The Polio Hole

Shelley JD Mickle

Description

As a five-year-old, Shelley Fraser is known for mischief.

On Halloween in l949, she fancies her brother's devil costume and persuades her mother to hem it up for her. But her plan to scare the total baloney out of the neighbor's babies backfires.

At kindergarten, she throws a six-year-old birthday party never to be forgotten, falls in love at juice time, and learns to read.

Six weeks into first grade, she becomes one of over 30,000 falling down the Polio Hole—which is the way she thinks of the illness sweeping across America.

During those years of dealing with braces, crutches, the loss of muscles that will never come back, she finds she is still very much who she always was, only more aware of the world's miracles. With a lasting lesson from her night visitor in the Isolation Hospital and a second chance as the Halloween Queen with her sweetheart Richard, she also earns a dog named Buddy, a horse with the nickname Lightn', and the friendship of a woman who teaches the enchantment of letters that can be read only with a mirror.

Shelley's battle to overcome the nightmare illness that changed America is woven into the story of the scientific development of the vaccine that nailed shut the Polio Hole. The efforts to bury the Hole worldwide is a major challenge of the twenty-first century.

Sujets

• Médecine
• Médecine Générale
• Historical
• Lettres et linguistique
• Biography
• Autobiography

Informations

• Publié par: eBookIt.com
• Date de parution: 21 février 2013
• Nombre de lectures: 0
• EAN13: 9781456612771
• Langue: English

Extrait

The
POLIO
HOLE
The story of the illness that changed America
 
 
SHELLEY FRASER MICKLE
 
 


Copyright 2012 Shelley Mickle,
All rights reserved.
 
 
Published in eBook format by eBookIt.com
http://www.eBookIt.com
 
 
ISBN-13: 978-1-4566-1277-1
 
 
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

 
PRAISE FOR THE POLIO HOLE :
 
“ The Polio Hole is a vividly told, heartwarming account of Shelley Fraser Mickle’s childhood battle with the dread scourge of polio, set artfully in counterpoint with the ultimately successful medical search for an effective preventive vaccine.Written with grace and humor, totally free of self-pity, this is a story to cherish and remember.”
–Louis D. Rubin, Jr., Literary critic and historian, editor and novelist, author or editor of more than fifty books, recipient of the National Book Critics Circle Lifetime Achievement Award, charter member of The Fellowship of Southern Writers, esteemed figure in American letters for more than four decades
 
“ This story of a determined child’s fight to beat polio’s debilitating breakdown of her body is Shelley’s own. We share the sights and sounds as Shelley reveals her awakening sensitivities to everything from family dynamics to race relations. She weaves into this an account of the scientific and personal competition that occurred between Salk and Sabin as they developed their vaccines to prevent polio. Readers will develop an increased awareness of how the poliovirus affects the body and how vaccines work, as well as an appreciation of how disability can actually become enabling.”
– Parker A. Small Jr. MD, Professor Emeritus, University of Florida College of Medicine, Charter Member, National Vaccine Advisory Committee, National Medical School Basic Science Teacher of the Year Awardee
 
“Shelley Fraser Mickle’s memoir, The Polio Hole, is a wonderfully, informative narrative reminding us of a time when America was momentarily paralyzed with fear for its children and subsequently mobilized by mothers to defeat the epidemic of polio in America. Beautifully expressed, intertwining Shelley’s personal experience with polio and the race to find a vaccine, The Polio Hole is a must read. Donating a portion of the proceeds from the sales of this book, Shelley joins Rotary International as it works to ‘close the final inch’ to eradicate polio from the face of the earth.”
–Tony Domenech, President Rotary Club of Gainesville, Florida, District 6970
 
“Contrasting the voice of her own child-self with that of a journalist or historian, Shelley Fraser Mickle chronicles the frightening polio era. A prime example of the old rule that writers should write what they know, she introduces a largely unknown plague through her own descent into the Polio Hole. Those who know her will assert that the child’s voice is authentic; she still has the spunk of that six-year-old!”
–Marilyn Bishop Shaw, Reading Specialist and author of Soloman
 
 

TEL: [phone] • WWW.WILDONIONPRESS.COM
PRAISE FOR SHELLEY FRASER MICKLE’S PREVIOUS BOOKS:
 
REPLACING DAD - (A l999 CBS Movie)
 
“Quirky and likable characters amuse and engage the reader.”
— New York Times Book Review
“Mickle’s easy, forthright style transforms a familiar tale into winning fiction.”
— Starred Review, Publisher’s Weekly
 
THE QUEEN OF OCTOBER - (A New York Times Notable Book)
 
“This is a remarkable first novel, bursting with warmth, Shelley Mickle achieves a great deal more than laughter. She succeeds in creating characters the reader grows to love.”
— Chicago Tribune
“Impressive.”
— The New York Times Book Review
 
THE KIDS ARE GONE; THE DOG IS DEPRESSED & MOM’S ON THE LOOSE
 
“Shelley is the consummate storyteller. She presents each piece with a delightful sense of humor, yet the core of her stories illuminates some basic aspect of the human condition.”
—Henry Pensis, WUFT, NPR, Station Manager
 
THE TURNING HOUR
 
“What you will ultimately take away from (this novel) is a greater appreciation of the things you love about your own life.”
—Amy Auguston, Redbook Magazine’s Editors’ Picks for Fall 2001
 
THE ASSIGNED VISIT
 
“This believable and complex story has stayed with me long after the surprising and gratifying ending.”
—Cassandra King, author of Making Waves, The Sunday Wife, and The Same Sweet Girls
 
BARBARO, AMERICA’S HORSE
 
“I will be shocked if another book brings you truly as close to Barbaro as this one.”
—Richard D. Coreno, Berea, Ohio, Amazon Reviewer



 
 
 
For the world’s stolen childhoods, with thanks to Rotary International for their passionate dedication to burying the Polio Hole, worldwide.

