I was born in Oak Ridge, Tennessee in 1946. I remember the public city swimming pool being closed during the summer to prevent the spread of polio. When I was in grade school, there was a clinical trail held with the Salk polio vaccine which my mother took me to for vaccination by injection. Parents were very concerned about preventing polio during this era possible due to President Roosevelt being a daily example of what the disease could do.
As I got older and moved to Norris, Tennessee, I had the Sabin polio vaccine administered to me on a sugar cube. The oral polio vaccine was quickly accepted by children, especially since it didn’t involve a shot. A third polio vaccine was later developed which I took orally while in high school in 1963. I remember it tasting salty.
I entered nursing school in 1964-68 at East Tennessee State University. During nursing school, we were taken to the hospital basement to experience an iron lung lesson. Nursing students got to be placed in an iron lung to feel what it was like for a polio victim to breath. We never forgot the feeling of pressure being increased and released on our chest in a rhythmic fashion as a substitute for what we healthy students took for granted with each breath.
I later got a Master’s degree in nursing and worked in intensive care, cardiovascular specialty, and later school nursing after having 3 kids of my own. I have worked as a school nurse for over 30 years seeing the development of vaccines for common childhood diseases I once had myself. It is very important to our family to have our 10 grandchildren completely immunized, not just for school requirements, but as active participants in a community containing those with medical challenges and immunity deficiencies.
As a school nurse, I have met parents who decline immunizations for measles, mumps, rubella, polio, meningitis, whooping cough, chickenpox, hepatitis B, etc. Poorly informed parents believe the internet stories. DON’T.