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Sunday, October 21, 2001
Revisiting the pain of polio
Roland Blair was stricken as a child, now as an adult
By Dan Parker
Caller-Times

Paul Iverson/Caller-Times

Roland Blair had a special crane installed to lift his electric wheelchair into the back of the vehicle. Blair suffers from post-polio syndrome, which has weakened his muscles, forcing him to buy the wheelchair last year. He was diagnosed with post-polio syndrome several years ago.

One day in the fall of 1948, 8-year-old Roland Blair went to bed with a high fever in his Fort Worth home. Later, he awoke and yelled for his mother. He couldn't move his legs.
   The boy's pediatrician came to the house. He told Blair's parents to get their son to the hospital. Once there, Blair was put in isolation. Doctors suspected a serious and contagious neurological disorder.
   "I (was in) in isolation for two days," recalled Blair, now a 61-year-old Corpus Christi resident. "It's a pretty scary situation for an 8-year-old."
   Doctors did a spinal tap on the little boy. Every four hours, around the clock, he was given a penicillin injection. Their footsteps echoing loudly against the hospital's tile walls, doctors walked in and out of Blair's room, examining him and consulting with one another. After two days, the doctors made their diagnosis: Polio.
   Blair was put in a polio ward. No visitors were allowed with the exception of doctors and nurses. An armed police officer stood guard at the ward's entrance.
   After weeks of painful physical therapy, Blair regained movement in his arms and legs, and he grew up to live a full life. He raised a family. He forged a successful career in accounting and bookkeeping. He served in civic organizations. He hardly showed a sign he ever had polio. He walked without crutches or even much of a limp. He even water skied on occasion.
   But when he was about 45 years old, Blair started feeling fatigued nearly every day. His joints were stiff and his muscles felt weak. He suspected what was wrong, and a doctor's diagnosis later confirmed it. He had post-polio syndrome.
   The affliction can attack adults who have had childhood polio. It strikes with weakness, fatigue and pain.

Paul Iverson/Caller-Times

Roland Blair, a bookkeeper at Padre Island Screen Printing, talks on the phone at work. Blair, 61, can work only part-time because post-polio syndrome has robbed him of his strength. Blair had polio as a child, then recovered to lead a normal life for most of his adulthood.

