Asking my mom about her disability so I can give you all pretty accurate information on Viktor o7
She has post-polio, and has a leg brace like he does. So for all your "could Viktor do this?" questions, I go to my mother ♡ He most likely has a combination of things, but definitely seems to have post-polio. So yes, other things could stop him from these activities but overall, this is a swing at how it works for this aspect of his life.
What I know as of now about Viktor, most likely,
- could skateboard
- could drive a motorcycle
- drive a car (has to use good leg to press on pedals)
- does NOT sleep with the leg brace on
- dead silent when he takes the brace off
- my mom played sports that involved throwing more than running (softball (pitcher), volleyball, she did try out for football at some point but the coach didnt want a girl trying out)
- sigh...yes...he can do the deed without breaking a fucking hip. He isnt made of glass. Im not going into detail on this one thanks
- roller skating
- shoot a gun (idk why this is debated)(also though i will say that for some guns, the kick is too strong. The entire body is effected by polio, its just most severe in some parts like his leg)
- ice skating!!! I know this is a hot debate, she has gone ice skating
Ill ask my mom about more if you have any specific questions 👍
More info edit:
My Mom's leg has unfortunately gotten worse, which is nothing new considering it's been worsening her entire life, but this means her heel bone is now digging through the skin and muscle of her foot. She will be getting surgery to shave the bone down and hopefully that will help her to walk better on it again once it's healed. Take that as you will in reference to Viktor and his worsening condition. She has told me several times that she is in a lot of pain, which she typically does not vocalize.
- can carry kids around for short periods of time (she babysits my nieces and nephews constantly)
- can HAVE kids for that matter (for all your trans and mpreg needs 😭) though this certainly was a toll on her body even back when she was younger
- maybe this is just specific to her but every single time something gets mentioned that could even POSSIBLY be polio, she gets worried. I mentioned my little cousin being sick and suddenly not able to walk on her own (she is doing okay right now, no pain) and she instantly asked if she had drunk any dirty water (where polio is most commonly found) She freaked when my sister was born with a little wonky leg even though it's 1) not passed down from mother to child and 2) fixed itswlf within a month. All my siblings were immediately vaccinated for polio as well as other major things, though she gets very nervous about new vaccines because she got it from the polio vaccine which contained the live virus at the time (no longer used) She did not want me vaccinated for covid or HPV because of this worry.
- When she gets sick, she gets sick BAD. Last time she was sick, she was in a fever state for three days and doesn't remember a single thing.
- Fear of death, judgement, or being arrested has never really affected her. She has a DNR (which I'm not a fan of, but I understand if shit goes wrong, she doesn't want to be resuscitated just to experience way more pain), she's always lived on the crazy side but stopped once she had kids (I mean used to ride her motorcycle like she was trying to speed run death), always tells me I need to stop caring what people think cause she stopped giving a shit early on with all the bullying, she has in fact pulled a gun on a man for hurting me and the ONLY reason I think she didn't pull that trigger is because there was someone else in the way, she actively encourages cops, security, etc to try and stop her when it comes to the safety of her family (she most recently started shit with staff because my nephew broke his arm at school and no one will tell her what happened)
- She handles her farm pretty much alone. Chickens, ducks, goats, sheep, rabbits, turkeys. And I'm so sorry to say they are both long term and short stay animals....We only name pets. Anything without a name is sent to freezer camp 😭
- Which leads me to tell you she is a butcher, and has always hung up meat and quartered it herself. She also hunts, so she does it with venison too. Plus we try and use as much of the animal as possible as to respect it. So that's butchering, tanning hides, cleaning off bones, making twine.
- She loves to lie about what happened to her leg. Her favorite for kids is that she's a cyborg or a transformer. Most adults just assume military and she doesn't tell them otherwise. She used to tell ppl for a while that she jumped out of one of the towers on 9/11.......💀 crazy since she was born and raised in New York
I want to talk about outbreaks, poverty, and medical oppression.
