“I will be getting the shingles vaccine whether RFK Jr. thinks I should or not”
A COLIMN By Kathryn Ross
I’ve never been very strict on keeping up with all the latest vaccines. As a child of the 50s, I remember the polio epidemic. I know my parents signed a paper, and as a student at Washington School on Hanover Street I and my fellow classmates were herded onto a school bus. We rode, I think, to Jones Memorial Hospital, where we lined up to get our polio shots. There’s also a scar on my upper left arm where I received the smallpox vaccine. Those vaccines are the reason polio and smallpox are rare today despite what RFK Jr. spouts.
I recall a couple of kids that suffered the crippling effects of the polio virus. We have a lot to thank, Jonas Salk for, even if RFK Junior doesn’t think so. But, I got to wondering, as I am want to do, about all those kids who were pushed into Iron Lungs after polio destroyed the muscles that allowed them to breathe.
Martha Lillard is one of them. In 1953, when she was five years old when she contracted Polio. She was placed in an Iron Lung. Today, at 77, she is the last known American polio survivor who lives in an Iron Lung. An Iron Lung is a body-sized metal cylinder with a negative pressure ventilator that uses pressure to allow Martha’s lungs to function. Hundreds of thousands of polio victims, mostly children, were placed in them.
I can recall seeing photos in Life magazine of hospital rooms filled with dozens of children encapsulated in those metal tubes with just their heads hanging out of the end.
Doctors taught many of them an alternative form of manual breathing that allowed the victims to spend some time outside the cylinder that kept them alive.
A resident of Shawnee, OK, Martha Lillard’s life has been limited. She spends her sleeping hours in an Iron Lung. That is when she can breathe naturally and sleep. She spends her waking hours outside the Iron Lung painting, watching TV and raising her beagles.
She never got to play outside, climb a tree, go to the movie theater, ride in a car with the top down, go to a dance, or a football game, fall in love, have a baby, or even go to work. I don’t know how she supports herself. The brief paragraphs I read about her didn’t say.
In one way that Iron Lung saved Martha’s life. In another way it didn’t, but I imagine any life is better than no life.
I’ve never gotten a flu vaccine because I’ve never really gotten the flu (knock on wood.) If the need returns, I will get the COVID vaccine and probably the flu vaccine, because I’ve learned my lesson.
Just before Christmas I was diagnosed with Shingles. While I no longer have a scabby face that scares children. I still have numbness and pain in my face, my teeth hurt and my left eye itches. It is hard to sleep at night. I don’t know when the last time I had a full night’s rest. There is a nerve in my nose that’s very sensitive to the cold and I’d love to find a nose warmer. Right now I’m using a folded-up paper mask that shields my nose but doesn’t cause my glasses to fog up.
I used to laugh off getting the shingles vaccine thinking my immune system would protect me. I’m not laughing now. One thing I know for sure is that once I’m able, I will be getting the shingles vaccine whether RFK Jr. thinks I should or not. I advise others to get it too.
There is one thing I’ve found myself doing throughout my life when I’m in some sort of jam. The first time I did this I was in college and panicked about taking an exam. That morning as I was getting ready to face the music, I turned on the old Sally Jaffey Rapheal talk show. There, on the screen was a panel of adult conjoined twins. I thought to myself this is just a test and went out the door knowing, I didn’t have any problems compared to some other people.
This time I read about Martha Lillard and realized that although I’ve had shingles for over a month, it’s not a lifetime. It will be warmer soon and my pain will go away, and I have a life to get back to.
