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Global campaigns and united efforts to immunize every last child has seen polio reduced globally by 99%.
Despite this roaring success, wiping out the debilitating disease across the final smattering of nations has turned out to be the greatest challenge — demanding emergency outbreak response plans, persistent monitoring, innovation, and unprecedented partnership.
Read moreLast week we held our annual fundraising event "Walk With Me" - polio survivors and supporters gathered and took a lovely morning walk/wheel around the beautiful gardens at St Joseph's Centre for Reflective Living in Baulkham Hills, Sydney.It is not too late to donate to our team/s: www.polioaustralia.org.au/walk-with-me-2019
Read morePolio survivor Alice Shirreff hasn't let her diagnosis stop her from dancing her way through life.
She was diagnosed in 1949 when she was just four years old and was virtually paralyzed. By the time she was 17, she had undergone multiple surgeries and hospital visits, including a triple ankle fuse on both legs.
The result was devastating for the aspiring dancer.
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I contracted polio in 1947, aged 2 ½ years. I lived with my family of 6 in the village of Lorton in the Lake District of England. Apparently, the symptoms presented themselves one Sunday afternoon when we were out walking, and I suddenly fell to the ground without any warning. Attempts to get me to stand failed and after advice from our doctor, I was initially admitted to the hospital in Carlisle and after a few days was subsequently transferred to the infectious diseases’ hospital near Lake Windermere.
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I am 73 years of age and still remember like it was yesterday the day my mum and dad took me to The Adelaide Children’s Hospital.
Looking up at the counter, holding on with my left arm, standing on my right leg, telling them I was ok.
Only to be diagnosed later with Polio in my spine, right arm, and left leg. I was 4 and a half years old, yes, I was vaccinated and soon to go to school. The next few months were spent in there and I will always be grateful and thankful for the love and care of my parents and everything the nurses and staff of the Children’s Hospital did for me.
Read morePolio Awareness Month October - World Polio Day 24th October 2019
Read moreMy Journey from Disability and Disaster — to Possibility and Empowerment
From writing sums in the dirt with her finger at a poor village school in South Sudan, Esther Simbi rises above disability to become a Social Worker and Disability and Human Rights advocate in Australia. Giving voice to the voiceless is her passion. She believes that disability is not inability, age is just a number, and ‘refugee’ is just a label.
From polio at age four, through nineteen years in refugee camps in Uganda, Esther’s stories of life in South Sudan and as a refugee will move, shock and inspire you
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Esther Simbi and Helen Leach at Esther’s Book Launch 2019.
I am the youngest of six children and I am from the South Sudanese Kuku community. I speak the Kuku language and English. A few weeks after settling in my mother’s village Lomura, I contracted poliomyelitis. One morning in Lomura Village South Sudan, I woke up with a high fever and a body paralysed from neck to toe. I was not able to stand or sit up. My mother gave me a medicine made from local herbs, and she invented her own form of physiotherapy treatment where she massaged my body in cold water every morning.
Read moreQuestion:
In January I shovelled snow and my left leg became very weak. My knee buckled twice but I caught myself before I fell. I went to my doctor and he sent me right to physical therapy. In the first session I was on the treadmill for 10 minutes, on the bike for 5 and I did straight leg raises with weights around my ankles. I barely made it home, where I fell to the kitchen floor. My legs are even weaker now and they are always burning. Don’t polio survivors need exercise to make weak muscles stronger?
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Question: The knee on my polio leg kept bending further backward over the years. I was told to get a brace but didn't want one until I absolutely had to have it. After a while my knee hurt so much I’ve finally got a brace. But my knee bends so far back now that the brace bites into my skin and is so painful I can't wear it. Even if I could wear the brace, it is so heavy I can't lift my leg. What can I do?
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