All the Steps I Have Taken: Then and Now

By Linda L. Christianson

As a six-month-old infant, Linda Christianson was diagnosed with poliomyelitis, a highly contagious disease that crippled thousands of children and adults before a vaccine became available in 1953. In her memoir, she now shares the intimate story of her struggle with the disease and of learning to approach her life in as normal a way as possible. She details the struggles that she faced growing up and the challenges that she handles each day of her life.

Because she contracted polio at such a young age, Linda was never able to enjoy the carefree childhood of skipping, dancing, and jumping that other children, including her sister, were able to experience. She had to learn how to live with her disease and to carve out a productive life for herself. Today, she approaches tasks with planning and much forethought. She works within the limitations of her disease but still finds joy and accomplishment in each day.

All the Steps I Have Taken presents the chronicle of her life, which has given her a magnificent family, a superlative set of friends with whom she shares her life, and her beloved home.

a remarkably moving story of one womans courage and resilience. It is a real inspiration for us all.

Barb Blome

Anyone who has never been stricken with polio will give thanks for what they have been spared, yet may wonder why another is not so lucky. This story makes one realize how God works in their life through their adversity. It brings back the footprints in the sand quote during your times of trial and suffering, when you see only one set of footprints, it was then that I carried you A true inspiration.

Vikki Wacek

• Language: English
• Publisher: Inspiring Voices
• Release date: Aug 7, 2012
• ISBN: 9781462402335

Linda L. Christianson

Linda Christianson grew up on the family farm in the Midwest. Her life has been made challenging by her contraction of polio as an infant. Linda currently lives in Blooming Prairie, Minnesota with her husband, Nolan. They have three children and eight grandchildren.

Book preview

All the Steps

I Have Taken

Then and Now

Linda L. Christianson

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Copyright © 2012 Linda L. Christianson

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

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Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Thinkstock are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

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ISBN: 978-1-4624-0234-2 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4624-0233-5 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2012912268

Inspiring Voices rev. date: 08/03/2012

Contents

Preface

Lifeline and Headlines

My Story

Footsteps and Braces

Steps as a Daughter

Steps as a Registered Dental Assistant: My Career

Steps to Being a Sibling

Responses from Siblings

Steps to Becoming a Wife

Steps to Being a Mother

Camp Courage

History of Mayo Clinic

History of Gillette State Hospital for Crippled Children

Disadvantages and Advantages of living with physical limitations

Riding My Bike

End Polio Now

My Last Steps

Children’s and Husband’s Responses

Closing

Epilogue

Special Thanks

Glossary

Dedicated to my family:

Nolan

Tonya

Bob

Aaron

Jessie

Lianna

Travis

Cody

Emma

Ryan

Cole

Anika

Cade

Addison

Aden

Their support has always been there for me.

Preface

We all have adjustments and situations that we must live with. This narrative describes the adjustments that shaped the person I am today.

As an infant, six months old, I was diagnosed with poliomyelitis, a highly contagious disease that crippled thousands of children and adults before a vaccine became available in 1953. My parents never stopped me from attempting challenges that came my way, and I will always be grateful to them. I am very appreciative of my wonderful husband for choosing me with my limitation. We have journeyed together for forty-three wonderful years. My life has been a voyage that has given me a magnificent family, superlative set of friends with whom I share my life, and a home I can be devoted to and care for. I have become committed to my small rural country church, Red Oak Grove Lutheran Church, near Austin, Minnesota. This church family has nurtured and prayed for me my entire life. I am grateful for a forty-two-year career as a registered dental assistant. A career that was gratifying and rewarding.

Few people today are aware of polio. They may never cross paths with someone who has had it, someone who has been forced to spend his or her life trying to be as normal as possible and build a life worth living. Polio made me a very determined and strong-willed person, and I will share with you the journey that gave me much happiness and success.

At this time of the morning, I’m not sure what the day has in store for me. It is still dark outside, and I hear no wind, so perhaps no storm is brewing. I’ll just have to wait and see. The crutches are there against the bedroom wall, just where I put them last evening as I went to bed. It hasn’t always been this way. I still remember the days when I could get along as a more normal person, but that is changing more quickly than I'd like to admit. It makes me appreciate what I can do and continue to do each day of my life. One of the things polio sufferers were taught early on was to be as normal as possible. For many that was a difficult task. For me contracting polio at such a young age made it easier to be normal, because the way I was seemed normal to me. I never knew any other way of getting around. The crutches get me to the laundry room to sort and start the laundry, and then to the kitchen to start the coffee. After I’ve read my Thomas Kinkade devotional reading for the day, I am ready to move forward and make my day the best it can be.

I’ll start All the Steps I Have Taken with a quotation from Guidepost, a wonderful magazine my mother-in-law introduced me to when my husband and I were married. She had been enjoying the magazine for many years and gave me my first subscription. I have continued to get pleasure from and share all the finished magazines with friends. The quotation from a Guidepost magazine column The Up Side of Today’s Positive Thinkers: God rarely makes our fears disappear. Instead, he asks us to be strong and take courage. Courage is not the absence of fear. You could say that without fear, you can’t have genuine courage. I have faced many situations in my lifetime that have led me to experience fear, and these have helped me to be more courageous.

The medical name for the disease is anterior poliomyelitis or infantile paralysis. It is a disease caused by a virus that can be either inhaled or swallowed. Polio may seem at first like a number of other diseases that start with a fever, headache, fatigue, and sore throat. In many cases, the disease never goes beyond these first symptoms. Sometimes it continues, and certain muscles become weak; eventually, the virus reaches the brain and spinal cord, destroying the anterior horn cells of the central nervous system and thus paralyzing the muscles. Sometimes patients were paralyzed to the extent that they could breathe only with the help of a mechanical ventilator or iron lung. I was fortunate; the only connection I had to an iron lung was that I saw them in hospital rooms and felt so sorry for the patients who were in them.

Poliomyelitis is derived from two Greek words: polios, meaning, gray and myelos, meaning, matter. These words refer to specific parts of the brain and spinal cord: nerve cells that send impulses to muscle cells. These cells have a darker appearance than other parts of the nervous system, appearing gray in color. These cells are clustered in the front half of the spinal cord and that is where the name anterior poliomyelitis comes from. A virus is a small organism or living thing that multiplies when inside a living cell. It is the virus that is able to infect and damage these nerve cells, causing them to not activate the muscle cells. Weakness or paralysis is the end result. Polio usually afflicts children and was once one of the most feared diseases. Polio is not new. Polio deformities were drawn on cave walls in the Middle Ages, portraying the weakness the disease caused.

Since three different kinds of poliovirus exist, a vaccine was needed that would protect against all three strains. In 1953, a vaccine developed by Dr. Jonas Salk and his colleagues at the University of Pittsburgh became available. Dr. Salk began field trials of his vaccine, which was made from individual strains of poliovirus that had been