FALL.....S

This posting is not for sympathy, it is for informational use.



WARNING: GROSS ANATOMICAL PHOTO AHEAD!!!



As a result of having Polio (also called infantile paralysis) as a child, I have come down with what they call Post Polio Syndrome.

What happens at the onset of the polio virus is the killing off of about 80% of the muscular nerve receptors in the body. Luckily we are born with many times more of these receptors than the normal body needs in its lifetime. And since a large percent of polio victims are young children, their bodies reroute nerves to areas that still have live receptors. This sometimes gives at least partial use to previously paralysed limbs and muscles. In my case it involved both of my legs, right arm and spine. I regained full use of my legs and about 90% of my right arm. My spine however was left in a very curved and twisted position due to atrophied muscles, which left me with a limp and loss of 3 inches in height, loss of neck and shoulder muscles left me stoop shouldered.

Post Polio Syndrome happens about 30 years later as the remaining nerve receptors die off from use and abuse causing muscle use loss and eventual atrophy. This can also happen to previously unaffected muscles and limbs. It can also affect the diaphragm and chest muscles causing breathing problems. But it can also cause a problem described as "brain fog". Nerve synapses in the brain misfire causing problems of lost thoughts and words, along with concentration and balance problems. Kind of like A.D.D. meets Alzheimer's adding Dyslexia and dizziness just for fun.



So, in my case, over the last 15 years I have lost leg muscle which causes fatigue and pain when standing, walking, and sitting. I developed restless leg syndrome. I have "drop foot" in my left leg which means I cannot raise my foot off the floor which causes me to sometimes catch the toe of my shoe (when I am wearing them) and trip and fall or stumble. My left leg also just quits on me on occasion, like someone tuning the switch off and back on without warning. My right knee is shot, arthritic and a bone on bone joint. I have lost my pectoral and most of my upper arm muscles in my right arm making it about 60% weaker, and muscle loss and weakness in my left arm. My back muscles are weaker and I have degenerative disc disease, 2 pinched nerves caused by herniated discs, (I can't stand to lay flat on my back or sit in a comfortable chair, riding in a car is pure pain) and arthritis caused from 30 years of abuse working at a grain terminal and carrying around over 50 pounds of excess weight (i.e.-fat), and losing 1.5 inches in height. I can no longer read for enjoyment (mind candy), I used to read about a book a day, having anywhere from 2 to 5 novels being read at the same time.(while working in the library in high school I got bored and read the entire Encyclopedia Britannica collection and the Complete Websters Desk Reference Dictionary from cover to cover in my junior year) Now I get frustrated trying to read and understand a paragraph at a time. Reading used to be like watching a full color movie and now its like watching a black and white documentary without the sound. Writing is a mental challenge especially when fingers don't hit the right key. It has taken me almost 3.5 hours just to write this post so far. I no longer enjoy any of my old hobbies because of lack of concentration. I can no longer wade the river fishing, paddle my canoe, or accurately shoot my guns or bows. I can no longer throw knives or tomahawks. Driving is a mental and physical challenge that I no longer enjoy.

But what I can do is fall. I am slowly getting better at it. Whether it's caused by my leg going out, dragging my toes, loosing my balance or just plane accidental, I can now do it without a moments notice or grace. After I was too disabled to work in 2003, I used to keep a journal of my falls and injuries, but gave up after 2 years as it was quite depressing to read. Now I let my chiropractor do that for me. Most of the time I never even bother to let my M.D. know unless it is serious.

Let me tell you about my last couple of falls. Monday while trying to attach a small set of discs to my lawn tractor to disc up the garden, I lost my balance and fell on the discs. Realising that I was falling, I let my knees buckle (less distance to fall) and relaxed, just letting it happen, and kind of rolled onto my side to protect my now damaged shoulder. The result was not good, but it could have been worse. My right knee, hip and side suffered to save my left shoulder. I had my wife take this photo tonight.



This morning while attempting to sit down at the computer, I pulled out the chair and was trying to sit down, when Gracie my cat, must have jumped up on the seat. I felt her under my derriere and tried to stand up, but only managed to roll the chair out from under me and landed flat on my back on the floor. Saving Grace!!! Ruining my last chiropractic adjustment.
Now both of these accidents caused me to use my injured left shoulder to lift myself up to a standing position, bearing my full weight. I must also use my bad right knee to accept my weight as the left one is untrustworthy. And it is easier for me if I do it unassisted, so all my wife can do is watch and worry.

This is my lot in life and I accept it. Everything I do anymore has a price that must be paid. And that price is pain. Just sitting here writting this has a cost, but me and MR. Pain have had a long relationship. He is like my shadow, sometimes like a bright sunshiney day and he is there in full strength and other times he is hardly noticable like on a cloudy day. But he is always there, waiting for the sun to shine. I even changed the words to one of my favorite songs in his honor. See if you can sing along with me, keep in tune now, because I can't. First the original lyrics.

