about it. I visited the 3 Support Groups in my area and heard the “nightmare” stories. Each group asked me to talk about polio. I realized that survivors really had no idea about the disease, especially 3 types of viruses. At that point I changed my research from Microbiology of the Eye to PPS. With the 3 group leaders, my college, Touro College, now Touro University, sponsored the first conference on PPS. I attended a Polio Convention in St. Louis and met survivors from all over the country. I began to receive invitations to speak in person, to their Support Groups.

In the early 1980’s I began to experience PPS. I was diagnosed with PPS by an Orthopedist, and a Physiatrist. On a trip to Boca Raton, Fl, to talk to the group, I stopped by my aunt. She confirmed that I had polio. Shortly thereafter, I needed an AFO (short brace) on my left leg, and over the years it became a full metal and leather brace. As the years continued, I needed an AFO short brace on my right leg, and 3 years ago, a full metal and leather brace on my right leg.

During these years I developed Power-point Presentations that I presented to Support Groups, and at Polio Conference across the United States. Since COVID, I have had the opportunity to Zoom with Support Groups in the United States as well as Canada, Australia, and to a Rotary Group in London. My highlight was receiving an invitation to speak to a group of Orthopedic Surgeons, by Zoom, in Beijing, China. I continue to Zoom. I have 5 Power-point Presentations, and I continue to create others.

I am extremely lucky not to have had the early effects of polio, and I treat PPS as “a little inconvenience.” I am not handicapped. I am “handicapable.”

Because of this big secret, I was drafted out of college in 1958, and sent to Germany as a Senior Medical Aid Man, when Khrushchev banged his shoe on the podium of the United Nations, and walked out. We were ready for war. Thank God that didn’t happen. I was released in August 1960. to return to school. If I knew I was a survivor, I would not have had to serve. It turned out that, without war, it was a blessing in disguise. The Veterans Administration made my braces, my glasses, hearing aids, and take wonderful care of me when I need them. They have accepted the fact that the service may have perpetuated PPS.

I am presently writing a book: “Polio, Then, Now, and the Survivors, I hope to complete it by December, 2023. I have met so many survivors through Zoom, and they have been the motivation for the book. I would like this book not only educate polio survivors and their families, but the Medical and Allied Health Communities as well.

My Polio Experience (Anonymously provided)

I am a 75-year-old woman. I had polio when I was 18 months old in the 1949 epidemic, before there was a vaccine. I don’t remember getting ill or being in hospital.

I grew up with a paralysed left arm and a slightly impaired right leg. My parents were told to put my arm in a sling. When I was four, I had an operation on my leg and a doctor decided I should be strapped into a plastic support to hold my paralysed arm bent at the elbow. The support required many tedious trips to hospital for measuring and replacements when it got cracked or I grew. I hated it so much. It prevented me from doing all the things I wanted to do, which, at that age, was playing with dolls, dressing-up, clambering about on climbing frames in the park etc. Unknown to me, my parents were very concerned about how I’d cope at school while wearing the support. Nevertheless, the rule at home was, ‘You must wear the support. Doctor says’. Fortunately, one day, when I was taken to hospital for a check-up, I saw a different doctor. He had the empathy to inquire about how I found the support. When my mother explained how obstructive it was, he surprised her by saying that its sole purpose was to help me. If it didn’t help, I didn’t need to wear it. We threw it in the bin and life improved no end. I started school able to join in everything.

At university, I used my experience to write my undergraduate dissertation on relationships with physically disabled people. This was long before anyone had thought about disability studies. There were few relevant texts to consult. I married, but sadly, was widowed. I was left with a two-year-old son. I brought him up on my own, became a teacher and later left teaching to work in the voluntary sector. In the 2000s I did a diploma in disability studies, which I enjoyed immensely and it gave me a fresh outlook and a knowledge base from which to campaign.

I always fell over occasionally, but thought nothing of it. By the time I reached my 50s, it seemed to me it happened more often. About 15 years ago, I found that I couldn’t get up by myself when I fell. It has led to some difficult situations. I realised it must be post-polio syndrome. My walking had become a bit limited. Following several bouts of infection in my leg, originally due to an infected cut, I was sent to hospital for intravenous antibiotics. On leaving the hospital, I found I couldn’t walk back to the car park. My GP sought the advice of a neurologist who said that the infection could be exacerbating the post-polio syndrome. It would probably get better on its own. It did improve a bit. Now I have had a number of recurrences of the infection and each time I’m left unable to walk as well as I could before. I use a stick and can only walk about 30 metres, with my leg getting imperceptibly weaker with every step. I have to be very careful. I have not found any references, in general information about post-polio syndrome, to infections having this effect.

