Hello to all my friends and fellow members.
Like most of the people I have met that are going through the
various stages of PPS, I was stricken by the polio virus at a very
young age.
I was 2 years old, and have absolutely no memory at all of the early
years of my battle with Polio.
I have some information, but only what was told to me by my Mother
as I grew older.
According to my mother, I spent 2 years in an Iron lung. At first I
was in it full time, and eventually with therapy was only using it
at night. I spent the next 2 years in the Hospital, in upstate New
York, and according to my mother, she was told I shouldn't be here
today.
However being the stubborn type that I am, I managed to prove the
Doctors wrong and was sent home just before my fifth birthday.
I remember very well the arguements I had with my sisters, as they
always wanted to run around the house in my wheelchair. They seemed
to think it was great fun to be able to go so fast they left marks
on the kitchen floor from the black rubber wheels when they hit the
brakes.
I guess if I were in their shoes ( no pun intended ) I would have
felt the same way.
As the years past, and after hours and hours of exercise, ( which I
absolutely hated ) I managed to go to braces and crutches, then to
just braces, and finally to special shoes that had lifts in them to
compensate for one leg being shorter than the other.
As I grew older I really hated it when people saw me as the "poor
little cripple " and I worked very hard to develop my body so I
could pass as being normal.
I had a chip on my shoulder a mile high, and would fight anyone in
my school that called me gimpy, or a cripple, or made any other
references to my rather skinny legs.
Needless to say, I went home with more black-eyes and bloody lips
than I care to remember.
I ended up eventually going to a vocational school run by the
Variety Club, which was formed to educate and help the thousands of
people growing up with disabilities from Polio.
There I learned to be a welder, and was certified eventually to weld
on aircraft parts. I made great money and was doing well at this
job, but after a year I quit as I found it to be very boring and it
got to the point of me hating to go to work in the morning. As if we
all havent been there on some days.
I went to work at Marineland and Game Farm in Niagara Falls, Ontario
and spent almost 8 years there training Killer Whales, Dolphins, Sea
Lions and Elephant Seals. I absolutely loved this job, but when the
bills get to be more than the paychecks you know its time to make
some changes.
So, my wife Lisa and I packed up everything we owned and moved to
Western Canada, where I became just anothern easterner coming out
west to work in the Oil and Gas Industry.
I did very, very well working within the industry, and went from the
warehouse through the many steps of working my way up to Area
Manager for a very large American Co. that supplied parts and
service for large natural gas compressors. I mean these things were
huge, running anywhere from 600 H.P. to 35,000 H.P. Being inside one
of these large compressors you almost felt like you were in a room.
Is this relevant? Yes it is, because you can only imagine the size
of the parts I had to work with when we were hired to service one of
these monsters. I was literally carrying parts that weighed 150
pounds to my truck in order to take them to our shop for re-build.
Can you imagine the strain it put on my body?
Now I believe this is why I was hit so hard with PPS when it did
strike me. I denied that there was anything wrong with me as long as
possible, and went on trying to maintain the lifestyle I had become
so accustomed to.
When it got to the point that I was almost crawling in and out of my
truck, and when I was in tears from the pain when I went to bed at
night, I finally knew I had hit the wall.
Going on disability was a very, very hard thing for me to do, and I
felt cheated,and angry that I had to go through this fight all over
again.
My depression became so severe that I had thoughts of suicide, but
never had enough nerve to do anything. I had no-one to talk to that
understood what I was going through, for as understanding as my wife
tried to be, she still expected me to be able to do things around
the house that were extremely diffcult, or impossible for me to do.
I don't feel that she really understood how bad my condition was
until I was forced to wear a brace, was forced to use a scooter or
wheelchair if I wanted to go out, and fell so many times that I
usually had a cast on some part of my body. I have broken my right
wrist so many times, I was told by the Dr that the next time I fall
and break it, it would be beyond repair, and I would need a steel
plate put in my arm from my hand to my forearm in order to have any
stability at all. My reply was " IT aint gonna happen Doc ".
Spending so many hours in the house during the Winter because of my
intolerance to the cold, I turned to the internet for something to
do.
I found many groups that would talk about what was going on with my
body, and a lot of support from complete strangers. I was blown away
by the fact that there were people who knew about PPS, and could
understand what I was going through.
One of the rooms that helped me so much was PRYS, and the terrific
lady that ran that site, Sparkie Lujan.
She talked with me for hours helping me to understand my feelings,
and driving into my head that there were things I could do, and that
this was not the end of the world. I really do consider my hours
talking with Sparkie the turning point in my attitude towards what
was happening to me, and giving me hope and encouragement for the
future.
Well today my friends, I have a whole room full of Sparkie Lujans,
and you are all family to me. You help me get past the bad days. You
share the laughs and chats on the good days. But most of all it is
the knowledge that there will always be someone available, that I
can talk to when life gets almost unbearable.
What happened to me is not unique, as it is the story a million
other people could tell, or relate to in one way or another.
What is unique, is the fact that I have learned to share my time and
efforts to try and help people that are just starting the first
stages of PPS, and of my experience that allows me to be able to try
and help them.
So after much ramblings on here, and getting carried away sitting at
this keyboard in an empty house,(Lisa is at work ) I just want you
all to know that you are all very, very special people.
You have more courage than many of the " Normal " people I know.
You are willing to hold out your hand and help someone who has come
upon hard times, but most of all I consider you all to be my
friends. And to me, that means more than any paycheck I ever earned.
I know you will be there for me, as I will for you.
God Bless and Hugs from Canada
Jack