The Poster Child | Free News | leader-call.com - leader-call.com

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The Poster Child | Free News | leader-call.com - leader-call.com Posted: 26 Mar 2021 12:44 PM PDT From Truman to Trump, polio patient brings unique perspective to pandemic Terry Tullos was the national poster child for polio when he was a toddler. He doesn't plan on becoming the face of COVID-19 as a senior citizen. That's why he and his wife Marda lined up early to get vaccinated against the virus.  The 76-year-old Jones Countian has a unique perspective on the pandemic. He contracted polio just before his 1st birthday and has dealt with the harsh effects of the disease all of his life. "Most people who get COVID seem to recover after flu-like symptoms and are able to resume their lives, just as I did recover from polio and was able to resume life activities for 40 years," Tullos said. "Who knew that something called post-polio syndrome even existed?" That virus remained dormant in the body of the afflicted, and in some, it reactivated and did further damage to their nerves decades later.  "Nothing was known about this until polio patients aged and were attacked again," Tullos said. "It came back on me and has weakened me to the point where I'm only comfortable using a cane in public. I hope it's done with my body. Hopefully, we are living with the worst COVID has to offer, but bat DNA residing in a human body, like polio virus, is another medical unknown." Iron lungs in a polio ward in 1950. Tullos told the story of a close friend who was hospitalized with COVID-19 for a few days and appeared to recover and resume his normal activities. But three weeks later, he suffered a blood clot in a lung and almost died. That near-fatal reaction was attributed to COVID, Tullos said. "Again, we are dealing with the unknown." It was 10 years after Tullos was diagnosed with polio that Jonas Salk developed the vaccine against the dreaded disease. Three COVID-19 vaccines were available a year after that virus shut down the United States. "We took this crisis very seriously," taking all of the precautions that medical professionals recommended, Tullos said. "My primary reason was based on my experience with a virus, polio, residing in my body since childhood." So when President Trump's "Operation Warp Speed" plan lived up to its name and a vaccine became available in a matter of months, Tullos went on the web and set up appointments for him and his wife. He got the Moderna shot, with no adverse effects other than a sore arm and body aches for a few hours after the booster, and she got the one made by Pfizer with no negative reaction.  Armed with the shots after a year of virtual isolation, they ventured out this month to a restaurant. "Since the liberation that we felt after our inoculations, dining out enhanced that feeling of returning to normalcy," he said, "but we will continue to wear our masks, avoid crowds and enjoy life at home. I pray that this devastating event is truly winding down and that there are no lurking after-effects with COVID." From isolation  to the Oval Office Tullos' battle with polio began in October 1945, when he was only 11 months old. When he got sick, his mother took him to a doctor, who said he had the flu, gave him a shot and told his mother to bring the child back to the doctor in a week if he was still sick. By the next week, little Terry had a higher fever and he couldn't move his legs.  He was taken to the "Polio Clinic" in Jackson, where he was diagnosed with the disease and placed in an iron lung to help with his troubled breathing. His parents were sent back to Laurel without their baby, who spent his 1st birthday — three months total — in isolation to avoid spreading the virus. "My parents were allowed to visit me on weekends, and I remember seeing pictures of us with the same types of masks that we've been seeing with the coronavirus," he said. Pete and Verna Tullos' baby boy was in the clinic for six months, and when they were finally able to bring him home, doctors said he would never be able to walk again. He continued with monthly trips to Jackson to see his doctor and he was fitted with braces for both legs since he couldn't raise his feet — a condition known as "dropfoot." The determined toddler eventually became mobile in the braces and could walk, even run. Officials with the March of Dimes — which was developed to raise money to research the mysterious polio virus — read about Terry in The Laurel Leader-Call. They came to The City Beautiful to talk to the toddler and his parents, and he wound up being selected as the March of Dimes Poster Child for 1948. It was quite an honor for a proud father who was a successful salesman and a mother who served as executive director of the Jones County chapter of The American Red Cross for 45 years. "We set out on a remarkable journey — if only I could remember it," Tullos said with a laugh. But there's plenty of journaling about the journey, when the family traveled by train to make public appearances in Chicago, Philadelphia, New York and other cities in the Northeast. But the most memorable stop was in Washington, D.C., where 3-year-old Terry met President Harry S. Truman. Terry Tullos, when he was 3, meeting President Harry Truman in the Oval Office in 1948.  "There were several pictures of me with him in the Oval Office," Tullos said.  One of the most memorable was little Terry running to Truman's open arms and another of him sitting on the president's lap and him standing on the Commander-in-Chief's desk. Those photos and the scrapbooks his mother kept are his only way of remembering the once-in-a-lifetime experience. "I don't really have any memories of it," he said. The youngster's golden locks and big smile, despite the leg braces, charmed people at every stop, and they handed over their dimes. "I just had to do what I was told and be cute," Tullos said. "I think that I was the third poster child, and my mother told me, of course, that I raised more money than either of the other two." In 1950, the March of Dimes got all four former poster children together for another fundraising drive across the Northeast. "I do remember some of that time," Tullos said. "I remember thinking that Linda Brown, who had also been a poster child, was really cute." Reality check After the touring and fanfare, Tullos just wanted to be like other children his age. But when he got home, reality hit. He underwent five surgical procedures to his feet in seven years — all of which were funded by the national foundation for his fundraising efforts and performed by Dr. Blake in Jackson. He also went to Warm Springs, the Georgia retreat that President Franklin D. Roosevelt has established for the treatment of fellow polio victims. "When I started school, I wore braces on both legs and hated them," Tullos said. "I was like the president — I didn't want to be different or handicapped." He changed schools, from St. John's to Prentiss, when the family moved to Country Club Addition, and he has happy memories of joining the other kids when they took off their shoes during recess when it was warm.  "The teachers let me do that, too, and I was in heaven," he said. "I could take those dang braces off and walk better and run faster without them." It wasn't long before he convinced his mother that he didn't need the braces. He got shoes from the shoe store like everyone else. "I believe that action helped my remaining leg and foot muscles develop better than they would have in restrictive braces," he said. Then reality hit again when he was about 10. He visited his aunt and uncle in Louisiana, and she took home movies of Terry and the other kids playing in the yard. At the next visit, they watched those recordings together. He noticed that he didn't move the same as the other kinds. "It was the first time I was aware of the difference, and I was devastated," he recalled. "From that moment on, I was extremely self-conscious … I was aware of people watching me, whether they were or not, any time I was in class or at Daphne pool or anywhere in public. Still am." He still remembers going to a pool party as a senior and not taking off his long pants because he didn't want his classmates to see his atrophied legs. "I dreaded summer," Tullos said. But he overcame those doubts and fears. After graduating college in 1967, he went to work in data processing at San Antonio Savings Association and that led to a 45-year career working with computer systems in information services. The last 20 years of his work was in the medical field, and he traveled around the country to hospitals and doctors' offices to manage systems implementation. It was during that time that he wound up attending an orientation session at one of his longtime clients, Northside Hospital in Atlanta. The importance of sterility and cleanliness were emphasized, "and it all started with washing your hands," he said. That medical information stuck in his system. "Marda has told me many times that she's never known anyone who washes their hands as much as I do," he said. "That's probably true, but I hardly ever get sick." That good habit prepared him to help prevent COVID-19. But it did nothing to stop the virus that was already lurking in his body. Public fear,  private concerns It was one night in 1988 when Tullos went through his usual routine of working out at home, then going to bed. When he woke up, his right arm was paralyzed and his right leg felt weak. "I assumed that I had pinched a nerve," he said. But he soon discovered that it was post-polio syndrome. The news hit him hard. "I had exercised out of a belief that doing so would allow me to preserve my abilities," he said. "Post-polio felt like a betrayal, because what was helpful then turned out to be harmful now." Tullos is retired now and continues to function normally, but the symptoms continue to worsen. Over-the-counter medication helps the pain caused by the muscle atrophy — for now. "There is no treatment and the symptoms continue to worsen," he said. "I can see a wheelchair in my future." Roosevelt was in a wheelchair after getting diagnosed with the disease in 1921, at age 39. That was hidden from the public until he addressed Congress on March 1, 1945 — about a month before his death during his fourth term as president — and made reference to his disease.  