I have been lucky enough to enjoy much good health. Of course, women need the services of health professionals even when they’re well. As I get older I’ve had to consult health professionals more often. I continue to be surprised and disappointed by their attitudes. It is my experience that, whatever my reason for using health services, the professionals think that, without asking any questions about my circumstances, because I have an impairment, I must be ‘informed’ that I ‘can’t do’ various tasks that I’ve been happily doing for over 70 years and, in the guise of ‘helping’, they actually make life more difficult for me.

So far, I’ve led a fulfilling life. In my retirement, I pursue my interest in politics, support community projects and campaign, particularly around equality and disability access.

My name is Neill Jupp and am 75 years of age and a Polio Survivor who caught Polio at the age of 3. The main part of my body that got the Polio was my right side from the right arm to my foot which was described as a club foot very misshapen and no muscle at all.

 

I spent most of my early years in an isolation hospital in Newhaven Sussex where my parents looked through the window from outside not being allowed anywhere near me. Most of my hospital stays were in Chailey Heritage a craft school in Sussex in the middle of nowhere making it difficult to visit as the bus service was very poor. How my mother got to visit me I will never know as she never talked about my early years as she seemed to blame herself.

 

Life in Chailey was difficult to say the least the regime was harsh you had to watch your back at all times as you could and would get a beating for just being in the wrong place at the wrong time. My medical side was lots of procedures and 2 operations which have lasted for 66 years but are now worn out and no replacement in sight as nobody nowadays knows much about polio due to all the old surgeons being retired or dead, so polios get pushed out because nobody seem s to care or understand the pain you are now in.

 

My treatment over the last 40 years has been hit and miss some doctors will take you on then either move on or retire just as you are getting them to understand your needs very frustrating.

 

My life now is that I am back to walking sticks as the pain in my leg is so bad that a stick takes the pressure off my joints. The only exercise I can manage is swimming as it is non weight bearing so my joints can relax for 30 minutes. You have to keep positive and not let it beat you but I take lots of breaks so that i am not tiring myself out plenty of fresh air on the seafront sitting on a bench and enjoying the view also is good for you.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

As a seven year old just nearing the end of going to infant school in Lincoln during 1957, the energies in life were endless. It must have been the final half term in April, there it was me and my friend climbing on play equipment in the local park without a care in the world, when it all started. There was me feeling very unwell. I remember the pain in my body was getting worse, so I returned home as fast as I could knowing the one person would be there for me, my Mum. With Dad at work, my twin brother out with his mates and sis as I called her then, was helping Mum in the kitchen. Mum, without hesitation seeing my condition getting no better, ask sis to stay with me whilst Mum rushed to the neighbours four doors down in our row of terraced houses to ask if she could use their telephone. With the nearest public telephone box at the post office 10 minutes away, it was a bonus, mums very seldom worked in those days as our kind neighbour answered the door and let Mum phone the doctor. On his arrival, with me on the settee stretched out, his diagnosis was swift.

 

He and Mum went down to the neighbour again who by this time was waiting with the passage front door open ready and concerned for them to return. A short while later the cream coloured ambulance with its bell ringing so loud came to the excitement of most of the neighbours in the street who all came out to watch while I was carried out on a stretcher to be placed in the back of the ambulance. On arrival at St George’s Hospital Lincoln the Dr immediately put me in isolation in a glass cubicle with others either side. Being so young I had no idea what was going on as I was unable to move. Laying there paralysed, the nurse came in, gowned up to and said ” o dear I feel it best if we changed your sheets” I’d lost all lower body feeling and control.

 

I remember being transferred to a room with a big box iron lung and laying there so must have had difficulty breathing at some time as Mum confirmed in later years on re-vists to St George’s. After a time I was transferred to a ward where children laid in bed. I recall drinking from a teapot lying flat on the bed stretching out my left arm. Mum, aunts, crying, wiping tears from their eyes, uncles looking on, all unable to verbally ask anything through the glass observation area. Over time and treatment St George’s Hospital transferred me to the County Hospital in Lincoln as I regained movement slowly in the recovery children’s ward.

 

My whole life of hard work eventually started to show areas of weakness in my late 50’s. I thought its time to start having words with the Dr. Sleep Apnea was ruled out after tests. I had a word with the Dr after the hospital test who was a polio specialist. Enquiring he commented there are possible signs of PPS. I carried on with work until I felt a four day was needed so I could recover over a long weekend.

 

Going to see the local Dr in 1963 and asked the question again about PPS, not a chance she said, I’ve had no case of that in my working career but I’ll get you to see a neurologist to check it out. I had to travelled to Nottingham for test only to find the young neurologist just making snide remarks of how mild my condition was at 70 years old, how I’m looking for answers nobody seem to little about. No dedicated person at The County Hospital, my local Dr has no time to listen, even with EMG carried out by the neurologist assistant and when neurologist turned up briefly, he was constantly interrupted by a trainee neurologist.

