Two things I never thought might be hanging on my rear-view mirror when I moved to PT 15 years ago: An air freshener, and a blue, disabled parking permit. I still don’t have an air freshener.

But, polio, like the proverbial bent coin in a vending machine, has come back. It was totally unexpected: I thought polio (to continue the metaphor) was in my personal rear-view mirror for life after I’d had two surgeries in the 1950s. 

I joined the Rotary club in California 10 years before moving here because I knew that organization had almost singlehandedly stopped the spread of polio, worldwide with its outreach and vaccines. 

I then joined the PT Sunrise Rotary club here, and I still thought polio was far behind me. I’d been playing tennis, racquetball and squash for years and truth be told, I was pretty good at them. My  doctor smiled and called racquetball “Type A exercise,” and like many polio survivors, I fit that aggressive category. 

I’d just started to learn pickle ball here (it wasn’t a big deal then like it is now) but one day, I was playing racquetball, and I was having trouble running - I had no idea what was going on. 

Rotary, fittingly, soon came to my aid. I was sitting in the back of our breakfast-meeting room with Joan Toone, who’s now president of  Victoria’s Rotary club, she was the wife of Rotary’s district governor. I told Joan about my symptoms — the inability to run, mostly. By sheer luck, I was sitting with just the right person.

She finally turned to me and said, “you’ve got Post Polio.” 

I’d never heard of it. Toone was the perfect person to know about it — she edited the Post Polio Syndrome (PPS) newsletter in British Columbia.

It was a shock, I’d  never heard of PPS and many doctors still haven’t, but it’s real. I had been sure my polio years (braces, crutches, etc.) were decades behind me. 

It turns out that a surprising 80 percent of us who had polio as kids, now get a return visit from it, according to top PPS expert Dr. Richard Bruno.

Who knew? Since few doctors know much about Post Polio, we had to look a long time to find a PPS specialist — she’s in Seattle, at UW Med Center. 

A polio expert from the Gates Foundation spoke to our Rotary club in Port Hadlock recently. She gave an impressive and detailed rundown of polio cases in the few countries in the world where it’s still around. But when I asked her about Post Polio, she didn’t know much about this real but little-known disease. The March of Dimes, once the leading polio charity  in this country, no longer targets polio. But there is, fortunately, a large, active PPS support group on Facebook. 

You don’t go to the gym to heal, I learned that those overused, weakened nerves mainly need rest, according to Dr. Bruno. 

It turns out that swimming is by far the best way for us PPS people   — there are some here in PT — to get cardio. (That’s part of the reason I want a new pool here. )

FDR, a polio victim, was big on swimming, and often went down to a spa at Warm Springs,Ga. Roosevelt said, “Know why swimming is so good for us polios? It largely eliminates gravity.” 

So now I use crutches and a walker and my racquetball days are, alas, long past.

But on the upside, I’ve found that many people here in PT are more than helpful to us disabled — they open doors,  offer to reach up high in the store to get me something, ask if I need any help. 

I have no use for anti-vaxxers like Robert Kennedy, Jr.  If a vaccine had been around a few weeks earlier, I’d still be walking and running normally and playing pickle ball. And hundreds of thousands of deceased COVID victims would also appreciate the efficacy of vaccines. One of the best lines I’ve heard lately goes like this: What borders on the absurd? The answer, Canada and Mexico. 

PT writer Bill Mann is at Newsmann9@gmail.com.