A Polio victim's story

By Sharon Weber  (Nee Robbins)

I grew up on Jasper Avenue in the former Mount Dennis area of Toronto. Those were the days when everyone walked to school. After dinner, when dishes were washed and put away the neighbourhood children would go out to play. The parents would sit on the front porch and relax before their children had to be bathed and put to bed.

I got polio in one of the last big epidemics of 1949, at 18 months of age. That certainly changed the future life for both me and my family.

I was sent to Thistletown hospital where I stayed for a year and a half and only left when I was three years old.

While there, they strapped us to our beds most of the time. Mom said that I was a little "firecracker" during my stay. After all the kids were strapped in for the night to their beds, I would get my hands underneath and untie myself, then climb out of my crib and get into one of the boy's cribs. When the nurses came in the next morning, they would see my empty crib and wonder where I was!

I used wooden crutches and had a leg brace

up to the top of my left leg.

The neighbourhood kids really made my day when I asked if I could join their daily game of jump rope made from many elastic bands. They very kindly turned the 'rope' a lot slower so that I could jump with my crutches.

My parents must be commended for allowing me to be as normal as possible.  They bought me roller skates (The older kind that could be adjusted to the size of your shoe) I had two different size feet then, and still do, due to the Polio so I adjusted the skates to fit. I would also move the bolts on my crutches to make them 2" longer to make up for the height of the wheels.

I would happily skate up and down the streets near my home using my crutches as ski poles. Boy did I ever wear down the tips of the crutches as I took the corners as fast as I could.

A most embarrassing moment was when I fell while roller skating. A few of the parents that were sitting on the front porch came rushing down to help the little crippled child. They sympathized and said: "You poor child, are you hurt?" Their gushing sympathy made me cry. Then they thought for sure that I must be hurt. My parents had to assure them that I was more embarrassed than hurt and if I was ever really hurt, then I would call out to them. After that I could fall and get up on my own.

I was a happy child and as I look back and see that I was quite spoiled.  Not only by my parents or brother Ross or sister Elaine. I was also spoiled by many service groups like the Kiwanis, Lions and the Rotary club.

From grade one to grade eight I attended Sunnyview Crippled children's School on Blythwood Avenue in central Toronto. Back then we were all bused to this school instead or going to our neighbourhood school. It had advantages of being all on one floor and having physiotherapy and a heated pool for swimming lessons and hydro therapy. However, it had the drawback of not knowing the kids in your neighbourhood as well as we were picked up early and dropped off late by the bus.

The service clubs took us on trips to the circus, ice Capades, the zoo, etc. One organization even rented an airplane and flew us around the city of Toronto. 

Another time, they rented a pool in a hotel and stocked it with fish. We each got a fishing rod. We rolled our wheelchairs to the edge or sat in chairs at the edge of the pool. We could catch one fish each. We weren't allowed to keep the fish, but we were given the fishing rods.

I remember special people like Mr. Murray Brown from Christie's Cookies who picked me up every Wednesday night in his personal car and took me to the Beverly Street School pool. We even learned to do water ballet in that pool. He would then bring me back home.

We always had dogs who loved us unconditionally.  I would take my dog for walks alongside my crutches. I even used to take my little toy fox terrier for a walk while I was on the roller skates.  Boy, that must have been a sight. No wonder the neighbours had to hold their breaths while seeing this.

  

I felt really blessed during my younger years and often felt sorry for my brother and sister who had to stay at home while I went to all these exciting places and did so many things that my family couldn't afford.

I remember exciting times at the CNE where one year I met Annie Oakley and had my picture taken with her. My mother would talk her way backstage somehow and they allowed me to have my picture taken with Roy Rogers and Dale Evans. I even got my picture taken in "Nelly Belle", the jeep that Pat Brady drove.

Another time I presented flowers to Queen Elizabeth when she was touring Toronto.

My childhood went from one special event to another. Of course, I had my share of operations. I felt like I was the guinea pig at sick Kids Hospital. They were always poking and prodding and suggesting some newfangled operation to improve my life. It seemed like they waited for Easter, Summer or Christmas vacations to book me for a new operation. The final one was when I was 14 years old and I was the first child to have my leg "stretched". 1 1/2 inches. It still didn’t grow with me and is too short today.

I didn't like it when it happened but now instead of wearing shoes with large soles I could buy shoes off the rack. They had to be of two sizes and I threw the odd ones away.

The recovery from that operation took two months and I only had anesthetics when they put the machine into my left leg and when they took it out the end. I didn’t get any painkillers because they said I would be an addict by the time it was finished. 

My worst memory from that time was when an intern came and accidentally turned the screw the wrong way. I could feel my leg retracting and I screamed

"Make him stop! He's turning it the wrong way! Tell him to look at the gauge! Look at the gauge!"

The nurse shoved me back on the bed and said:

“Shut up, Sharon, he knows what he's doing"

I insisted he check the gauge and when my panic finally got through to him, he checked it and mumbled a "Sorry". He then stretched it back to the original length and did more than double what he was supposed to do on top of that! The doctor in charge, Dr. Bedard, gave me an apology and gave me the next day off from the stretching regimen.

There used to be a nurse on the 6th floor named "Jenny". She swore like a trooper and ruled the floor with an iron fist.

When we first met her, most kids hated her because she made us eat what was on our plates, (even liver!) We did outsmart her though. There were always six beds to a room and the ones that could get out of bed would take the "disgusting" food from the others that couldn't get out of bed and flush it or hide it in the garbage pails. After going there several times a year, I realized she only wanted what was best for us, I would even go up to the 6th floor to see her while on follow-up visits to the clinic downstairs.

Clinics... well that was another story.  After every operation, we had to prance in front of a group of doctors and interns in our white underpants and undershirts. It was soooo embarrassing!  The main doctor would discuss what had been done and what it was they expected to happen. I would be prodded and poked and then sent home until they decided what operation to try out on my next vacation.  I hated physiotherapy as it always felt worse afterwards than when I started.

Despite the many operations I endured I had a multitude of happy memories to dispel them.  My poor mother used to do 100 exercises on my "polio" leg every morning and evening. I can remember drawing on one end of the dining room table with a "bobby" pin while she was distracted by moving my leg back and forth.

My Dad was good to me. One summer I had a cast from my toes to my waist and had to spend my time in a push-wheelchair. My Dad made a special board to attach to the front of the wheelchair and big enough to fit a dollhouse. Someone would put me on the front porch and I would play for hours. I would make up stories about my miniature dolls and move my doll furniture around.

All in all, I had a great childhood with lots of fresh air and grand adventures on my roller skates. Once, I even tried skating with ice skates on the pond at the end of Jasper Avenue. I had to admit defeat because my crutches kept slipping on the ice.

I remember Sunday school classes at church and church picnics with good memories. I would try to kick my shoe while balancing on crutches.  I never won but I liked to try everything. Thanks to the volunteers of Toronto's many service organizations I had a happy childhood that was full of wonder. Each day was a new adventure.  You are wonderful people and I know there is a special place in Heaven for people like you.

On my 18^th birthday.

After a grand total of 11 operations and years in hospitals I grew up. I still have had to use crutches all my life.

By now I am an elderly grandmother of three sons and three grandchildren.

I usually get around with an electric scooter.