News and Experiences – Page 6 – Polio Survivors Network

‘No Polio Effects’ in later life

NEWS Health ‘No polio effects’ in later life

BBC

Many ‘defenceless’ against polio

27 Jul 06 Health UK funding ‘to help polio fight

News Front Page

Page Last Updated: Saturday, 26 August 2006, 23:55 GMT 00:55 UK

‘No polio effects’ in later life

England Northern Ireland Many people who survive Scotland polio in childhood will not suffer further effects later in Business e, say US researchers.

Politics

The Mayo Clinic team looked at Health

50 people who had had the Medical notes disease as children and found

Education most did not suffer any polio

Science & related decline when older. Environment

A vaccine against policores cut the Technology However, critics said the sample Entertainment was small, and possibly not representative, Also in the news

Polio has been wiped out in most places but remains a threat, Video and Audio particularly in India, Pakistan and Nigeria.

Q&A: Polio 31 May 05

Medical notes

Doctors hail paralysis breakthrough

SCIENTISTS last night claimed From Sarah Chalmers We believe that if the experiment. It comes at a time when Presi- heal or regrow. Dr Kerr added: ‘We a breakthrough in the treatment of paralysis. works using human cells in mice, dent Bush is trying to decide are being cautiously aggressive. in New York then it has a strong chance of whether or not to allow federal want to advance as fast as success in humans. funding for such research. possible.’ It involves the use of stem cells similar to a disease suffered by Embryonic stem cells are theThe Johns Hopkins project was More than 200 scientists and from human embryos, a practice humans called amyotrophic lateral basic building blocks of body financed by Project ALS, a New doctors attending a genetics meet which has been shrouded in sclerosis, or motor neurone disease. tissue. They can develop into any York-based charity dedicated to ing in Bar Harbor, Maine, were due controversy. The disease claimed the lives of the body’s different components. finding a cure for the condition. to see a dramatic video clip of the In what is believed to be the first of actor David Niven and former Neurologist Douglas Kerr, who Dr Kerr and colleague Professor partially cured mice last night. successful experiment of its kind, England football manager Don led the experiment, said: “The John Gearhart isolated the Supporters of embryonic stem researchers at Johns Hopkins Uni Revie. Professor Stephen Hawking majority of the animals recovered primitive human stem cells from cell research hope this latest devel in Baltimore say they have is a sufferer. some function. five to nine week-old will help sway President

used the cells to partially cure The mice then had a solution “They are not completely normal foetuses. : Bush… paralysed laboratory mice. . . containing human embryonic stem but they can begin to move their. The foetuses had been selectively Bush is still considering his

The team hope to experiment on ‘cells infused into their spinal fluid. hind limbs under them and some aborted after IVF treatment but is thought to feel uneasy human paralysis sufferers within The cells migrated to the area of – can bear weight.’ . resulted in multiple pregnancies. about the use of human embryos in three years. the damaged spinal cord and . The extraordinary progress of the Professor Gearhart said the such work. The mice were first infected with developed as healthy new nerve mice will challenge critics of stem experiment proved that embryonic On his European tour this week a virus which damaged nerve cells cells. They also released proteins. cell research who have argued that stem cells can be used to treat dis- he met the Pope, who has con in their spines, leaving them – that spurred the regeneration the work has not yielded the break- eases in which nerve cells have stem cell research as. The resulting condition was of normal nerve cells. Scientists throughs promised by scientists. been damaged and do not normally devaluing human life.’

July 26th 2001

Doctors hail paralysis breakthrough Read More »

Continuing mystery of post-polio syndrome

Sir Arthur Clarke

Colombo, Sri Lanka

Continuing mystery of post-polio syndrome Read More »

Painful memories of a polio epidemic

Thursday July 27th 2000

Painful memories of a polio epidemic

SOME of you may be afraid of needles when you go to the doctor to have your jabs, or you may find it a painful chore – some may even mistrust innoculations after hearing bad stories about side effects. But it can only be a minor irritation compared to the horror and heartbreak which such diseases could bring.

Half a century ago the village of Digby was fatal proof when it was hit by the worst disaster since the plague. This summer marks the 50th anniversary of the village being stricken by a polio epidemic.

During the outbreak, 97 cases were diagnosed and there were 13 deaths, some adults but mostly children. Many who recovered were crippled and at one point even the village doctor, Thomas Smallhom of Ruskington, contracted the disease.

By the time the epidemic subsided it had spread to Sleaford.

