paralysis – Jerry Lout ⚬ Writer ⚬ Speaker ⚬ Mobilizer

Mom’s fly swatter instruction of past times over my use of bad words met with failure in Hillcrest Hospital’s therapy room.

Hold his hip firm against the table. Steady now. Here we go – Up with the right leg.

Two people in white – a spindly man and a large-boned woman – stood opposite each another at the therapy bench. I lay face-up between them. They applied stretch treatments to paralysis-affected limbs. The therapy helped arrest stiffening of the muscles.

I took in their words. The stretching maneuver was underway. The leg in motion, kept straight as a board by pressure of a hand on my kneecap, rose upward. The stiffer the muscles the greater the strain. And the pain. Up, up until a searing sharpness passed through my leg, prompting me – their child-patient – to bark *%#$! Though not loudly.

The therapists shared knowing but not unkind smiles. Neither spoke. Their tasks – these disguised angels – inflicting pain on helpless children. Surely this brought pain their way.

An Australian nurse, Sister Elizabeth Kenny, had devised an effective treatment to limber up the muscle tissue of paralyzed limbs. Nurses at Hillcrest wrapped me, along with my polio peeps, in confining, steaming hot packs (I close my eyes today and smell the heavy, moist odor of sweltering chamois-like blankets). Mercifully the blankets held my body in their constricting grip for only short periods.

I never swore about the hot packs. As I grew older I extended myself grace over the therapy-table profanity lapse. Though not justified, cursing can slip through a set of teeth in a moment of sharp pain.

Remedial pain. Our world is rich with special Wisdom Sayings when we pause to listen. Some of these coach us about preventing needless pain; others on the actual usefulness of it.

Our limpings – whether of a physical or of a nonphysical nature – can meet with useful pain at times. Yet, we have to pay attention to detect the usefulness.

He who will not be taught by his elders will be taught by the world, African seniors counsel their youth.

No discipline is enjoyable. . it’s painful! But afterward there will be a peaceful harvest of right living for those who are trained in this way. the Bible’s ‘Book of Hebrews’.

My father and mother didn’t discipline me perfectly. Nor have I my own children. Yet, we do our children no favor by withholding loving – and yes unpleasant – correction when needed. Emphasis – Loving. Just as failing to administer pain-inducing treatments to better a patient would, in fact, be unkind.

Still, my condition worsened. From waistline to feet my limbs went useless. My upper body declined, my respiratory muscles weakened. An attending doctor informed my parents I would not walk again. Regardless.

A stuffed black Terrier Pup consoled me – along with one particular nurse. While specialists discussed my case – and the Iron Lung.

Question. What caught your interest most in this post? I’m very interested in thoughts, feelings of any readers. Thanks again for following! Alert! In part due to reader requests, Soon we’ll post Running Life’s Race Twice weekly instead of one per week – doubling the episodes. 🙂

*hot pack photo.nurse: OHSU Historical Collections & Archives

The Plymouth sedan rolled to a stop in the parking lot of our little house of worship. The left door opened and a metallic glitter caught my eye as the driver began the process of exiting her car. It was a process. She swiveled slowly so both her legs, framed in stainless steel braces, dangled to the outside.

What caught my eye next was her face. Angelic? The adjective wasn’t in my word-store then but, yes. A quality beamed from the young woman’s face. Almost like a glow. Opaline’s smile overtook me. It has never left.

Falling in love with Opaline was more enchantment than romance. An unlikely combination of hardware and disposition fueled the attraction. Full limb braces on both legs combined with her smile. My meeting her at roughly age five spawned a long journey of regard. And affection. How can full-length leg braces and this kind of smile converge? My gaze dropped. I surveyed my malformed shoe fashioned so by pressure from an equally malformed foot. I smiled just as the reason for the smile caught up with the action itself. I shared a common affliction. . with an angel!

What could a flooded pasture and a paralyzing disease have in common? Perhaps nothing.

My father, Clyde Lout, was a living testament to a rural adage. Dust bowl issues succeeded in taking the boy out of the country and on to California urban centers. Nothing prevailed however at taking the country out of the boy. Oklahoma soil, long recovered from the droughts of the 1930’s, beckoned.

We moved to a small acreage outside town. Twin pear trees in the pasture – limbs heavy with their treasures most summers – supplied Tim and me with climbing and feasting pleasures. Don’t eat them when they’re green! was our mother’s (sometimes-heeded) admonition.

Our sister Betty exercised more wisdom than her young siblings. Tim and I first learned to swim near the same pear trees in the pasture. Not in a pond or in a stream running through the pasture. We set in motion our first-ever strokes in the pasture itself.

A red-brown waterway called the Deep Fork River snaked through the countryside west of our place. During a late spring season in the mid-1950s continued rains flooded the Deep Fork. Ongoing downpours overflowed every creek and stream.

Rising waters flooded lowlands, submerging much of our five acres. Once the rain stopped my brother and I splashed about in the chest-deep mix of water and floating debris. Discovering buoyancy we propelled our way through tree bark, sticks and limbs, assorted leaves and hollowed pecan shells. And here and there – given it was the habitat of farm animals – other matter as well.

My second bout with the polio virus far exceeded the first in its severity. Whether my pastureland swim factored into the soon approaching paralysis is unresolved.

I was nine years old. My legs simply stopped working.

Tag: paralysis

Prescription – Pain. Somber Prediction

Commonality