Inspiration, news and knowledge from Polio Experience Network
No. 8 September – October, 1995
In This Issue:
Bruised Reeds, by Elinor Young
Polio In Perspective, by Dr. Jaqueline Perry
Bruised Reeds
by Elinor Young
I just came in from grooming the pansies on my patio. One plant was yellow and dried up, but a two-inch piece was green and valiantly trying to root where it touched the ground. I stuck it in the ground, hoping it will grow and bloom.
While doing that, I recalled one nice Spring day when I was a young girl. I had walked to the farm next door and saw my aunt by her house. She was thinning snap-dragons, pulling up the small, crowded ones. The sun had already wilted some where they lay on the ground. I asked, “Aunt Martha, may I have those flowers?”
Despite her warning that they wouldn’t live, I carried the limp seedlings home and gently planted and watered each one. Eventually they burst into a happy display of blooms.
Somehow, recalling that story made me also think of Songmag.
Songmag, a Kimyal village girl living in the high mountain valley of Korupun, Irian Jaya, Indonesia, started doing house-work for me when she was 12. Neno, a boy of 15, did laundry and yard work.
Village leaders ended Songmag and Neno’s employment after a few years, when they stole some things. They were married, turned their lives over to God, and I could see some genuine changes of heart.
The next year, at age 15, Songmag had a baby boy. But something was wrong. She took her baby to Jessie, an Australian nurse who was my colleague. The little boy had no skull from above his ears and brow ridge; only skin covered his brain.
Kimyal babies are kept and carried in net-bags lined with leaves, grass and pandanas-leaf rain capes for wind-break and rigidity, so the bag doesn’t squeeze the baby too much. But that was scant protection for this baby. Jessie didn’t expect him to live more than ten days.
Songmag was heart-broken. Her love for her baby boy cut directly across Kimyal cultural values.
Defective, unwanted or twin babies were always thrown into a cold swift river. Songmag was taunted, “Throw the baby into the river. He’s no good.” She and Neno were told, “It’s your fault. It’s punishment for stealing. Throw him away.” Worse, Songmag was ostracized, the ultimate rudeness to be endured in Kimyal culture. Neno quietly loved and supported his young wife. Day after day I saw her on the trail without a companion and in her gardens with no one working beside her. Always her netbag was on her back, carrying her child. His unprotected brain often caused seizures, and Songmag would rush him to Jessie. Jessie could do little for the baby, but she did try to calm and console Songmag. Incredibly, the baby lived six weeks.
How did these two teenagers carry such a huge burden, withstanding that tremendous cultural pressure? They found their strength in the Lord.
When God asks, “May I have you, may I have your life?” even if we reply, “Yes, but you’re not getting much,” the Bible still promises, “A bruised reed he will not break, and a smoldering wick he will not snuff out. In faithfulness he will bring forth justice.” (Isa. 52:3) Those words reassure me when I feel our culture’s sometimes degrading attitudes towards people with disabilities. You know what I mean – those times when you wonder if you have letters across your forehead that spell “unworthy.” If your life is in God’s hands, He isn’t going to throw you in the river, or even leave you to wilt and die in the sun. People may, but “in faithfulness He will bring forth justice” in the end. I don’t know about you, but to me, that’s a tremendous comfort.
________
Before post-polio syndrome, Elinor Young spent eighteen years in the wilds of Indonesia serving as a Missionary to a previously cannibalistic people. Her perspectives on life give us a special comfort in our own hours of trial and discomfort.
(From)
POLIO IN PERSPECTIVE FOR 1995
With Dr. Jacquelin Perry Reported by Mary Clarke Atwood
Jacquelin Perry, M.D. is Chief of Pathokinesiology and Polio Services at Rancho Los Amigos Medical Center. The full paper is available in the library of Polio Outreach of Spokane.
DIAGNOSING PPS
Dr. Perry bases a diagnosis of PPS on three things:
1. a history of polio;
2. a period of some recovery followed by new loss of function;
3. a physical examination that reveals: A. scattered muscle weakness (observed during an extensive manual muscle test from head to toe); B. normal sensations; C. reflexes that are normal (2+) for strong muscles and depressed for weak muscles.
MUSCLE MATTERS
* Recovered muscles (post-polio) are less efficient since there are fewer motor units as well as larger motor units.
* If muscle weakness is revealed on a manual muscle test of the upper leg, probably 1/3 to 1/2 of that muscle has been lost.
* The weaker the muscle, the less frequently it should be used.
* Every muscle can be overused – even those of athletes and marathoners!
* If you do not have strong enough muscles for normal activities you cannot do the same activities as people with normal muscles.
For normal muscles only 20% of the fibers are at work at any one time so there is less fatigue. For polios, some muscles’ fibers may be working 100% at any given time so they get no rest and fatigue very quickly. If less than 20% of the muscle fiber is working at a given time, the muscle gets full oxygenation and works fine. As the percentage of muscle fiber in use increases “the less rest they get, the less oxygen they get, the less they have a capacity to repair themselves.”
LIFESTYLE MODIFICATION
* “If you have symptoms, you modify your lifestyle and remove the strain.”
* Find ways to make tasks easier or get rid of the tasks.
* Break up activities with rest periods.
* Stop doing heavy tasks.
* Extra body weight is like carrying around a spare tire. The recommendation is to reduce body weight by re-educating your taste buds.
* Don’t forget that PPS is due to accumulated strain from chronic overuse. “So get rid of the chronic overuse.”
* Dr. Perry’s motto: “Be an Intelligent Hypochondriac!”
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