 
 
 
Also by Shelley Fraser Mickle
 
 
NOVELS:
The Queen of October
Replacing Dad
The Turning Hour
The Assigned Visit
 
 
RADIO ESSAYS:
The Kids Are Gone; The Dog Is Depressed & Mom’s on the Loose
 
 
NONFICTION:
Barbaro, America’s Horse (for ages 9-12)

 
 
 
Parts of this memoir were heard as a commentary on National Public Radio’s Morning Edition , titled Six and Sick as a Dog , on the anniversary of the Salk Vaccine, April 12, 2006.

 
 
 
Author’s Note
 
I wrote this mostly to get back at Ol’ Tennessee Williams for making that girl in The Glass Menagerie so pitiful she couldn’t get a boyfriend. But also to preserve a cultural history that is about to be lost. Since this is the story of one ordinary mind reacting to an unexpected, life-changing event, it can also say a good bit about who we are at the bottom of ourselves. It just happens to be my mind.
As for the wondrous story of the race for the vaccine that ended a national nightmare, one can gain deeper understanding from David Oshinsky’s Polio, An American Story. My distillation of what Mr. Oshinsky has given us is merely an attempt to place my experience on the rim of medical history and, in so doing, give a guided tour into the world of science, the workshop of miracles.
 
 
Shelley Fraser Mickle
Winter, 2008
1
THE WIPE OUT
We are three blocks from home. “Hold your legs out. Don’t get near the spokes.” My brother is bossing, pedaling, standing up, his backside going up and down, up and down. I’m perched on the bike’s back fender with my fingers gripping the seat like a cat’s claws. My brother has a rule: if I touch him, I have to pay for it, like having to clean his stinky fish tank. But he does have a point since, when I hold onto him, I unbalance him, which puts both of us in danger of a wipe out. “I mean it now. Don’t touch me. And don’t get near the spokes.”
I both adore and hate my brother; but most of all I want his admiration, so I hold my legs out like boat oars on either side of the back wheel. It is October, 1950. I have been in the first grade six weeks. Today my teacher has let me out early, and my brother has gotten the same permission. After all, it’s not every day your parents become famous.
For a week they have been in New York City—my dad on business; my mother, well, up to getting on the radio, which means she’s trotted herself down to all the game shows to see if she can be selected as a contestant. All her life she has craved to be an actress, even went to acting school in New York before she got married and had my brother and me. Then two days ago, bingo! She was chosen.
Now she was sitting in the audience of a game show called Rate Your Mate , where a husband “rates” what his wife will know. In about ten minutes, she will get up out of the audience and win a bunch of money, since we’re all dead certain she won’t know the answers to even the simplest questions. And when my father predicts that, they’ll win a bundle. It’s about the most exciting thing to ever happen in our little Arkansas town. Practically everybody is stopping work, turning on radios, spinning up the volume.
My brother is now heading onto the packed gravel road two blocks from our red-painted house. There, our three grandparents are waiting for us: two grandmothers and our grandfather, who’s the town’s retired doctor. Three against two—those are the best odds to care for us while our parents are away.
•
The announcer calls my mother’s name. She hurries onto the stage, taking her place behind the microphone. “So, where are you from?” the game-show host asks.
My mother looks out into the audience. “McCrory, Arkansas.” Her accent twangs.
“Where is that?”
“Down the road a piece from Bald Knob.”
“A piece of road?”
My mother bats back, “Oh, you know, it means just a little way.”
The audience roars with laughter. Obviously, she fits their idea of a hillbilly visiting the big city.
“Can you give us any more of an idea where exactly McCrory, Arkansas, is?”
“Oh, sure. It’s between Pumpkin Bend and Cotton Plant.”
The laughter now explodes. My mother doesn’t understand why. She looks down to see if her slip is showing. The laughter grows even louder. She fiddles with her buttons, making sure they are all closed. The laughter becomes deafening.
The game show host waits, delighted. Finally, my mother catches on. Aha! So, the audience thinks she is dumb. Well, she certainly knows how to play that role. She jumps on the moment like a butterfly hitchhiking on a biker. All her life, this is exactly what she has been waiting for.
“And what do you do there?”
“I’m a homemaker. But I used to be a teacher.”
“What did you teach?”
“Speeeeeech.”
•
In the second block toward home, I’ve concentrated so hard on doing what my brother has told me not to do, that I do it. The toe of my saddle oxford sneaks into the back spokes, and bang!—the bike throws us like a rank mule. Sprawled on the packed gravel, we look at each other. The back wheel is bent; th