November 12th – Christina Homer – living with Polio

SPECIAL TWIN BRIDGES ROTARY MEETING:   November 12th – Christina Homer – living with Polio

Where:  The Century House, Route 9, Latham

When:   Noon, November 12th

Serving:  choice of: Sliced grilled pork loin with potato & vegetable  or Grilled chicken over tossed greens

Cost:   $12

RSVP is needed by Tuesday, Nov. 10th

Christina Homer:  A post-polio syndrome victim who has recently become aware of the great work Rotary is doing to eradicate polio and wants to inform and inspire Rotarians to keep up the great work.  No one can possibly understand a polio victim’s life better than a survivor.  She is a retired teacher who enjoyed a good life despite the horrible childhood, who married a teacher and who now has become a prisoner in her own body.

Christina was stricken with polio at the age of 4 months.  She was hospitalized in a polio ward until the age of 5 where she spent most of her time in an iron lung.  At this period of time parents were urged not to maintain contact with their children and so the most Christina ever saw of her parents was an occasional face in a window.  She received no human contact nor affection from her care givers and she was not taught anything, not even how to speak.  When she finally appeared to be cured of polio at the age of 5 she became a “polio poster child.”

Christina was released from hospital into the care of an Armenian foster family and was sent to an Armenian church school.  She did not learn to speak English until she went to high school where she had to work doubly hard to learn English and catch up to other children of her age.  Despite these handicaps she graduated at the top of her class and went on to a top college and became a teacher.  It was not until later in her life that Christina realized that polio had come back to haunt her again in the form of “post polio syndrome.”

Until that time Christina was physically active  and tried to live life to the utmost not realizing that she was taxing her body to the point where it began to fail again.  Today she must lead a very circumscribed life for fear that she will wear out the last remaining nerves connecting to her muscles and leaving her with an almost useless body.