The nurses rolled all the stretchers and wheelchairs as close as they could around the small TV. We all went wild when the Beatles sang their number one song, “I Want to Hold Your Hand.” It was a welcome reprieve from our pain and the long recovery we all had to endure.

I’m remembering my mother; a beautiful, delicate unassuming person who brought me through my initial bout with Polio and the resulting rehabilitation and surgeries. Mothers of Polio survivors are unsung heroes.

This Polio Survivor Inspired Love in his Grandfather’s Art.

One day I was an active 12-year-old riding my bike, playing baseball with my friends and climbing trees on my grandmother’s farm. The next day, I remember feeling bad, missing school and developing a limp.

Donahue is not the ‘woe is me’ type. If people ask him about his uneven gait, he usually just tells them he’d tripped over something the other day.

Emanuel (Manny) Poznanski was born in Israel, where he contracted paralytic polio when he was 4 months old. He said his mother rushed him on a plane to the U.S. to save his life.

“You’re OK but your feet don’t match”, my future husband jokingly said to me as he was walking me home from our first meeting.

“I think an important element for any young person is the whole concept of resilience and perseverance. I mean, no one’s life is free of problems, of challenges, of confrontations.” Lauro Halstead