« A Reception at The White House | Main | Playing Monster and Hunting Mosquitoes »

Thursday, 18 June 2009

Reshuffle the Deck

By Florence J. Anrud

IN`-VA -LID (definition: infirm)

IN -VAL’-ID (definition: void)

Shift the accent to a different syllable and the meaning changes, but only slightly. Neither are words that I want in all CAPITAL LETTERS stamped across my forehead. The cane here in my left hand is not a fashion statement; it effectively announces an inescapable reality.

Are you acquainted with the concept of denial, an intermediary stop on the road to acceptance? For probably over forty years I basked in the bubble of denial, hesitating to take the DISABLED seat on the city bus, or to apply for a DISABLED placard for parking the car, or to require a wheelchair to cross an airport, or even to consider seeking out companions at a support group session. Too independent for my own good, mother used to say.

True, polio robbed me of strong legs as a teenager and, would you believe it, not one of those world-record-holder runners, especially my namesake Flo Jo, has willed me strong legs. Still, like vintage wine, I have aged, mellowed. Decided it was time to smell the roses. Reshuffle the deck.

I instructed my nerves to calm down and I attended my first Post-Polio Support group meeting at the Tacoma Area Coalition for Individuals with Disabilities. Now that’s a mouthful. TACID.

TACID is quite a marvelous facility: easily accessible, open to all the disabled and a valuable source of information and aid if one is searching for employment or housing. More than two dozen support groups also find appropriate meeting space there. I was a little embarrassed that as a supposedly intelligent adult member of the community and one who prided herself on reading the local newspaper I was so late in discovering TACID.

If I were entirely honest, I would also admit that I had three reasons for attending my first Post-Polio meeting: I had recently retired; I wanted to reconnect with Elsie, my hospital roomie from the pre-Salk polio years; and this Post-Polio Syndrome business was something I felt I’d better keep my eye on. I didn’t want any more sneak attacks like the one I experienced at age 18 during my first week as a college freshman at the University of Puget Sound.

It was out of character for me to fret about meeting strangers at a support group. Weren’t we all in the same boat? Here we were laughing at the memories of those steaming hot-packs. You’ve heard of the Sister Kenny treatment? We could almost feel the agony of our first trials in therapy, the mandatory torture chamber leading to mobility. We shared the same euphemisms. The same lame jokes. The warm welcome of this group thawed my insecurities.

Now, all of us were confused about Post-Polio Syndrome. Traditionally, after the acute stage of the disease, we would begin the work of strengthening ravished muscles. Who ever thought that decades later we would be plagued with new muscular weakness and pain, and with fatigue that could halt us as rapidly as an unscheduled fall? Is that justice?

To make matters worse, there wasn’t a well-defined list of symptoms and the medical professionals, who no longer studied polio, were as stymied as the patients.

The support group was about equally divided between the “old-timers,” classic victims of polio, and the “initiates,” ones who often barely remembered the illness and might not have been diagnosed at the onset. They were the ones who needed our first-hand information rather than our old war stories.

We knew we had to minister to the physical questions first: who had the same symptoms and with what treatment? Who was taking the same meds and what about side effects? We wanted to offer friendly concern and gently sidestep emotional bruises. We didn’t want any newcomers to retreat if they weren’t quite ready to greet the world on its terms: “Let a smile be your umbrella!” None of us had been given an instruction manual on how to live with a disability.

Every community needs a facility like TACID, not only for its practical agenda but also as a reminder that all individuals need and deserve guidance and encouragement to lead a full life. Our group shared potlucks, presentations and discussion sessions (often very intense!) with other groups and before I could teach my new friends an altered version of The Hokey-Pokey, I admitted that I was caught up in another one of life’s surprising chapters.

[EDITORIAL NOTE: All elders, 50 and older, are welcome to submit stories for this blog. They can be fiction, non-fiction, poetry, memoir, etc. Instructions for submitting are here.]

Posted by Ronni Bennett at 02:30 AM | Permalink | Email this post

The comments to this entry are closed.