At the beginning of this month I told you about a book that had come out with some compelling information about the Polio epidemic that swept the country in the 50's, told from first person experience. The link to that post is HERE.
As a follow-up, I just received a Q & A from the author that gives some additional in-depth background on the book and the subject matter.
Enjoy!
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Q&A with Karen Chase, author of POLIO BOULEVARD
Sixty years after your childhood polio diagnosis and after a long,
successful career as an author of poems, stories and essays, why did you finally
decide to write your memoir, POLIO BOULEVARD?
While
my childhood was marred by the disease and its recovery, I did not consciously
think of myself as a polio survivor. For many decades, I never looked back. My
polio became a distant memory. I suppose it has taken me this long to write
about it because, for some people, personal stories take a long time to
tell. Although I didn’t experience my
illness as traumatic, no doubt it was.
Maybe I repressed the story. For
some reason, it never popped up as something to talk or write about. Art being what it is – art emerges from the
soul – it suddenly loomed large as a subject to explore in my writing. I don’t question this process. I just tag along, following the muse.
What was your childhood like prior to your polio diagnosis?
I
was a sprouting ten-year-old girl living in an affluent suburb of New York City,
and all was well. I was merrily jumping rope and playing hopscotch with my
friends. I’d hop on my bike and help my
older brother deliver newspapers up and down the streets of my town. I’d swim
in Long Island Sound, a short bike ride from our house. And I had a new baby
sister! I was in fifth grade. One day
while walking home from school for lunch, kicking a stone down the road, my
legs began to hurt. After a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and glass of cold
milk, I said, “Mom, I can’t go back to school today.” My neck got stiff, my
fever rose alarmingly, and what started as small pains turned into large ones.
The doctor came and soon I was rushed to the hospital in an ambulance,
diagnosed with polio.
What was the recovery process like?
I
spent 6 months in Sunshine Cottage, the polio ward at Grasslands Hospital in
Westchester County, NY. During that
time, I was in a wheelchair and had a back brace. Later, I was put in a
full-length body cast, underwent a spinal fusion at the Hospital for Special
Surgery in New York City. I left school in fifth grade upon my diagnosis and
did not return until I was a high school freshman.
How did your rich imagination and creativity help you through your
ordeal?
As
a young girl, my mother took me on the train into New York City where I took
painting lessons in the basement of the Metropolitan Museum. Right now, I can
smell those oversized jars of red and blue tempera. I loved to paint. Polio
struck when I was ten years old and I was shocked to be immobilized—first by
the deadening effect of polio and later by an enormous body cast. As my body
was losing motion, my mind was painting. I remember lying inert in my hospital
bed, focused on the dots of the hospital ceiling tiles. I pretended they were all kinds of animals on
the move—bears, camels, foxes on parade. With the help of my abundant
imagination, I joked around on the hospital ward, making life not only bearable
but fun. Looking monster-like in my full-length body cast, I wrote a letter to
the Barbizon School of Modeling, asking whether I could become a model. My illness
made for a rich inner life and immobility shaped and widened my vision. After
polio, I valued my mind’s flexibility like gold.
How did having polio as a child affect your sensory experiences and
body image?
The
way a blind person compensates for for lack of vision by exceptional hearing, I
compensated for my immobility by always looking, looking, looking and always
listening. Before I got sick, I was particularly tuned in to what I saw and
heard. Since then, this tendency has
mushroomed. To this day, I react strongly to even the slightest sound, which
can sometimes be difficult. When I hear friends talk about aging, how this or
that attribute has changed, I realize how my polio has affected my body image.
My body has been imperfect for as long as I can remember. Seeing my body age is part of this ongoing
imperfection so it is not jarring. I
don’t mean to sound like I don’t care what I look like – I’m actually quite
vain.
What was your reaction to the news that Jonas Salk had invented the
polio vaccine?
In
the spring of 1954, when I was a patient in the polio ward at Grasslands
Hospital in Westchester County, I was happily playing Monopoly with my friends. The radio was on. A voice announced that a doctor named Jonas
Salk had invented a vaccine to prevent polio.
