Juliana Recio Calero: An Advocate

In this video, Juliana tells her story:

via YouTube: My name is Juliana Recio Calero and I grew up in beautiful Bogotá, Colombia. When I was an infant, I contracted polio and to everyones surprise, survived bronchial pneumonia as well as numerous surgical orthopedic procedures. 30 years later, post-polio syndrome caused me new weaknesses, pain, and fatigue. After walking with leg braces and crutches for years, I had to readjust and accept a new condition that was progressive. After fighting it for a while, I started using a wheelchair, because it gave me independence, made me faster, and helped me conserve energy.

Seven Wheelchairs: A Life Beyond Polio

Author Gary Presley was kind enough to stop by my blog and leave a note about his memoir, Seven Wheelchairs: A Life beyond Polio which was recently released by The University of Iowa Press .

He wrote:

The memoir is a history -- an American tale -- of my fifty year wheelchair journey after being struck by both bulbar and lumbar poliomyelitis after a vaccine accident in 1959. The Press says Seven Wheelchairs gives "readers the unromantic truth about life in a wheelchair, he escapes stereotypes about people with disabilities and moves toward a place where every individual is irreplaceable."

Other reviewers have called Seven Wheelchairs "sardonic and blunt," "a compelling account," and "powerful and poetic."

...We all live different disability stories, I know, but perhaps if you find the memoir worthwhile, you might want to recommend the book to others who are curious about what polio or disability in general.

Of course, the book is also available through Amazon and Barnes & Noble.

I certainly do want people to know about your book, Gary, so here's a post and I look forward to reading it. Readers can find links to buy the book over at Gary's blog which is at this link and request a copy with his signature.

Polio researcher Vogt dies

Marguerite Vogt, age 94, contributed to Nobel pirze winning research on cancer cells and contributed toward discovering the polio vaccine. Her work was never fully recognized, according to other scientists, yet she devoted her entire life to her profession. At 14 her first work was published and in 2001 at the age of 88 she was still spending long days in the laboratory.

"At the Salk Institute, Dr. Vogt was a senior scientist and professor of molecular and cell biology. She became an American citizen in 1958. She never married and left no immediate survivors.

Dr. Vogt continued to conduct research into her 90s, aided by her close friend Dr. Martin Haas, a biologist and former student of hers. She was never known to have complained about her lack of formal recognition.

“I’m happy not to have been bothered,” she recalled in an interview with The New York Times in 2001. “When you get too famous, you stop being able to work.”

Via NY Times

[visual description: A photo of Vogt at the age of 88 at work in her lab wearing a lab coat, smiling.]

Post polio information

...from Pastor Dick Helms website. Pastor Helms has an impressive array of links as well as personal stories based on his own experiences from disability to recovery to disability as he calls it.

I have a few friends who are dealing with post polio symptoms as they age and found this site very informative and helpful. Thanks , Pastor Helms!