He became an advocate for his fellow polio victims and, in 1938, made his friend Basil O'Connor president of the National Foundation for Infantile Paralysis, commonly known as the March of Dimes. The goal was to raise money to help with the rehabilitation of patients and to fund research that led to the development of a vaccine. Those efforts intensified when there were big outbreaks in 1949 and 1952. Going into the 1950s, there were 3,100 chapters of the NFIP operated almost entirely by volunteers. The organization's approach to fundraising shifted — instead of going after a handful of wealthy donors for big contributions, the goal was to get small donations from the masses. It worked. By 1955, the March of Dimes had invested $25.5 million into research and raised awareness of the disease and made everyone feel like a part of the fight against it. Polio was listed as the second-biggest fear of Americans at the time. The threat of nuclear attack was the only thing that seemed scarier. Unlike COVID-19, most of the victims were children, with most cases occurring in young children. In 1952, there were 57,628 cases in the United States, and of those, 3,145 died and 21,269 were left with varying degrees of paralysis. That outbreak pushed the need for a vaccine. It was a plague, author Richard Rhodes wrote in "A Hole in the World."  "Parents waited fearfully every summer to see if it would strike," he wrote. "One case turned up and then another. The city closed the swimming pools and we all stayed home, cooped indoors, shunning other children. Summer seemed like winter then." Tullos remembers that feeling.  "The public was fearful because of the contagion question factor and the fact that if a president could contract it, then how safe were they?" he said. "I don't think most people were aware of how it was transmitted, so there was a fear of the unknown. "I remember that there was a discussion whether I should take the vaccine when we were getting it at St. John's in 1955, but I did." Not long after COVID-19 started shutting down most of the country, Tullos said that the virus is "horribly destructive to the best economy we've had" and that he hoped "when the restrictions are relaxed that we don't see a resurgence of the virus. Terry Tullos "I hope we see a vaccine and/or a cure very soon," he said at the time Vaccinations were created at record speeds, and that has made some people wary of it. "Some have chosen to not have the vaccine, and in this country, that is, so far, an individual's option," Tullos said. As for him and his family, they got it as soon as possible. Salk was a national hero after developing the polio vaccine, and he is credited with saving untold millions from the horrors of the crippling disease that's practically been eliminated now. But Tullos can't help but wonder what would have happened if a vaccine had been formulated as fast for polio as it was for COVID-19. "I used to wonder, like President Roosevelt, why me?" Tullos said. "What did an 11-month-old baby do to deserve this despicable disease?  "But I have learned to trust God, and that He truly won't bring to you anything that He won't lead you through."

Poliomyelitis (polio) - World Health Organization Posted: 29 Jan 2020 05:20 AM PST Poliomyelitis (polio) is a highly infectious viral disease that largely affects children under 5 years of age. The virus is transmitted by person-to-person spread mainly through the faecal-oral route or, less frequently, by a common vehicle (e.g. contaminated water or food) and multiplies in the intestine, from where it can invade the nervous system and cause paralysis. In 1988, the World Health Assembly adopted a resolution for the worldwide eradication of polio, marking the launch of the Global Polio Eradication Initiative, spearheaded by national governments, WHO, Rotary International, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), UNICEF, and later joined by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance.  Wild poliovirus cases have decreased by over 99% since 1988, from an estimated 350 000 cases in more than 125 endemic countries then to 175reported cases in 2019.  Of the 3 strains of wild poliovirus (type 1, type 2 and type 3), wild poliovirus type 2 was eradicated in 1999 and no case of wild poliovirus type 3 has been found since the last reported case in Nigeria in November 2012.  Both strains have officially been certified as globally eradicated.  As at 2020, wild poliovirus type 1 affects two countries:  Pakistan and Afghanistan. The strategies for polio eradication work when they are fully implemented. This is clearly demonstrated by India's success in stopping polio in January 2011, in arguably the most technically challenging place, and polio-free certification of the entire WHO Southeast Asia Region in March 2014.

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