Salem Resident JoAnna Gaumond cannot imagine why parents would fail to get their pre-schoolers immunized. She was crippled with polio when she was 18 months old and endured it's effects all of her life. " I can't even stand the thought of my grandchildren suffering the tiniest part of what I went through. It would break my heart " she said. Gaumond now 47 has joined the chorus of voices in the statewide IMMUNIZE NOW! campaign. Gaumond caught the polio virus in 1948 she was on of 27,726 people in the United States that came down with acute polio that year. Gaumond's parents didn't talk about the disease, talking about troubles wasn't the fashion then.

Her parents expected her to do all she could to keep up with the other children, and she did her best. Still, Gaumond remembers the tears in her parents eyes in 1953 when Jonas Salk announced he had invented a vaccine that would prevent polio. Gaumond and her sister stood in the long line that formed the first day the shots were available, but it was too late.

Every day she wore a metal brace to keep her left leg stiff so she could walk. The muscles in her hip compensated; she swung her leg along. Every other year doctors performed operations to adjust her leg.

As she grew older, Gaumond was embarrassed by the high top boys shoes that were screwed onto her brace. She dreamed of wearing pumps or strappy sandals.

By age 12, she abandoned the brace, she learned to keep her leg stiff by walking with her palm pressed just above the knee. When she was 17, she met a man and married him. Her prettiest shoes were the white satin pumps she wore up the aisle. Early in the marriage her husband noticed her struggle to walk, he insisted she go back to the brace and high topped shoes. The couple scrimpted so that they could afford a new set.

"He said he loved me no matter what," Gaumond said. She was able to bear two children, and managed to keep up a house, though she often was fatigued. The tiredness increased with age, she eventually discovered she had Post-Polio Syndrome which causes progressive weakness in all muscles in the body. Now she barely can walk to the mail box. She needs a wheelchair to go the distance. "My granchild runs and says 'come on grandma' and I can,t, that makes me sad.

Thanks to the polio vaccine Gaumonds grandchildren do not face the same risk of polio as she did as a child. There hasn't been a case in the Western Hemisphere for several years, health officials say. Still polio could return if enough children fail to get their shots, Tuberculosis has. Gaumond could think of only one reason why parents would neglect their childrens shots: ignorance. " It's just a lack of education " she said " I know it is "