   Doctors believe post-polio syndrome is caused by unusual stress placed on surviving nerve cells. After years of work, those nerve cells die. There's no known cure.
   Early last year, Blair walked into a medical supply shop on South Padre Island Drive and ordered an electric wheelchair. He decided to use one to conserve his energy. Now 61, Blair once again faces a difficult struggle and an uncertain future.
   Polio paralysis
   Spread by a virus, polio is a disease that causes paralysis, which is almost always irreversible. In the most severe cases, polio paralysis can lead to death by asphyxiation. It can strike a person at any age, but mainly affects children under 3.
   Polio was one of the most feared diseases in the United States in the 1940s and 1950s, when epidemics struck. The disease could be spread through shared water, especially drinking water.
   "It was panic," said Ken Kiple, editor of the "Cambridge World History of Human Disease," a book that traces healthcare matters throughout history. "Certainly people were giving money (for research) and worrying about their kids. They'd figured out (the transmitter) was water, and an awful lot of kids didn't get to swim during that time."
   The disease crippled thousands of children until the late 1950s, when vaccines were developed. Today, industrialized nations have nearly eliminated polio, but the disease still is a problem in some developing countries, according to the World Health Organization.
   Initial pessimism
   At first, Blair's parents were pessimistic about their son's chances of survival.
   "When my parents left me in the hospital, they left me to die," Blair said. "They were just resigned. They said, 'We'll never see him again.'"
   Blair couldn't move his legs or lift his head. He could move his arms only by walking his fingers over his bed sheets. His parents visited daily, sitting outside the building and communicating with their son through an open window.
   Near Blair's bed was a machine, a cylindrical device that stood waist high. A nurse would put a cup of water and beige wool pads in the machine, flip a switch and leave the room. The machine would make a whirring noise and emit a burning odor.
   The nurse would return, pull the wool pads from the machine with tongs and place the pads on Blair's arms, legs and stomach. The pads - uncomfortably hot but not scalding - were meant to loosen the muscles. Blair couldn't tell at the time, but he now believes the treatments helped.
   For more physical therapy, hospital workers pressed his legs against his chest and sat him up and forced his head down between his knees to the table.
   "Excruciating pain," Blair said. "I spit and scratched at the nurses. You're fighting, just trying to survive with animal instinct." Nurses had to close the door to keep other patients from hearing the boy's screams.
   Condition improved
   Compared with other patients, Blair's condition improved quickly.
   After seven weeks in the hospital, he was released. He could sit up and move his arms and legs, but he couldn't stand. Blair's parents made sure he kept up his physical therapy. Blair lay on quilts on the dining table, and his mother repeatedly bent his legs and pressed his head to his knees. To strengthen his diaphragm, he blew on a rubber tube, forcing water from one bottle into another. In the dining room, his father, Vic Blair, an auto parts salesman, built a set of parallel bars that Blair would grip and practice walking between.
   Blair eventually was able to walk again. He never has even needed crutches. But he never gained the stamina that most people have. The 1¤ flights of stairs he had to climb at his elementary school were too exhausting for him to climb repeatedly each day. He sat in his classroom during recess and watched his classmates play outside.
   Blair's family eventually moved to Abilene when he was 13, and Blair graduated from Abilene High School in 1960. He went on to college, then married Jessalu Beene in 1962. They had three children together and have lived in Corpus Christi in 1979.
   In his professional life, Blair has worked as a bookkeeper, an accountant and a machine operator.
   He served in the PTA and in Abilene's Civitan Club, the Boy Scout council and as a Jaycee.
   Blair's 31-year-old daughter, Tiffany Jennings, said she hardly noticed her father had any kind of physical problem when she was growing. She thought he had a slight limp, but she didn't consider him disabled. He has been a strong father, she said.
   "He made sure we went to church. He was responsible for our souls. He wanted to make sure we knew about the Bible, and we do."
   Decreasing stamina
   By 1997, Blair's stamina had dropped so much that he had to start working only part-time. Today, he works 22 hours a week as bookkeeper for a Corpus Christi T-shirt company.
   By robbing him of mobility, post-polio syndrome has triggered memories of his childhood suffering with polio more than 50 years ago.
   "I think about those times when I was immobile and when I was trying to gain my mobility, and my thoughts are that I had gained my mobility and was doing well," Blair said. "And now I'm regressing."
   Blair can stand up for only five or 10 minutes at a time. After that, his back hurts so much, he has to sit down. He knows that the more he taxes his body, the weaker it will get over the long-term. Last year, to stave off further deterioration, he bought a wheelchair - the first one he has owned since being stricken by polio 53 years ago.
   Post-polio syndrome has robbed him of his ability to do many household chores. These days, it's his wife who must mow the lawn, and his son Stacy takes care of other duties like trimming the trees.
   Wooden ramp
   In June 2000, Blair built a 9-foot wooden ramp so he can get in his front door with his wheelchair. The project exhausted him.
   "You want to be able to do what other people can do," he said. "I want to be able to go out and run with my grandkids, and I can't. I want to be able to pick them up and jostle them, but I can't.
   "It's getting worse," he said. "I know there will be a time I can't get out of that power-chair and walk across the room. There will be a time when I will have to have assistance to get in and out of a bathtub, and I don't like that."
   Somehow, Blair seems upbeat most of the time. He goes to work every day at 9 a.m. Every Sunday, he goes to Weber Road Church of Christ, where he is a deacon.
   He glides along the church aisles in his electric wheelchair, setting up sound equipment for services. He greets visitors with a smile and a handshake.
   "From the things I have read about post-polio, we are Type A personalities," Blair said. "We've always wanted to do a lot. We don't want to quit. We still feel like there is something out there for us to do."


Contact Dan Parker at 886-3753 or parkerd@caller.com

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