ROANOKE TIMES
Copyright (c) 1996, Roanoke Times
DATE: Tuesday, September 17, 1996 TAG: 9609170057
SECTION: EDITORIAL PAGE: A-5 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: SANDRA TUCKER-MAXWELL
SCHOOL HAS started, and that brings back memories of a Sunday in my childhood that forever changed the way I and my relatives looked at immunizations - those sometimes painful ``shots'' given to prevent various illnesses.
In 1949, and the summers before, really, the polio scare was upon us. Since not a lot was known about the disease, parents fought it the only way they knew how, and our summers were boring, to say the least.
All summer we had avoided the fuzz on peaches because it was thought that the polio germ lurked there, and we had been forbidden to go to the municipal pool at Waterdale because it was just possible the germ hid in wet places. Movies were out - too many people. Picnics were all right, as long as we didn't mingle. Little did we know, that hot summer day, where the germ was really hiding.
As was our Sunday habit, when my father's sister, Rio, and her sons, Edgar and Adair, came to Beckley to visit with Grandmother Tucker, we went out to spend the day.
I was 11, my sister Nancy, 4. Edgar was 15 and Adair, 13. When we got to grandmother's, Adair was lying on the couch. He and Edgar had been ``wrestling'' in the back yard, and when Adair began to complain of a neck ache, Edgar thought he had hurt him, so they had split up.
Nancy and I decided to play ``nurse.'' We obtained a basin into which we poured cool water, and using a wash cloth, we bathed Adair's rather warm forehead, diligently wringing the cloth out so as not to drip. He said he also had a bad headache, and that his legs ached, so we put a pillow under his knees, and then kissed his brow (we were cousins first, nurses second). I noticed that his hair was damp, curling about his ears like dark worms. But I was only 11. How was I to know that we weren't getting his hair wet, but that he had a fever - putting my little sister and me at risk?
Soon it was time for us to go home. Adair was very restless, his fever climbing. Aunt Rio called a doctor just before we got into the car. She told my father that she would let us know what the doctor said. Nancy and I kissed Adair again and told him we hoped he'd feel better soon.
We stopped for ice cream at a drive-in, happily creating swirls and hills in the gooey, cool chocolate. It was dusk and fireflies began to dot the trees when we pulled into our driveway. As we clambered out of the car, a neighbor hailed us.
``Evelyn! Herman!'' My mother and father started toward her. ``No, no. Just stay where you are!'' There was fear in her voice. I almost expected her to make the crossed fingers sign to ward off danger. ``Rio called, Herman. Adair has polio. He's being taken by ambulance to Marmet. The nearest iron lung is there.''
Daddy went white. Mother's hands clutched our shoulders painfully. All I could think of was peach fuzz and all the swimming at Little Beaver we had missed.
The neighbor continued: ``The doctor says to bathe the girls in as hot a water as they can stand and use a disinfectant.'' Hardly were the words out of her mouth when mother began to remove our clothing - it was burned later. We were hustled into the house, mother filled the bathtub and poured in a bottle of Lysol. Being careful not to get it into our eyes, noses or mouths, she scrubbed us and our hair till our bodies and scalps were red. I know it sounds harsh, but the polio virus would have been worse.
Nancy and I survived our close encounter with polio - and with the hot water Lysol bath. Adair is now showing some signs of post-polio syndrome; one leg, shorter than the other as a result of his illness causes him some pain, he says, and he tires more easily.
I read just the other day that ``polio had been eradicated.'' I hope that is so, but we need not get complacent and neglect to see that it stays that way by continuing to provide immunization. Remember: Viruses can - and do - come back.
Sandra Tucker-Maxwell of Roanoke is administrative assistant at Newell Industrial Corp., and a free-lance writer.
LENGTH: Medium: 75 linesby CNB