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Coloradans Recall Polio Treatments At Children's

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Aug 15, 2008 7:21 am US/Mountain

Coloradans Recall Polio Treatments At Children's

Written by CBS4 special projects producer Vicki Hildner, vhildner@cbs.com
Reporting
Karen Leigh
  Editor's Note: For most of us, a vaccine turned polio into a disease of the last century. But from the 1930s to the 1950s, The Children's Hospital treated tens of thousands of polio victims, most of whom contracted the disease during summer outbreaks. The Children's Hospital celebrates 100 years of service to the Colorado community while three Coloradans say their memories of polio have not faded.

DENVER (CBS4) - Sunny Weingarten is a one-of-a kind little league coach. He is a polio survivor who spent more than half his life in an iron lung and now coaches from his wheelchair. Despite all that adversity, he remains true to his first name.

"Every day, I feel like I am lucky to be a live and still functioning and able to do something," he says, between sips on the ventilator that gives him enough oxygen to live.

During the mid 20th century, youngsters who had caught the polio virus filled The Children's Hospital. The most severe cases, like Sunny, were completely paralyzed and kept alive living inside an iron lung that could breathe for them. Sunny remembers spending decades inside that iron lung.

"You're a prisoner," he says simply. "A literal prisoner of the iron lung."

At The Children's Hospital, Dr. Jules Amer is a practicing pediatrician who can still remember making house calls to do spinal taps on children who showed early signs of polio.

"The mother knew exactly what I was thinking because she was thinking the same thing," remembers Amer. "The frustration was you had nothing you could do to stop what was coming. You were just as anxious as the child's family."

Dr. Marny Eulberg contracted polio as a 4-year-old and spent half a year in the hospital. She has had seven surgeries and hopes the latest technology in leg braces may save her from a life in a wheelchair. Now, Eulberg is a family practice physician, counseling some mothers who do not want their children immunized because of concerns about the polio vaccine.

"Young people now just don't know what it can do," says Eulberg. "It can paralyze any muscles, it can kill, and we have no better treatment for it now than we did then."

Eulberg also treats patients who suffer from post-polio syndrome. About half the people who had polio fifty years ago are no developing new problems, including muscle weakness.

A vaccine turned polio into last century's disease, but for some people it will never be ancient history. It will always be a fact of life. Weingarten's championship-winning baseball players take for granted that their coach reclines in a wheelchair. But if you ask Sunny what he would like to see etched on the stone that will some day mark his grave, he pauses only briefly before he says, simply, "Survivor."

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