Every Breath You Take
By: Police
Album: Synchronicity

Every breath you take
And every move you make
Every bond you break,
every step you take
I'll be watching you

Every single day And every word you say
Every game you play, every night you stay
I'll be watching you
Oh, can't you see
You belong to me?
How my poor heart aches With every step you take
Every move you make Every vow you break
Every smile you fake, every claim you stake
I'll be watching you

Since you've gone I've been lost without a trace
I dream at night, I can only see your face
I look around, but it's you I can't replace
I feel so cold, and I long for your embrace
I keep crying baby, baby please,

Oh, can't you see You belong to me?
How my poor heart aches With every step you take
Every move you make Every vow you break
Every smile you fake, every claim you stake
I'll be watching you
Every move you make, every step you take
I'll be watching you
I'll be watching you

[ Police Lyrics are found on www.songlyrics.com ]
Now My Version

Pain’s Song
By: Grey Wolf

Every breath you take
And every move you make
Every bone you break, every trip you take
I'll be clutching you

Every single day
I’m going to make you pay
Every game you play, every night you stay
I'll be clutching you

Oh, can't you see You belong to me?
How your poor back aches With every step you take
Every move you make Every bone you break
Even at the lake, every nerve you shake
I'll be clutching you

Since you've been born, I've been at work keeping pace
when you fall down, landing on your.... face
I look around, but it's you I can't replace
I feel so good, and I long for your embrace
I keep crying Gary, Gary please,

Oh, can't you see You belong to me?
How your poor bod aches With every step you take
Every move you make Every bone you break
Every smile you fake, every nerve you shake
I'll be clutching you
Every move you make, every step you take
I'll be clutching you
I'll be clutching you

WOW, somebody was WAY off key!!!
OH, ...nevermind.......
it was ME.

My experience with Polio and PPS

I contracted polio after being in Mercy Hospital in Bay City for jaundice in 1956. The day I was supposed to come home my mother tried dressing me and I couldn’t stand up. After running some tests they found I had polio also known as Infantile Paralysis. It was common for the polio virus to attack after the bodies defenses had been weakened by another illness. It is suspected that I contracted the virus after swimming at the beach in Caseville. Back then the sewers of a lot of homes were dumped into ditches and streams that ran into Lake Huron, and there were a lot of people with polio in the Caseville area. It affected both of my legs, my right arm and spine. I don’t have any memories of the leg braces but I do of the arm brace. It attached around my chest and held my arm up at a 45 degree angle, but the darn thing wouldn’t allow me to completely straighten my arm, so after regaining the use of my arm I was never again able to straighten it. I was sent home 7 months later with my arm still in that horrible arm brace. Before that brace I was left-handed but during my hospitalization, they would tie down my left arm and forced me to use my right hand.
Some of the things I don’t remember but was told after I got older were that my parents came to visit me 3-4 times a week. I guess my crying as they left used to really upset my mother, because my dad had asked me not to cry for a while after they left, but sometimes as they were leaving my mom could still hear me before they made it outside. Another thing was that my dad had brought me a box of my favorite candy, chocolate covered cherries, and after giving me some had put them in the cabinet beside my crib type bed for their next visit. The next time they came to visit I was sitting in a cage. The staff had put a barred top on my bed because I had gotten out of the crib and made a real mess eating all of those candies!!! My dad blew his stack and made them remove the top. Of course I had to promise not to get out of bed again, and that was the end of leaving any candy in my room. Also my room mate at the time was Danny Brown who had cerebral palsy. We would later become great friends in high school. They must have had a children’s rehab or play center because I do remember dragging my mother down the hall to this room that had all of the things you would find in a home but child sized, and I took her to the kitchen area and made her some tea. I sat her at the table and set it with cups and saucers and went to the sink and ran real water into a tea pot and put it on the stove, which didn’t work, and then poured us both a cup of play tea.

I was one of the lucky ones though. I could walk without support and was pretty much as normal as the next kid except for a slight limp in my left leg which is almost an inch shorter and a lack of stamina. This led to a whole lot of teasing especially after I started getting fat. As a child and teenager I led a very active life which included LOTS of walking. Walking to and from school, outback in the gravel pits and woods, down to the river, in all it was nothing to put in miles of walking daily. And of course I always was the last and everyone had to wait for me when I tired out and had to take a rest. And the only trouble I really had was leg pains usually in the evening that sent me to bed early. It didn’t take long for me to realize that this was the ONLY cure to make the aching stop.