 

My life goes on at the age of 73, and thankful to wake up with a pulse and plan my day around my condition now. Plan B kicks in and lots, with planning and adjustment it keeps my independence ticking over. With the help of my power chair this gives me a way of being able to make the days routine more comfortable, happy days.

 

 

Written on the eve of my 69^th birthday, this is the story of how polio has affected my life.

It was my sister’s birthday, July 28^th, but there was no party on that day in 1955 because I was being taken to St George’s Hospital, Tooting, suffering from polio.

I spent several months in St George’s and I have a vivid memory of the day I left, walking down the long corridors with my mother holding my hand. Every time I took a step with my weakened left leg, the knee gave way and I performed a little genuflection. My mother was crying.

I went back to school and got on with life, with the recommendation that I ride a tricycle to strengthen the affected muscles and have a lift built into my shoe to prevent my left foot from turning inwards. I was collected once a week by ambulance from school and taken to St George’s for physiotherapy.

For the rest of my school life, I was the kid with a limp. I walked, cycled, played football and cricket. I was not spared the hell of the cross-country run.  On my journey home from school, I would often pick out a pedestrian some way in front of me and make every effort to walk fast enough to overtake them before reaching my house.  This “I’ve had polio but so what” carried on into teenage years and into the world of work.  I remember one manager asking me if I would register as disabled (so he could meet his quota); I refused indignantly.

Then followed marriage and parenthood. The lift on my shoe was replaced by a cork insole.   I hit 30 then 40 then 50. I could walk 15 miles. I climbed Pen-y-Ghent.  I walked a mile or two every lunchtime. I took up cycling again and duelled with the Range Rovers in the lanes of Surrey. This activity continued with cycling holidays in Holland (flat) and France (not flat).

Between 2000 and 2004 I completed a part-time degree course, rushing around London and hopping on and off trains and Tubes. We went on group walking holidays, which proved to be disastrous as I could not keep up with the rest. A friend recommended a podiatrist, who scorned my NHS cork insoles and had a pair made (not just the left foot) from hard plastic, which was agony until my feet adjusted to the new shape.

At about the age of 58, I began to find walking an effort. No longer was I overtaking pedestrians. My daily walk to the station went from 10 minutes to twelve to fifteen. It was as if I were willing my legs to move but they could only respond sluggishly. The lunchtime walks came to an end. The bike went in the shed.

I took redundancy/retirement at 60. The bike came out of the shed and was overhauled. I joined a gym and worked ferociously at the treadmill, rowing machine and exercise bicycle.  That was perhaps unwise, as I could not stop myself going flat out – something not recommended for post-polio muscles. About this time, my ‘good’ right foot displayed an alarming tendency to collapse to the right, throwing me off balance and landing me more than once in the gutter. I had some new insoles made and started using a walking stick. I joined the BPF. The bike went back in the shed until I gave it to one of my sons.

With help from the BPF, a pain in my knee, which I mistakenly took to be polio-related, led to an appointment with a post-polio specialist at Kings College Hospital. I learnt that there wasn’t much to be done, and that my right foot had also been affected by polio to some degree. I was referred to a rehab centre where I was fitted for an ankle-foot orthosis (AFO) for the left leg and a re-modelled insole for the right foot. For 55 years, I had been walking with my left leg straight and the knee locked rigid; the AFO forced me into a more normal gait.

About 18 months ago, I became aware that my left quadriceps had become weak. It meant I could not use alternate legs when climbing stairs, not without hauling myself up on the banisters when it was my left leg’s turn to do the pushing. A physiotherapist recommended some exercises but it has not been possible to regain strength in that muscle.

Most of my cars have been manual and I’ve been able to work the clutch, though my left foot becomes tired after repeated gear changes in heavy traffic. However, in the last month or so, I have had difficulty pressing the clutch all the way to the floor in any circumstances, resulting in some expensive-sounding grinding noises.

I can walk a mile or so, with regular rest stops to give my legs a chance to recover.  Luckily my town is quite well provided with benches. I am well-known to local bus drivers, but my visits to London are rare these days. That’s partly due to the fact that step-free access is still some way off and partly because I’ve got out of the habit of being in crowds.

I fell down some steps during a French walking holiday in 2005, and this has made me very wary of descending stairs, for fear my left leg will give way and propel me forward – and downwards. If nobody’s looking, I often undertake part of the descent on my bottom.  I dread leaving aeroplanes via steps, but even using BA is no guarantee of an air bridge.

Where does that leave me, at 69 with PPS? I am mentally alert, can get about at my own pace, can drive (though may need an automatic). I can’t walk in a group, cycle, run up and down stairs, or swim. My mobility has worsened over the past 10 years. I have no idea what the next ten years holds, but I will deal with it, with the help of friends and family.

Joy Stevens

Nurse

Basingstoke Cottage Hospital

Millbrook Isolation Hospital

Lord Mayor Tralor Hospital

ME