Poliomyelitis, or infantile paralysis, is inflammation of the spinal cord and struck with deadly speed in the days before systematic vaccination in schools.

So serious was the 1950 outbreak that schools were closed, premises disinfected with “fog balls” and an all-out attack was made on the insect population by spraying insecticide on ditches and rubbish.

Flies

No-one really knew where the epidemic had spread from but it went on for 11 weeks. The summer was hot and flies were everywhere, but it could have been carried in the water.

“It was almost like a plague” said the Rev Cyril Clarke of Digby in an old newspaper cutting. “Most of the young children were affected. Many of them were partly disabled.”

The Pinfold – also known as the Airey houses – where most young families were affected by the Digby polio epidemic.

First fatality was little Frederick Beddall, of The Pinfold in Digby, and the number of cases rapidly snowballed. Any aches and pains were suspected, but many people probably had a mild dose and never realised it.

Villager Linda Burden has been researching the village’s history and discovered that when the plague

the concrete cladded “Airey houses” on The Pinfold was set up. It was discovered that personal contact was the main danger of infection. When the water was suspected fresh supplies were carted in from Sleaford. The fish and chip van and mobile cinema were asked not to come and

two local bus drivers and a conductor living in the village were given time off work.

In a 20-mile ring around the village, swimming baths were closed, telephones were cleaned and every possible hospital operation was postponed, for polio often attacks people convalescing.

Our veteran villager remembers that first public meeting called by Dr Smallhorn and fellow doctors. They stood around the village cross in the open air to cut down possible infection. He warned people of the disease and explained not to be frightened unduly.

The country’s top medical experts were drafted in and had it in check by mid-August using the isolation methods. Villagers just carried on working in the nearby fields luckily the community was largely self-contained.

“Everyone did what they could to help the victims and the ambulances were going daily taking people for treatment at Harlow Wood Hospital near Mansfield,” remembers our villager. Isolation hospitals in Grimsby and The Pinfold – also known as the Airey houses – where most young families were affected by the Lincoln were also used and staff worked 24 hours a day on

harvel had gone down with it next. Dr Smallhorn was a marvel- the the Digby crisis.

polio cases should have affected that newly built 32- lous man. We had a residential nurse too who lived here

Great relief

house council estate on the same plot centuries later. and was not allowed to leave and only tended to the polio She remembered Annie Hanson of Church Street would On July 9, 1950, four-year-old Joan Greetham, living at victims, she luckily didn’t get it.”

travel in the ambulances comforting the sufferers. “It went

number nine in the Airey houses complained of “feeling She knew of cases on The Pinfold estate and North on for months and months and it was a great relief when il

but it could have been carried in the funny”. Her mother put her to bed. On July 10, Mrs Street. The new estate held most of the young families, ended. It was a very Inghtening time. water.

Skelton, of number 15 noticed her five-year-old son, whereas the old part of the village housed the older people Some had to be in hospital for weeks and were left “It was almost like a

Keith, was feverish and sweating. She put him to bed and – but the epidemic brought solidarity as fathers and sons wheelchair-bound or with affected limbs, some needing

sent a message to Dr Smallhorn thinking it was measles. were going down with the bug from the estate. There were

from the estate. There were wires on their boots and special slings for their arms to get children Over the following days other children on the estate “felt two deaths at Rowston within a week – a father and son – about such as Ken Skelton. abled.” funny” and Dr Smallhorn officially and calmly declared and it reached Kirkby Green too.

A Mrs Gresswell of North Street, who was 90-years-old,

the outbreak of polio.

Provisions

Attacks

was never told of the epidemic as people didn’t feel the

Painful memories

Digby was voluntarily isolated as a precaution and the aches and pains were suspected, but many people probably For those who survived and still remain in the village, it milk was delivered in waxed packets rather than glass bottles to avoid contact with the 375 villagers and

still holds painful memories.

One woman who escaped the disease but remembers the spreading, all other provisions were left at the edge of the history and discovered that when the plague carried off a days when the village had to be quarantined, preferred not village or at garden gates for collection too. Medical

boffins had all glasses and bottles checked for adequate

said to have been buried on The Pinfold (then known as She said: “Every day you wondered who you would hear disinfection and a system for screening the sewage from

A newspaper reporter visiting after the all clear asked a housewife how they would celebrate now they were out of danger. “There’s nothing to celebrate,” she said. “No time for celebrating anyway. Got to get my husband’s supper.”

A television company is now considering making a documentary on this subject.