I’m sure most of you are aware of long covid, the phenomenon that people who were infected with covid are having health problems they didn’t before infection that are now following them through their life. A lot of these situations have been disabling; I myself now have an extra disability tacked onto the list as well as many of my once abled friends joining me. Even my grandpa has developed a disability because of his infection. And this is something our family is not new to.
For the purpose of this story I’m going to call her aunt M. Aunt M was my grandma’s aunt, so technically my great aunt I believe. When she was a little girl she was completely able bodied like most of her immediate family. They had no known health problems that would cause anything like what happened to her. By this time polio was very well known about, vaccines were starting to be rolled out and treatments had started to become available to more people according to my uncle (her older brother). One day aunt M and her siblings go outside and find that their neighbors yard had flooded, so like a group of five kids in a small town with nothing else to do they play in the water. They had no idea that something so small would completely change the course of their little sister’s life. She ended up contracting polio, the only source anyone could think of was the standing water. As far as I’m aware no one else got sick or at the very least as sick as she did. It completely destroyed her lungs and her ability to walk, the muscles in her legs contracted and got stuck in a bent position and could hardly handle any weight. Aunt M spent the rest of her life using an oxygen machine and a power wheelchair once her family was able to save enough for one, and while you will not give her any pity because she never wanted any, I will tell her story to remind everyone of her. She shouldn’t have been disabled. She wouldn’t have lived a life of pain if not for one reason: poverty. You see the rich neighborhood a couple miles away had the resources. Any kids there were properly vaccinated and given treatments like leg braces to help them. Their family didn’t have any of that. No access to medication. No way to help her. She was very lucky that her symptoms didn’t get worse, she could’ve very easily died.
Aunt M passed away during the covid pandemics first year, it was very sudden and unexpected, we were all devastated. But part of me thinks it was slightly a blessing, a blessing that she wouldn’t have to watch her nephew go through the same thing. I was already disabled when this whole thing started, I already used a wheelchair and she knew that, I always felt a closeness to her because of it even though I hardly got to see her. But I got sick, more sick than usual, and ended up developing severe POTS. I have much less energy than I did before and that’s saying a lot, I have trouble pushing my wheelchair now because of my lung capacity and overall weakness. Hopefully soon I will be getting a power chair. And I can’t help but think of Aunt M.
I can’t help but think of all of the people like her, just innocent people who were living and then suddenly now their life is changed forever. I feel like it was easier for me because I had already accepted being disabled, sure more to worry about isn’t ideal but at least I’m no stranger to it. But think about that and think about aunt M. How a little less than a hundred years ago the same fucking thing happened.
Post polio syndrome and post covid syndrome are one in the same in a lot of ways. The effects they cause are surprisingly similar, at least in my family and experience, and it took years for people to admit post polio existed like it will for post covid. This is why it’s called a mass disabling event, people go into it relatively healthy and come out with health problems and disabilities that will never go away. The wealthier people can try out the experimental treatments and possibly be helped or cured, while the rest of us have to live with the proof that our government doesn’t know how to take care of their own people.
While POTS does effect the body differently than how polio effected their lungs and chests we need to comprehend how serious this is. Some people live with POTS and can mitigate their symptoms to the point of it barely effecting them, and some of us need to use wheelchairs because we can’t breathe or think while standing for longer than three minutes. It’s a syndrome with a wide variety of presentations and effects on patients, and it is a nervous system disorder so it may have more lasting effects than we can even think of right now.
Honestly I don’t have a point to summarize into, but just remember how the government handled polio and how it’s handled covid so far, I predict that when those of us who are young adults now are my aunt M’s age we’ll see the same fucking thing happen all over again. And we’ll sit there, with our long covid impacts and know, we haven’t learned a god damn thing.
I’ll end you with reiterating, do not hold any pity for my Aunt M, she was a very strong willed person who wouldn’t accept any amount of other people feeling bad for her, direct your emotions to the government who did this to her and us. Aunt M was healthy, she should’ve stayed healthy. Government inaction decided her fate for her.