Some of us turned silent, some of us laughed, and one patient blurted
out, “Too late for us!” Here we were, a
group of ill children on stretchers and in wheelchairs living through an
historical moment when polio’s peril was replaced by joy and relief.
What has been your personal perspective over the years on Franklin
Delano Roosevelt, a polio patient who became president of the United States?
For
me and so many others who had polio, FDR is a figure alive in our imaginations.
How helpful to know how he embraced life after his illness, how courageous he
was, how he moved ahead in the world. Not only that, but the way he tirelessly
worked and fought for those less fortunate is inspiring, especially in today’s
climate. Additionally, my parents were
lefty liberals and adored Roosevelt.
There were plenty of books around our house about him, making him a
familiar character. I have always felt a
kinship with him, almost like we are part of the same family, almost like he is
my grandfather. In fact, writing POLIO
BOULEVARD, a book in which FDR is an important character, has led to my current
writing project.
What has your reaction been to hearing that polio is back in the news
as a global threat again?
That
children in Pakistan, Nigeria, Afghanistan, Syria and Iraq wake up in their
beds with pain and fever as polio invades their bodies and does its deadly work
is a devastating thought. How can this be? Because of the preventative power of
the Salk Vaccine, it is avoidable. The World Health Organization, the Bill and
Melinda Gates Foundation, and the International Rotary Club have dedicated
themselves to making the earth polio-free.
Through their efforts and their dollars, combined with many countries’
internal efforts, polio has been eradicated in most of the world. Recently,
while spending time in New Delhi, I saw billboards that publicized polio as an
existing threat. But I also learned that the Indian government was sending out
massive numbers of people to families and religious leaders in order to foster
understanding about immunizations. Aid
workers were being sent to the most remote villages in the country to dispense
the vaccine. Even Bollywood stars and celebrity cricket players joined in. Huge
efforts from within the country, combined with international dedication, have
made India polio-free as of 2013, making India a prime example of how polio can
be stricken from this earth.
What are your views on the current parental trend in vaccine hesitancy?
During
my childhood, polio terrified the country, killing and crippling at random. It
lurked anywhere, came on as easily as a cold. Any fever, stiff neck or sore
throat caused hysteria. Parents of young children today cannot imagine what a
deadly epidemic is like. If you’re
reading about the Ebola virus spreading through West Africa right now and the
alarm that is causing, you can begin to understand the terror of polio. Today,
a controversy swirls around the subject of vaccines. To me it is clear: it is a
basic public health service for the government to require children to be
vaccinated against polio. Society needs such protection. Considering my
childhood ordeal, I cannot imagine forgoing the protection the polio vaccine
provides.
What do you hope readers take away from POLIO BOULEVARD?
First
and foremost, I hope readers find this a good, exotic, well-told story that
they can’t put down. I hope that the story encourages those who are ill or have
ill children to try to focus on what’s positive in the situation, and not to be
defined by it. You are who you are, no matter the illness, and it helps not to
lose that sense of yourself. This brings
me to the reason the book appeals to young readers. To read about a serious obstacle in life that
doesn’t touch you directly – it’s in a book!
– is one way of conquering and mastering fear. People like to read about
disease and I hope that the story of my childhood illness shows how even in the
throes of serious disease, one can be confident, have fun and live a good life.
I also hope that those vaccine-hesitant parents who struggle with the issue,
will find the story of my illness thought provoking, in terms of what is was
like to live in a culture with an ongoing horrifying epidemic.
What are you working on next?
Franklin
Delano Roosevelt makes many appearances in POLIO BOULEVARD and now has become
the sole focus of my current writing project.
Three years after he was stricken with polio, he bought a houseboat with
a friend and named it the Larooco. From
1924-26, he spent a few months each winter in the Florida Keys on the
boat. While there, he kept a nautical
log, writing longhand each day about fish caught, weather, the boat’s route,
engine trouble, guests, and meals. The Larooco Log is entrancing and is the centerpiece
of my new project.