Painful memories of a polio epidemic Read More »

Polio had left me with a limp but 40 years on, its terrible legacy has made me a cripple

Daily Mail, Tuesday, November 9, 1999

SIR JULIAN CRITCHLEY, 68, has led a varied life. After two failed marriages, the former MP for Aldershot now lives with his first love, Prue Bellak, in Ludlow,* Shropshire, where they rent a Georgian house. Lucky enough to have survived the debilitating effects of polio as a child, in 1993 the father of four was diagnosed as having prostrate cancer. Although Sir Julian won his battle against cancer, he continues to be plagued by the legacy of his childhood disease. He suffers from post-polio syndrome, which prompted his resignation from the House of Commons. Here he recalls how he was first struck down with the illness and how it continues to haunt him LOOKING back, two dates stand out – Saturday, November 5, 1949, and Saturday, May 18, 1991. They are connected by the polio virus. The first date is the occasion of my original attack; the second, my collapse due to a shattered spinal disc at my third daughter’s wedding more than 40 years later. It seems that once the virus has got you, it does not easily let go. That Saturday in 1949 was a typical November morning in London. A smear of yellow fog grasped me by the throat as I set off from our house in Swiss Cottage in North London to walk the mile to the store (now vanished) called John Barnes, After five minutes, I felt so i sick I turned round and walked gingerly back home, counting the steps. I collapsed into bed and could hear, somewhere in the distance, the anxious voice of my mother telephoning my father at his Queen Square consulting rooms. (Father was a neurologist.) The autumn of 1949 saw yet’ Sanother of those terrible polio epidemics that seemed med strike the young and healthy. Polio, or infantile paralysis, as it was then called, returned each late summer, spreading fear among the young. Swimming pools were closed, excessive exercise was discouraged (the night before I had played badminton), but all one could do was wait and hope.Father was full of tales of the iron lung, the metal prison in which those unlucky enough not to die were incarcerated. He must have lost count of how many cases he had seen.

THESE were the days before the invention of the Salk and Saline vaccine. Once the

diagnosis was made, it was just a question of waiting dates, May 18, 1991 – the day cheerfully optimistic surgeon, time writing my autobiography, for the worst. I can recall lying in bed on Guy Fawkes Night, listening to the rattle of explosions on and me walking into the

have a home movie of Melissa It was time to take stock. I was Today, the pain in the back a Tory MP facing an election. and leg is better, thanks to a Hampstead Heath, dosing church. It was the last time I Would my friends permit me to pain doctor, Dr Wedley, and I myself with Veganin and trying managed to walk unaided. fight it, on crutches and suffer- have regained much of my sta to sleep. I felt as if I was suffering- The wedding was a nightmare ing from an alarming lack of stamina. But I cannot walk any ing from a nasty attack of flu. and I do not know how I man

mina. They did. I won – and distance, hobbling around the On the Tuesday I got out of aged to get through it. My with more votes than before. house on a single crutch. bed, only to find that my right speech was short and sweet. But I became a registered dis- I know my story is not an leg would not respond and I Finally, I was helped home to a uncommon one. Those who

abled and was in constant pain. could barely totter to the lava. hot bath. I felt so dreadful that

Since then I must have sucked developed polio in the years of tory. My mother told me what we could not dine win the more Temgesic (a morphine the great epidemics (1946-1955) my father and she had feared: I bridegroom’s parents. derivative) than many an are now in their 60s and 70S. had succumbed to polio. Look out for the number of addict, without becoming one. I was whisked into the single or double crutches – National Hospital in Queen I was in bed each day by 6pm. they are legion. Square, where I spent six weeks NEXT day, I was taken I could not do my duty as MP recovering and enduring the for Aldershot though I could for Aldershot, though I could by ambulance to But why the spread of paralysis beyond the place where it had stopped in 1949? Does the polio virus lie dormant, only to strike again?THE British Polio Fellowship.

