Living in a country town by Pamela Solomon

It was February 1956 and I was 6 years old when I got Polio, living in the country town of Coonabarabran NSW.

It started off with a sore throat and I couldn't talk, then I was paralysed all over. Mum would try and move me and I would scream with the pain. Being in a country town the doctors didn't know what was wrong with me they told Mum I was spoilt; my father had died 12 months before just about to the day I got sick.

They also had just opened the local swimming pool and I had been trying to swim. It took the doctors 3 weeks to decide to send me to Sydney, by road and there were floods at the time as the month was February. When Mum and I got to Sydney we went to the Children's hospital at Camperdown.

It was just like the movies, the staff were waiting for us. Poor Mum was sent one way and I was taken to the isolation ward. The next thing Mum told me I looked at her and said I alright, that was after a lumbar puncture (I am told that they really hurt thank goodness I don't remember).

I can't remember how long I was in isolation for but I was lucky, I got out without having to go into an iron lung.
I always thought myself one of the lucky ones as my Polio was from the waist up mainly in the arms. My first operation was my left hand, where I had a bone graft taken from my hip and put between my thumb and my index finger, so I could move my thumb. My next operation was on my right hand taking a tendon from my ring finger and inserting it from the palm of the hand across to my thumb and around to the center of the thumb so I could move and use my right hand and write again.

I had different splints and braces on during and in between these times. I also went to a couple of convalescent homes, at Wahroonga which was tops and helped to make hospital enjoyable, we even had a school, gardens, swimming pool, ( I still can't swim and have a pool in the back yard) and to Collaroy right on the beach. We had some good times, the bad times I remember seeing the babies, I used to think I am so much better off than they are.

I was in hospital for 14 months all up. Then I would have to come back to Sydney to see the doctor, every 6 months, then 12 months until I was 13, and I had to wear this back brace, well you all know what those braces were like. I know having had Polio that when I had my 2 children there is no way on earth that they were going to suffer that way.

I don't know if I am suffering from Post-Polio Syndrome, as I can still use my hands OK, everything I do in my life has been with my hands, I know my limitations, but I have never used it as an excuse to not have a go at things.

Today the kids in hospital are lucky they can have their family stay, they can see their brothers and sisters. My brother came with Mum to see me once and had to stay outside a gate all we could do was look at each other not even get close enough to talk.

This is the first time I have ever written this down. I have a few tears in my eyes now but I don't feel sorry for me there were so many babies, kids and older people who were affected worse then me or who even died.