The current worldwide COVID-19 pandemic has evoked memories of my own experience during the polio epidemic in 1949.
It all began that year on a late winter day. I was 7 years old. I had a high temperature, upset stomach and severe vomiting. Dr. Banks, our family physician, made a visit to our Greenburgh, New York home. After a brief exam, he stepped out of my bedroom and told mother: “I think Douglas has polio. We have to get him to the hospital.”
Mother immediately called dad at his office. Years later, she told me that when dad heard her speak about my suspected polio diagnosis, he was so shocked that he fainted. My mother brought me to Grasslands Hospital in Valhalla, New York, the county hospital for children with infectious diseases. Grasslands was originally built in the early 1900s as an army hospital, then in the 1920s and ‘30s it became a hospital for children with tuberculosis and other infectious diseases.
I was terrified. I knew that polio was a bad sickness, but I had no words to express my fears. I was confined to a large Acute Care Ward at Grasslands. All the hospital beds were separated by decades-old paint-chipped cubicles with dull, faded beige frames and glass paneling. The ward was filled with children and teenagers, each of us isolated in our own protected space. I don’t think my mother was allowed to spend much time with me because of the risk of infection, nor do I recall my father ever visiting me there.
The wide central area of the ward was filled with huge beige Iron Lungs. Since polio often paralyzed chest muscles, the full-body machines were the only way these young polio victims could breathe, with only their heads showing. I heard those wheezing Iron Lungs night and day.
The boy in the next cubicle was 15, and we had little to say to each other. There wasn’t anyone I could talk to. I was deeply lonely. During one of my mother’s brief visits, I asked her to bring me Monkey, my favorite toy. Monkey was a simple hand puppet with a plain fuzzy body and soft lighter colored felt fingers. Monkey’s large face, wide eyes, wobbly ears and grin comforted me.
Mother brought Monkey from home, hidden in her purse so she could get it by the nurses without their confiscating it. When I slipped Monkey over my hand, Monkey tilted his head, ready to listen. I could talk to Monkey about what I saw and felt. Monkey was my only friend. He would listen to me with his broad smile as I reacted to other kids crying or moaning in pain. I felt safe with Monkey.
Throughout that week in the Acute Ward, I had absolutely no symptoms of illness. I did not feel sick at all. One day, as the morning sun glimmered through the few windows of the ward, the doctor told my mother that I could move to the recovery ward — fittingly called Sunshine Cottage. I was excitedly gathering all my things from my bed when the nurse said to me: “We have to take your monkey puppet away from you, he could have germs.” With tears in my eyes and a sad look on my face, I said; “But I have to keep Monkey.”
Only Monkey understood me. I couldn’t tell anyone else how I felt — that wouldn’t be the very brave boy I was supposed to be. It was so important for me to have Monkey’s patient listening, nodding to me when I told him what I was feeling. I sobbed because Monkey couldn’t come with me. My mother and the nurse helped me into the wheel chair to take me to the recovery ward. I cried as we left the ward, feeling so lost without Monkey. Monkey had protected me.
Sunshine Cottage had larger windows, bright paintings of animals and nature scenes on the walls, but without Monkey, I was lonely. My mother left me for a few minutes. She came back with Monkey in her hand, whispering “I convinced the nurse to give it to me.” I let out a long sigh and wiped the last tears from my eyes as I slipped Monkey on, gave him a hug and said: “So good to see you.” Monkey glanced back at me and excitedly waved his hands and wiggled his head.
I was safe again. There were no wheezy Iron Lungs in this ward. Many of the kids there were more talkative, and I knew being in Sunshine Cottage meant I would soon be going home.
After another week in Sunshine Cottage, I brought Monkey home with me, and he remained my companion for years to come. As I went through another required two-week recovery time at home, nurses regularly visited to assure I had no paralysis, that I could move my limbs freely. They placed marbles on the floor and asked me to pick them up with my toes, which I could easily do.
When I got back to school, I felt like my classmates stayed away from me, as if I were still contagious. I felt isolated, and lonely. I had missed at least a month of school and I particularly remember feeling like I was never going to catch up. Now I also realize that the other students were shunning and avoiding me: polio was a terrifying disease. I am sure that I “was” polio to them!
A month or so after I returned to school, Dr. Banks suspected that my brother Jack, 14 years old, might also have polio. Jack was also sent to Grasslands Hospital for a briefer stay than mine. What I now realize is that neither Jack nor I had polio. Neither of us had any ongoing symptoms. I now think Dr. Banks made a bad judgment for both Jack and me. Shortly after that, my parents found a new family doctor. They never explained that decision, but surely it was because of Dr. Banks’ mistaken diagnosis.
My mother began volunteering at Grasslands Hospital for several years after Jack and I were sent there. I remember the distinctive dark green uniform she wore. I am sure she did this in compassion for the others who had contracted the disease, and in thankfulness that neither of her sons had polio.
In the months that followed my return home, my parents took me for visits to the home of friends whose teenage son had contracted polio. He was only able to survive by being confined to an Iron Lung. The look and sound of that machine evoked my own painful hospital memories. I always felt awkward and frightened during those visits: That could have happened to me! I could never tell Mother and Dad how much I hated going there with them.
One night over 40 years later, I dreamt that I was suffocating. I awakened, gasping and terrified. I told my wife of the vivid memory the dream evoked: I was in one of those Iron Lungs, unable to breathe by myself. I broke into deep fearful sobs as I shared my dream with her. Back then, I only had Monkey to comfort me. Now, my wife could hold me as I wept. I finally became completely free to express the horror I felt having to be a very brave boy in the polio ward.
Douglas Beattie lives in Northampton.