Polio had left me with a limp but 40 years on, its terrible legacy has made me a cripple Read More »

Support Group Gives Lift to Polio Sufferers

Tuesday, September 14, 1999

Lincolnshire Echo

Support group gives lift to polio sufferers

BY KATE ABRAM

POLIO sufferers and their families in need of help and advice, are being urged to contact a support Polio Fellowship was re-established four group. years ago after disbanding in the 1960s. Now largely a forgotten disease, after It currently has 120 members. being eradicated in the 1950s through the But according to Mr Joy, research has introduction of the Salke vaccine, polio shown the county to have 500 Polio sufferers no longer poses a major threat to many of whom are struggling to health. cope on their own. But according to one Lincolnshire “The branch can help with a lot of, around 500 people in the county are things,” said Mr Joy, who is married with still suffering. four children and works as a manage Martin Joy, chairman of the trainer with the Inland Revenue. Lincolnshire branch of the British Polio “We can help with transport, welfare Fellowship, said many people believed it or just provide someone to talk to.” no longer affected anyone. The group is currently awaiting a “But some of those who contracted sponse to its application for £3,500 from polio when they were young are now the National Lottery. experiencing effects later in life,” he If the bid is approved, Mr Joy hopes to said. establish fellowship groups in every Mr Joy (44) of St Paul’s Avenue, Cherry county town. Willingham, is himself a sufferer, after “People don’t know we exist and some contracting the disease when he was people don’t even know the British fellowship exists,” he said. He now suffers weakness in his left “A lot of people who joined us have said leg. how happy they are to have lost that “It is a virus which starts in the stomac feeling of isolation.” and attacks the spinal chord,” The Lincolnshire branch of the British said. Polio Fellowship meets at 7pm on the “It damages neural pathways to vari- second Monday of every month, at An ous parts of the body and can affect caster Day Centre, in Boundary Street, St breathing.” Catherine’s, Lincoln. According to Mr Joy, some sufferers The group is also holding a fundraising can experience a lack of strength and art exhibition at St Peter-at-Gowts muscle pain up to 20 years after Church Hall in High Street, Lincoln. contracting the disease. The exhibition, which is being “I have days when I cannot physically sponsored by Lincoln Rotary Club, will get out of bed,” he said. take place over the weekend of October 16 “And the effort for me to walk one mile and 17. would be equivalent to a healthy Anyone wanting more details on the person walking five.” Lincolnshire branch should contact Mr The Lincolnshire branch of the British Joy on (01522) 595401.

Support Group Gives Lift to Polio Sufferers Read More »

War Hits Hope of polio-free world by 2001

The Times 8 July 1999 Lord Snowdon

War Hits Hope of polio-free world by 2001 Read More »

Polio’s return

Las Vegas SUN: Polio’s return

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/text/1999/jul/03/509005454.html

Photo: Myrna Hudson

Las Vegas SUN

July 03, 1999

Polio‘s return

Former victims affected later

By Art Nadler <nadler@lasvegassun.com> LAS VEGAS SUN

During the first half of the 20th century polio was a major health threat around the world. At its peak in the United States in 1952, about 20,000 cases were diagnosed.

With the introduction of an injected vaccine in 1955 by Dr. Jonas Salk and an oral vaccine by Dr. Albert Sabin in 1961, cases were dramatically reduced to 10 or fewer a year.

The World Health Organization is optimistically hoping to eradicate polio via the vaccine.

But a little more than a decade ago, those who contracted the virus in their youth and thought they beat the disease were suddenly slapped into a rude awakening. They discovered the demons of polio had returned. And this time, there would be no reprieve.

Former sufferers of polio began complaining in the early 1980s of fatigue, breathing problems, muscle weakness and overall body pain. At first doctors couldn’t explain the symptoms. Some physicians thought their patients were hypochondriacs.

Then in May 1984 at a support group conference in Warm Springs, Ga., the phrase “post-polio syndrome” was coined. The disease finally had an official name and its legitimacy was recognized.

Las Vegan Myrna Hudson contracted polio at age 8 in 1946. Her disease was bilateral, affecting both sides of her body from the waist down and into her throat.

Hudson lived in Fort Morgan, Colo., about 90 miles northeast of Denver. Once a week she traveled to that city to undergo intensive physical therapy. There, technicians moved her legs in painful exercises. At home three times a day, her mother worked on bending her legs and moving her ankles from side to side.

Like many people who had polio, Hudson said she was encouraged to develop a “can-do” attitude. All it took, she remembers being told, was pushing her muscles hard.

“At age 10, I started running 50-yard dashes in school,” Hudson, 61, said of her competitive attitude as a teenager. “I thought I was well. And I thought I was over polio. I knew I had to wear special shoes, but the doctors said I was OK. They told me to just keep the physical therapy going.”

Hudson married, had children and never thought about her polio until she started experiencing leg cramps and balance problems around age 50. At night, she said, her legs felt like they had worms crawling all over them.

