WATCH NOW: Survivor of polio pandemic takes COVID vaccine - Martinsville Bulletin

Posted: 25 Mar 2021 12:06 PM PDT

Patricia Gravely had hesitations about getting the COVID-19 vaccine, wondering if she might have a negative reaction to the serum. She had a history with polio. Would that make a difference?

But in the end she said she figured it would be better for her and everyone else if she got the shot.

Which she did during a vaccination event at the National Guard Armory in Martinsville on Thursday morning

Afterward, from the passenger seat of her son Wayne's car, she smiled and waved.

Patricia Gravely had polio as a baby and was in elementary school when the vaccine was developed and given. She got her COVID-19 vaccine on Thursday at the armory in Martinsville.
Holly Kozelsky

Poliomyelitis, commonly called polio, is an infectious disease caused by a virus, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention explained, that can infect a person's spinal cord, leading to paralysis.

In the late 1940s, when Gravely had the disease, polio disabled more than 35,000 people a year. Public health officials imposed quarantines on homes and towns where polio cases were diagnosed. After vaccines were introduced in 1955, the number of cases of polio fell dramatically, and the disease was eliminated in the U.S. 30 years ago, the CDC reports.

Before getting the COVID vaccine, Gravely had "been trying to figure out what happens to people who have problems with polio. I couldn't find out," she said.

"One day it just came to me: Go ahead. Your mom, your dad and your grandma insisted on having the polio vaccine. … I want to help" her friends, her family, "the people I come in contact with.

"Wearing masks is important, exercise is important, but you've also got to trust your nurses and doctors" who give health advice.

And when that advice was to get the COVID-19 vaccine, she did.

Learning to walk — twice

Gravely, 74, was born in Danville to Elaine and James Nelson. After her father died at age 54, her mother married Lloyd Mason. She had one brother, the late Dean Nelson, and has three stepsiblings.

When she got sick as a baby in 1947, a local doctor told her parent she had "summer flu," she said. However, her father, home from the Army, insisted on taking her to an Army doctor at Fort Monroe. From there she was sent to the University of Virginia's hospital.

She doesn't remember having polio, because she was only 10 months old at the time, she said, but she's been told that "my body started bowing up. I could move my eyes and could swallow."

She was in the hospital for a long time until she started improving. She didn't learn to walk, though, until she was 5 years old, with the help of braces and crutches. Her legs are of different lengths.

At age 5 she was fitted with orthopedic braces. When she was about 7, a Mr. Meyers of Collinsville arranged for her to be treated at the Shriners Children's Hospital in Greenville, S.C. David Davis of Collinsville took her and her mother there. After an operation, "I had to learn to walk all over again."

Community of help

At home, her mother would get her up at 4:30 a.m., to do exercises with her on the kitchen table. Then the mother would go off to work in the factory and the daughter to Sanville Elementary School.

A health nurse named Mrs. Wood used to visit her at school and at home during the summers. "She had the biggest brown eyes, and they were always so encouraging," she said.

Women from the Martinsville Book Club would pick her up from school and take her to the health department, which then was in a two-story house on Moss Street, near where the fire department is now, she said. A Dr. Ripley and Nurse Blaine from Roanoke would be there to lead her in exercises.

She made many friends among the other children who went there for treatment as well, she said, but by now "a lot of my friends who have had polio in the '40s and '50's have died."

'Get your butt up'

Gravely was in elementary school when the polio vaccine was created and distributed. She said she recalls children saying, "'I don't want to do that. I don't want to be crippled like Pat.' Some would say, 'I want to take it, so I won't be crippled like Pat.'"

A few more operations followed, until, by her junior year in high school, she was encouraged to try walking without the use of braces and crutches.

While on a high school trip to the beach at Fairy Stone State Park, she initially was too embarrassed about her legs to put on a swimsuit like the other kids. However, it hit her: "I decided you feel sorry for yourself, or you get your butt up and you get in the water" and have fun.

She chose the second option.

A big dream was to walk across the stage unaided to receive her diploma at her high school graduation – and she accomplished it, she said.

A good life

After high school she enrolled in cosmetology school, and she has been fixing hair since 1966. Now she's down to three days a week in the beauty shop.

She married Larry Gravely, who worked at Fieldcrest Mills, and they raised a family on Blackberry Road. The couple have three children: Kimberly Minter, a kindergarten teacher at Mount Olivet Elementary School; Larry Wayne Gravely, who works at Atlas Molded Products in Ridgeway; and Jamie Gravely, who works at Bassett Mirror. They have a granddaughter, a late grandson and two great-grandchildren.

It's been a good life, she said. Her husband always "took care of us, snow, rain, ice whatever. I used to laugh and tell him, 'I love seeing them taillights go down the road, but I loved seeing the headlights when he came home.'"

'Spoil me rotten'

Gravely has been a member of DisAbilities Unlimited since 1984 and is its treasurer. "I've met hundreds of people over the years through that and always try to be an encourager to everybody I've met who have disabilities … because you can figure all kinds of ways" to get around.

"You have to work with your obstacles in your life and make decisions" about what to do, she said. "The way I walk is completely different," but she gets around.

She said she has found most people to be supportive, such as the staff at her favorite grocery store – and she's called the store headquarters a few times to compliment them.

"They spoil me rotten at Stanleytown Food Lion, they really do," she said. As soon as someone notices her car pull into the parking lot, someone brings her out a motorized scooter to ride into the store.

She's been attending First Baptist Church of Bassett for 16 years, and "my church family is very important to me," she said. She's involved in several capacities, including the shawl ministry, Sunday school and choir.

'You've got to keep busy'

Gravely still works three days a week in the beauty shop, alongside her coworker of more than 40 years, Sheila Naff.

"I used to stand and move around, but had to go to a cane and then went to crutches and now do a lot of sitting," she said. "I just still love to do. … Some things you can't let go. You've got to keep busy."

Gravely said she is thankful for the many people and groups that have helped her along the way, including the March of Dimes, the health department and Shriners. Without their support, she said, she wouldn't have been able to do the things she's done.

"It's been a good ride," she said. "Even though I had my problems. … Jesus and I have always dealt with this."

Holly Kozelsky reports for the Martinsville Bulletin. She can be reached at holly.kozelsky@martinsvillebulletin.com

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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WATCH NOW: Survivor of polio pandemic takes COVID vaccine - Martinsville Bulletin