system: You are Tom Mckeever, a caller on a 1990s BBS posting in the Post Polio message echo. Write like a real BBS user of the era — plain, direct, in your own voice, no modern polish.

user: You are replying to All about "POLIO ARTICLE".

They wrote:
RR> Date:         Sun, 30 Apr 1995 14:35:12 -0400
RR> From:         Robert Mauro <RMAURO@DELPHI.COM>
RR> Subject:      My Polio Article
RR> To:           Multiple recipients of list POLIO <POLIO@SJUVM.STJOHNS.EDU>
RR> Feel free to publish this in any of your pps newsletters or send it
RR> to pps publications:
RR>                 POLIO RETURNS AND INTERNET HELPS
RR>                          By Robert Mauro
RR>                         rmauro@delphi.com
RR>      During the first half of the Twentieth Century, Polio was a
RR> disease as dreaded as AIDS is today.  Each years millions of
RR> mothers in hundreds of cities all over the United States and
RR> throughout the world, dreaded Summers and public swimming pools,
RR> which were when and where Polio was thought to be spread.  Every
RR> headache, every fever was feared.  No one was immune to Polio.
RR> The rich were just as susceptible as the poor.  In 1921 even
RR> Franklin Delano Roosevelt was stricken by Polio.  In his time, FDR
RR> started the March of Dimes and Warm Springs to combat the after
RR> affects of Polio.  Today Warm Springs is gearing up once again to
RR> help those now living with Post Polio Syndrome.  Even the
RR> Information Superhighway is helping to help those of us who still
RR> have Polio to contend with.
RR>      Unlike those with AIDS, many of us who were infected with the
RR> Polio virus thirty or forty years ago have survived.
RR> Rehabilitation initially helped many of us who were paralyzed leave
RR> our iron lungs and our wheelchairs and our braces.  Hundreds of
RR> thousands of us who had Polio, eventually regained the use of arms
RR> and legs and breathing muscles.  We Polio survivors went to school,
RR> college, got jobs, married and had children.  We started careers.
RR> Then something began to happen to us.  It had been happening all
RR> through the history of Polio.  Even as far back as the days of the
RR> Pyramids.  But this strange set phenomena, these strange after
RR> affects of Polio, only began to be recognized in the late 1970's.
RR> Polio survivors began to experience new symptoms.  Weakness,
RR> shortness of breath, pain, and depression.
RR>      Many of us with Polio went from doctor to doctor, trying to
RR> get a diagnoses.  Why were we always tired?  Why did our arms and
RR> legs ache?  Why were we getting winded so easily?  Some doctors
RR> attributed all these new symptoms to college or job stress.  It
RR> was "all in our heads."  But we Polio survivors were not convinced.
RR> There was something real happening to us, something slow and
RR> insidious.  Eventually we discovered what it was.  Post Polio
RR> Syndrome.  Nerve cells were dying faster than normal.  Overuse was
RR> killing them.  In the past, Polio doctors thought exercise was good
RR> rehabilitation practice for Polio survivors.  Today they are saying
RR> not to exercise, not to over tax our bodies.
RR>      All over the country during the 1980's, Polio Support Groups
RR> were being set up, some sponsored by Easter Seals.  And finally
RR> Internet came to the rescue.  Thanks to Dr. Robert Zenhausern of
RR> St. Johns University in New York City, I was able to start my Post
RR> Polio Syndrome Internet List.  That was in September of 1994,
RR> forty-three years after I was diagnosed with Polio on my fifth
RR> birthday, which was less than four years before the Salk Vaccine.
RR>      Today on my Polio list we have hundreds of subscribers from
RR> all over the world.  Together we get and share information on Post
RR> Polio Syndrome.  Drug therapies, new symptoms, ventilator use, and
RR> most important, a support network of friends who care about each
RR> other are there at your fingertips.  All you need are a computer,
RR> a modem, and Internet access.
RR>      Anyone can join our Polio List by simply sending the message
RR> SUB POLIO YOUR NAME to Listserv@sjuvm.stjohns.edu.  If you are a
RR> Polio survivor like myself, you will find the international support
RR> you need and the friendship you'll love.  You'll even find Dr.
RR> Lauro S. Halstead, probably the best Polio doctor in the United
RR> States, if not the world.  Join us.
RR>      One of our many Post Polio Syndrome list subscribers is Tom
RR> Dempsey.  Tom has created a Polio Page on the World Wide Web.  On
RR> it you can read articles about Polio and get all the latest facts
RR> on new treatments.  To read the WWW Polio Page, just log on to:
RR>              http://www.eskimo.com/~dempt/polio.htmL
RR>      In 1994, according to the World Health Organization, there
RR> were 6200 recorded cases of new Polio.  Today the WHO is trying to
RR> wipe out Polio by the year 2000.  If they are successful with their
RR> vaccination program, the Polio virus will finally become extinct.
RR> Vanish from the planet.  It will no longer paralyze children and
RR> adults.  But there will still be hundreds of thousands of Polio
RR> survivors like myself living on into the Twenty First Century.
RR> Internet will be there to help all of us living with Post Polio
RR> Syndrome.  And we will have all the information we need to be able
RR> to live the best -- the healthiest -- lives we can.

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Tom..
(tom.mckeever@mit.com)
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