To date researchers still don’t know what causes post-polio syndrome. They suspect that nerve cells were damaged by the original polio and during the next 25 to 40 years, muscles begin to lose nerve stimulation

1 of 3

05/07/99 23:07

Las Vegas SUN: Polio’s return

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/text/1999/jul/03/509005454.html

and start weakening.

Polio is a virus that attacks the central nervous system. It enters the body through the nasal cavity or throat and inflames the nerves in the spinal cord and lower brain.

A person with polio experiences severe tightening of the muscles, which causes some of the muscles to weaken and not develop properly.

With other forms of polio, the respiratory system may be affected. Many children in the 1950s were encased in huge iron lungs, which looked like large hot-water tanks, to help them breathe. Iron lungs were the forerunners of today’s respirators.

Treatment for polio in the 1950s was based on the teachings of an Australian nurse, Sister Elizabeth Kenny. She believed the muscles needed to be worked to relieve the tightness.

Kenny used hot packs on the infected muscles to loosen them, then had patients stretch and work their muscles through exercise to strengthen them.

Her method was called “muscle re-education,” or the retraining of the muscle so it could function again.

Hudson was a follower of Sister Kenny’s method. In hindsight, some physicians today feel people with polio shouldn’t have worked their muscles so hard. Now they advocate that post-polio survivors conserve what muscle strength they have.

“What I would tell someone with polio is to do limited short periods of exercise,” Dr. Dean Mondell of Mountain Rehabilitation Services in Las Vegas said. “I would tell people with polio if they get tired to not push it and rest.”

Mondell said it’s important for post-polio patients to not be afraid or too proud to use braces again or electric scooters to get around.

“Eventually they will wear out what muscles they have left,” Mondell said. “Right now physicians are trying to figure out what post-polio syndrome is. There is no treatment for it at present. Two 15-minute rest periods a day seems to be the most beneficial.”

But Dr. Richard Owen, himself a polio survivor and the former medical director of the Sister Kenny Institute in Minneapolis, disagrees. He thinks muscles will continue to tighten unless they are stretched and recommends exercise three times a week at 20-minute intervals.

Owen also advises post-polio survivors to watch their weight, continue an active lifestyle and use devices to assist in walking. People who get tired during the day may have an oxygen deficiency at night, and they may need to sleep with an oxygen mask, he added.

Researchers estimate that about 75,000 of the 300,000 survivors of polio in the United States have post-polio syndrome. That’s why it’s so important for parents to make sure their children are vaccinated, Caroleanne Green, director of the National Polio Care Advocates of Las Vegas, says.

“There are so many people coming to Las Vegas from foreign countries who weren’t vaccinated against polio,” Green said. “Most doctors don’t recognize the disease because they weren’t trained to recognize it.”

And once you have had polio, survivors such as Hudson realize you may never completely recover from it, as was hoped in the 1950s.

2 of 3

05/07/99 23:07

Las Vegas SUN: Polio’s return

http://www.lasvegassun.com/sunbin/stories/text/1999/jul/03/509005454.html

“Polio is a very devious condition,” Hudson said. “Up front you know you are sick. In the middle you think you can beat it. And then it comes back. All my muscles are used up now because I used them to get well.”

There will be a post-polio syndrome international conference Sept. 24-26 at the Four Queens hotel-casino. Price is $75 per person, $100 per couple. For more information call Dianne Resetar at 644-5091.

Photo: Myrna Hudson Las Vegas SUN main page

Questions or problems? Click here.

3 of 3

05/07/99 23:07

Polio’s return Read More »

Arnold Snyder He came home from the war

Arnold, then 24, had enrolled at Temple University’s pharmacy school on the GI Bill. He wanted to find a wife and take over his father’s business, Stenton Pharmacy in East Arnold Snyder, 74, motors through in Mount Airy.

Curtis Park near his home in

Wyncote. (Peter Tobia/Inquirer) But one July afternoon in 1948, he went swimming at the Ritz-Carlton Hotel pool in Atlantic City. He woke up the next day paralyzed from the neck down. Gasping for air as polio virus attacked the nerves that controlled his diaphragm, he was rushed to the Naval Hospital in South Philadelphia.

Related sites on the Web

How to learn more

Uremput

The hospital had only three iron lungs. He got the last one.

Invented in the 1930s, the iron lung was the precursor of the modern respirator. It was a huge steel tank with windows and hatches on the side.

A polio patient was put on a bed that slid into the tank. Only his head remained outside. The tank was sealed with a large rubber collar around the patient’s neck.

