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Attention Polio Survivors and Companions!
Attention Polio Survivors and Companions!
This will be the 11th and final Post-Polio Wellness Retreat at Bay Cliff Health Camp. Attending this retreat feels like you’re living in a happy postcard! It’s a wonderful time away. Lake Superior is calling you… Hope you will think about signing up for this post-pandemic opportunity to restore and rejuvenate. Sunny
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Find A Gain for Every Loss: A Lesson from our Post-Polio Wise Elders
Find A Gain for Every Loss: A Lesson from our Post-Polio Wise Elders
Egads! This September 1st I am going to turn 70 years old. For me, that is an inconceivable milestone. Me, 70? How could that be? Seventy sounds so…well…”old.”
Turning 70 seems to be a natural time to pause and look at the big picture…to reflect and look back at important moments and events. Rewinding through the years of my life…hmm…what do I see?
In 1952 I was just 4 years old, running,…
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Zest at its Best: Wheeling Through Portugal and Spain
Zest at its Best: Wheeling Through Portugal and Spain
The Cathedral of Santiago de Compostela
The following story is about a spiritual pilgrimage through Portugal and Spain.
Susan Peters, the main author of the account, has a spinal cord injury and is a full time wheelchair user. Her story of spiritual renewal, physical daring and warmhearted camaraderie makes me want to return to Europe to travel “The Way” like she did. It must have been such a…
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My New Brace
Yesterday I was fitted for my new full-length leg brace. Although it was held together with makeshift parts, I went for a walk to test it out. The odd thing was that I LIKEDit. Sure, it made clicks every time I took a step, and, yes, I did walk with even more of a limp. It may, also, not fit under some of my slacks. All of that, and more, is true. However, what is also true is that my knee could…
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I am sexy and I'm still not used to it yet
So one of my friends shared this (http://www.buzzfeed.com/stephaniemcneal/paralyzed-woman-sexy-photo-shoot#.bhxDxdEny) on Facebook, and I wanted to share my thoughts on it. Personally, I'm all for it, this reclamation or claiming of sexy, cause I'm just in the last year learning that people can find me aesthetically pleasing and sexy and even want to have sex with me. I never really thought anyone would return my feelings in high school because I was weird and maybe pretty but weirdly shaped and I hate watching myself move so why would anyone find me wholly attractive? PLOT TWIST the disabled kid likes sex and has it every so often. Weeeird. Disabled kids are saints and no one fucks saints. BUT NO. I am not a saint because I power through my disability. I've fought myself for every inch of this new body image. I've let body positivity seep into me from everywhere I can find it. I'm fighting myself that yes, I can be the Love Interest and not the Sob Story. Slowly, I'm teaching myself that yes, I'm allowed to act on sexual urges, and that people will respond positively, sometimes. I'm learning that people will get used to my gait and curves and creaks, even if I won't. People will love me for my spirit and my body and that's ok. This is all new ground for me. I didn't realize I had the low-key superpower of sex appeal til October 2014. I was 20. Twenty years old, and I finally saw myself as sexy, as appealing, and it's a strange and wondrous power. I'm learning about it, and it's a bit of a curve. In closing: I am post-polio, I'm fucking sexy, and I'm getting used to it.
Celebrating Independence Day Makes Me Think...
Celebrating Independence Day Makes Me Think…
…About Moving From Independence to Healthy Interdependence
July Fourth. It’s Independence Day weekend in America; a time to celebrate that we live in the “land of the free and the home of the brave.” And this weekend, the national celebration also makes me think about my own sense of independence.
As a polio survivor for 63 years who has needed crutches, leg braces, and now a wheelchair and a…
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Can You Haiku?
Bye-Bye Winter!
Bubbles fly on breeze
Spring’s chilly warmth heats my soul
Confinement’s blown off!
That was a Haiku poem. Haiku is a traditional form of Japanese poetry. Haiku poems are very simple. They consist of 3 lines. The first and last lines of a Haiku have 5 syllables and the middle line has 7 syllables. The lines rarely rhyme.
Writing a post-polio Haiku poem might be fun to try…
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Rare film footage that shows President Franklin D. Roosevelt walking has been donated to the Pennsylvania State Archives by the family of former baseball player Jimmie DeShong, a Harrisburg native who shot the film at the 1937 All-Star game.
