Polio By Any Other Name
A mash up between an NPR article by Linton Weeks, “Defeating Polio”/my own view point Polio by Any Other Name Between 1937 and 1997, it is estimated that more than 457,000 people in the U.S. contracted some form of polio. Afraid of polio, afraid of everything, it gave us permission to think it was out there— and not inside of us. It is a disease that attacks the central nervous system and often leaves its victims partially or fully paralyzed. At the swimming pool, not immediately changing out of a wet swim suit, sitting in a damp sand box, my mother warned me. Now I wonder: Was she afraid of polio or afraid of losing me? Polio was at its height in the early 1950s. There was no prevention; there was no cure. And, what exactly is fear? an emotion so strong it imitates love, a shadow, an echo, a deceit. I’m afraid of dying, therefore I love death. Coming back to school in September there were always empty desks. This isn’...