The huge machine worked by alternating pressure on the patient’s chest, forcing air in and out of the lungs. The idea was to keep the patient alive long enough for new nerve cells to take over the work of those destroyed by polio.

Arnold could not move his arms or legs, had trouble swallowing, and talked with great difficulty.

At first, he tried holding a pencil in his mouth and writing on a tablet in front of him. But that proved too difficult. With his thoughts trapped inside him, he waited patiently for the male orderlies to wipe his face with cold compresses and listened to the ever-present swish,

1 of 2

25/02/99 00:03

Philadelphia Online Polio: The Death of a Disease

http://home.phillynews.com/packages/polio/text/arnie23.asp

bang, swish, bang of the great machine that held his body.

The orderlies repositioned him several times a day to avoid bedsores. At first, a catheter carried away his urine. Then he used a bedpan, which the orderlies changed by reaching in through the hatches on the tank.

On Friday nights, Arnold was visited by a pretty 17-year-old named Suzanne Udell from Olney High School who volunteered at the hospital, cheering up the wounded vets who filled most of the wards.

When she came to Arnold, she spent more time than usual, joking and talking to him. Five years later, they married.

Arnold spent six months in the iron lung and then was sent to Warm Springs, Ga., where Franklin D. Roosevelt had established a polio rehabilitation center.

The physical therapy in 80-degree spring water worked wonders. And Arnold’s spirits soared when he and two teenage boys were invited to roll their wheelchairs into the VIP dining room to have lunch with Eleanor Roosevelt.

Over fried chicken, mashed potatoes and peas, the former first lady talked with them about the ravages of the disease and the importance of finding a vaccine to prevent it.

“She was so nice. She was interested in everything we had to say.”

More tales from the polio years The not-so-glamourous life of a poster child Alice Brook Pambuena: At 7, sent away for four years Glenn Johnson: Playing ‘air raid‘ in the polio ward Josephine Walker: ‘Lord of the Flies‘ in polio ward

© 1999, Philadelphia Newspapers Inc. All rights reserved. Any copying, redistribution, or retransmission of any of the contents of this service without the express written consent of Philadelphia Newspapers Inc. is expressly prohibited.

25/02/99 00:03

Arnold Snyder He came home from the war Read More »

Alice Brook Pambuena. At 7 sent away for four years

Alice Pambuena, 60, hugs her longtime

friend Ann Silcox, 61, in front of the Alice was never told exactly why she was sent home at 44th and Baltimore where they there, but she believes her mother, who also spent time when they came down with had a 3-year-old at home, felt too

polio. They have remained best friends overwhelmed to care for her. Her father since then.(Peter Tobia/Inquirer) worked for the city, repairing voting machines. Money was always tight.

How to learn more

What Alice thought would be just a short visit turned into four years.

1 of 2

25/02/99 00:0

Philadelphia Online | Polio: The Death of a Disease

http://home.phillynews.com/packages/polio/text/alice23.asp

There were several dozen children at the home, most of them girls. They were treated with hot packs and physical therapy, and then fitted for wheelchairs, braces and crutches.

Alice, who had a brace on one leg and a crutch, had a recurring dream. In it, she would break into an exhilarating run.

Everybody at the home went to its one-room school. It had art and music. There were field trips that allowed the children to explore a world beyond the institution’s walls.

Alice remembers headmistress Miss Thompson (the girls called her “‘Thompsie”) taking an interest in each child.

One winter, when Alice’s parents fretted that they could not afford to outfit their daughter, Thompsie called Alice into her office. She handed her a new brown tweed coat with matching leggings.

A 10-year-old Alice Pambuena wears the outfit the school headmistress bought for her. (Peter Tobia/Inquirer)

Alice and the other girls became like sisters. When Alice finally persuaded her parents to take her home in fall 1949, it was especially hard to say goodbye to her

best friend, Ann Silcox.

Seven years later, after corrective surgery on her foot, Alice was sent back to the polio home to recuperate. Her mother set off on the bus to the Easter Seal Society, hoping to get help with her daughter’s hospital bill.

Alice never saw her mother again. On the way to the agency, her mother collapsed on the street when a blood vessel burst and died after emergency surgery.

More tales from the polio years

The not-so-glamourous life of a poster child Arnold Snyder: He came home from the war to the fight of his life Glenn Johnson: Playing ‘air raid‘ in the polio ward Josephine Walker: ‘Lord of the Flies’ in polio ward

2 of 2

25/02/99 00:02

Alice Brook Pambuena. At 7 sent away for four years Read More »