IT HAPPENED TO MEJoan Bradley contracted polio when she was four years old and battled hard to learn how to walk again - 20 years later, post-polio syndrome set in and she lost much of her hard-won mobility. This is her story, as told to Fiona Tyrrell
I GOT POLIO in early 1942, just before the epidemic hit Ireland. Back then it was called infantile paralysis and my parents were informed that I would always be disabled.
The treatment for polio was changing at that time. Previously, patients had been put into plaster casts and plaster beds. However, Sr Elizabeth Kenny, a nurse in Australia, had developed a treatment that involved heat packs and muscle rehabilitation. She had to fight tooth and nail with the medical profession to get the treatment recognised.
Polio destroys the neurons in the spinal cord. Polio patients have to struggle really hard to get function back again. With rehabilitation, neurons on each side of the dead neuron grow new sprouts and, depending on how much damage has been done to the spine, a patient can learn how to walk and move again. Most of us who got polio were able to walk again with the help of callipers.
My time at Harcourt Street Children's Hospital and Dr Stephen's Hospital in Dublin was not the most pleasant. Nursing was in a really poor state back then. Nurses threatened children with the boogie man or the big black hole if they cried.
The boredom was something else. I made up my own games. One was where I'd blow bits of fluff from a blanket up into the air and see which one came down the quickest. Another was a game called imagine - I'd lie looking at the ceiling and project all sorts of images and events onto it, like it was a movie screen. Because I was from a farming background, my imaginings usually involved sheep and cows.
My mother came up to visit me around once a month. My dad didn't get to visit me at all. When he came to bring me home, I didn't recognise him - I thought he was a new doctor.
I was eventually taken out of hospital because my family didn't think I was being fed enough. It was during the war and we had our own food on the farm, so the doctors agreed.
When I returned home to our farm near Stradbally in Co Laois my mother did all the exercises with me. I worked hard to regain mobility. At first I was left with a limp but gradually got rid of that, as well as the callipers and the sticks. By the time I returned to school at nine I did not need any aids to walk.
I was lucky. I managed to catch up at school quite well. Other children with polio had a very hard time. Some were sent to industrial schools because of difficulties settling back into family life.
When I finished school, I went to study radiotherapy in University College Dublin. I did my practical training in Hume Street. I worked as a radiotherapist, first in London and then at St Luke's, but I found the work really tough. I had to go to bed straight after work to be able for the next day.
I didn't know it at the time, but it was the first sign of post-polio syndrome.
What was happening was the neurons that had sprouted on either side of the destroyed neurons had become overloaded and were dying off. I was gradually going backwards. After three years it became impossible for me to work as a radiotherapist.
I gave up my job and took up untrained office work. I didn't really enjoy office work, but in those days you just had to get on with it. There was no alternative. I kept my interest outside of work - writing and voluntary work.
Back then, post-polio syndrome was unheard of in Ireland. I knew something was up and went to a neurologist, but he could see nothing wrong. I felt that I was being pushed off. By the time I parted company with the neurologist I was on the verge of going to a psychiatrist.
A friend of mine, Rosaleen Gallagher, who also suffered from polio and used to participate in the Paralympics, picked up leaflets on post-polio syndrome in the US.
Rosaleen and I immediately recognised that we had the same symptoms. We had a hard time persuading others of the existence of the syndrome. A letter sent to the government in the late 1980s by the Polio Fellowship was dismissed as "Americans getting into a flap".
We set up the Post-Polio Support Group in 1992, but the syndrome was not officially recognised by the government until 1997. It was the pressure of the growing numbers of people emerging with symptoms that forced them to do so.
People suffering from post-polio syndrome are not entitled to the medical card. So the organisation tries to help people by supplying as many callipers, wheelchairs, bath lifts and stair lifts as possible. Because people with the syndrome are very sensitive to cold we try to help people out with their heating bills.
Over my life I have devoted a lot of my time to the Post-Polio Support Group. I have also given talks to students about the importance of vaccinations. If people don't vaccinate, polio will come back.
Over the years, my mobility has deteriorated significantly and I eventually had to give in and get callipers. I am now in a wheelchair, but was lucky enough to get a car, which has made all the difference to my life.
I have struggled for independence all through my life. I never got angry about post-polio syndrome. Early in life I recognised that I had something to offer to the world, regardless of my mobility. My family were a big support. They didn't hide me away like many other children were.
I am 70 now and intend to maintain every bit of my liberty for as long as I can.