I led a pretty normal life, got a job, got married, raised 3 children. Around the age of 30 I took a bad fall and screwed up my back. Herniated disks, pinched nerves, and muscle spasms started me on a new road to pain. Then at age 39 I had my first heart attack. Afterwards I began noticing unusual muscle weakness. My Dr. attributed it to medication and getting older and being overweight. And for the next 10 years he kept changing my meds and telling me to lose weight. I worked at a grain terminal in Saginaw and learned to compensate for my "old age" and chronic back pain. I rested more often, we did a lot of shoveling there, heavy lifting, climbing ladders up to 100ft. tall and a whole lot of walking. From 1976 to 1999 I worked up to 18 hours a day, 7 days a week in all kinds of weather.
Then I had another heart attack, and took longer to recover. I switched jobs at work and took one that was less physically demanding.
However I was getting weaker and more tired. And something new, my left leg started periodically to just quit on me. No pain or warning just like someone turning off a switch and right back on. I would be walking or standing and then I was on the ground. Now this worried me. I had heard rumors of PPS, but I thought I had too mild of a case to have to worry about that. And when my Dr. got through explaining to me that it was weight that was causing all of my problems and it was a pinched nerve, and it was only skinny malnourished people who got PPS what could I do. I tried losing weight. Pills, all types of diets, but it never worked for long. Then I started falling asleep at work in the afternoons and on the 48 mile drive home. I blamed it on the pain pills and muscle relaxants. I tried to get all of my physical work done in the morning because by lunch time I was all in. If I sat down for more than 2 minutes I was asleep.
Then came my last heart attack, June 9, 2003. After the angioplasty and stent placement I still had the discomfort and 3 weeks later was back in the hospital for another angioplasty and stent. But when I came to, I knew something was definitely wrong. I felt great weakness and discomfort like never before and my brain wasn't working right, I was having difficulty finding words and thought I was losing it.
I am sure everyone at the hospital did. In short order my cardiologist and the anesthesiologist, a neurosurgeon and the chief of staff were in the room and ordering tests, ekg, ct scan, doppler of my carotid arteries, brain scan, emg, and a whole host of blood tests. And worst of all, my cardiologist left the building without leaving orders for my much needed morphine for my back pain that I required whenever I spent anytime laying down. He gave it to me pre-surgery but forgot to leave orders for it post surgery. And they couldn’t contact him. I was soon in HELL. Laying on my back with a plastic tube running from my groin to my heart inside the artery and being told not to move or risk dying from a torn artery. And in the middle of the worst pain in my life, in walks the staff psychiatrist to evaluate me. I asked him to come back later but he insisted on asking me all sorts of questions.
Then my GUARDIAN ANGEL came into the room. She was an older woman in a wheelchair who introduced herself as a staff minister but was in the wrong room. I asked her to pray for me to get this FOOL out of my room. The psychiatrist then said he had enough information and left.
I asked her to stay when I noticed the stereotypic walking canes on the back of her wheelchair and asked her if she had polio and she said yes, PPS actually. Then a nurse came in with my morphine. I asked the minister to return later and she did. It was from her that I learned the most about Post Polio Syndrome and the physiatrist I later saw. We became fast friends and had many discussions over the next few days before I was sent home.
I later saw more Dr.s and was diagnosed with PPS and started my SSI disability paperwork. Then the depression set in as I realized my life would never be the same. It was very hard to be dependant on my wife to do all of the driving over 15 miles because I couldn’t keep my concentration and it was a physical and mental challenge that wore me out to the point of falling asleep. Not being able to walk very far or do anything physically demanding. Not being able to work. And maybe the worst of all, not being able to read books. For over 40 years I had a love of reading that was unquenchable, I read daily and many times had multiple books going at the same time. But after that last heart attack the “brain fog” just wouldn’t let me understand what I was reading even after multiple re-readings of the same paragraph. Living in daily pain and depression so bad I was contemplating suicide.
I was keeping a daily journal and writing down happenings and daily activities and pain scale. And one day after re-reading what I had been writing for the past year, I decided that it was so pathetic that I wasn’t going to write anymore. The birth of my first grandchild was a blessing that gave me a new will to live. Even though holding her caused a lot of physical pain sometimes, the good it did me was far more beneficial to my mental wellbeing. That and a new anti-depression drug put me in a better frame of mind and started me on the road of dealing with my limited abilities and a new look on life.
Oh I still have my bad days, and I miss my enthusiasm for my hobbies, but I will deal with that.
Another struggle is trying to keep my body from muscle atrophy. Not having the physical mobility or the ambition to do anything, makes it hard to keep from just sitting and vegetating. I had been doing aqua therapy for 6 months, about 3 times a week and it has done wonders for me. After a 2 month hold on going, I am looking forward to getting back in the heated pool.