HAPPY BIRTHDAY CEPSA!!!!!
Please be sure to come and celebrate our 12th year of loving and caring support. If you haven’t been to a meeting for several months this is your opportunity to return and enjoy the fun we will be having. You will hear the polio stories of some of our new members as well as some of our older members. Lunch will be served and a fun time is planned.
Please be sure to mark your calendar for our meeting on April 25th. Remember if you haven’t attended our meetings recently this would be an excellent time to catch up with your fellow polio survivors!!!!
The President’s Message…
April, 2009
Happy 12th Anniversary, CEPSA Members!! We were unsure 12 years ago of the viability of our group. Our success is due to the loyalty and commitment of all of you. I extend my sincere appreciation to everyone for attending, paying dues, making donations, serving in leadership roles, volunteering for jobs, sharing ideas, and supporting each other. Even if you cannot attend, we appreciate your reading our newsletter and staying in touch through our care team calls. None of us envisioned being in a post-polio support group when we had polio or while recovering and going on with our lives. As I have said, this is a club we never wanted to join. What a blessing and joy CEPSA has become.
Most of our members are experiencing the late effects of polio or post-polio syndrome. We came together because our medical professionals, family members, friends, and even employers did not understand what was happening to us. At times we had no answers. I do believe knowledge is power. We still are learning and empowering each other to advocate for ourselves. An important event will be our May 30 meeting when a panel of four members will present the latest information from the Post-Polio Health International Conference being held soon at Warm Springs.
I look forward to seeing you at our April 25th meeting when several members will give us insight into their polio stories. A festive, delicious lunch is planned. Please join us, even if you do not attend regularly. We look forward to a relaxed time with each other and catching up on the latest news.
Cheryl Brackin
Monthly Meeting Minutes
March 28, 2009
The monthly meeting of the Coastal Empire Polio Survivors Association was called to order by Cheryl Brackin, President at 10:35 AM. Cheryl welcomed Dan Shehan, Archie Ivey and Tony Tedona back to the meetings. We had not seen these members for some time.
Terri Dunnermann led us in the Pledge of Allegiance, and Marty Foxx gave us an Easter Inspiration.
Cheryl introduced our speaker, Jim Durrett, from Fuller Rehabilitation. Margaret Cheatham Hubbard, a mobility specialist, was also with him. He gave a thorough and informative talk about power chairs, and personal scooters. He was able to answer many questions we had about the products and the cost.
Janet DiClaudio moved to accept the minutes of the February meeting as printed. Sec. Bob Parkhurst, Approved.
Richard Graham moved that we accept the Treasurer’s report as presented by Marty Foxx, Treasurer. Sec. Jim Veccia. Approved.
Cheryl mentioned that Sandra Bath, Marty Foxx, Harvey Varnadoe, Eileen Boyle and possibly Ann Chance will be attending the Post Polio Health International Conference in Warm Springs April 23-April 25. They will be sharing with us at the May meeting about the conference.
There were several care concerns: Gloria Sullivan, Danny Jenkins, Shirley Johns, Pixie Winters, Tom Newcomer is doing much better, Beverly Jarvis and family, Velma Underwood, Delores McIntyre, Hattie Everson, Penny Smith, Tammy Hewitt, Janet DiClaudio, Dell & Harriet Merritt, Nancy Hess and Roy Tillotson.
Old Business: Adrienne mentioned that if there are changes to the directory, please call or email her and she will make the changes. She is going to have the directory printed with the changes for the January meeting and the September meetings. She will make sure the Board members and Care Team leaders have an updated directory as they are updated. If you need a copy of the directory, please call her or email her and she will send you one.
New Business: Our next month’s meeting will be our Anniversary Meeting. Please plan to attend. Lunch will be provided. Our program will be several of our own sharing their stories.
Meeting adjourned at 12:35 PM.
Respectfully Submitted,
Adrienne Stallworth
Secretary
Happy Birthday …
April:
Fred Davis – 2
Tom Newcomer – 2
Sissy Morel – 6
Marty Foxx – 8
May:
Vivian O’Kelley – 14
Allen Igou – 17
Wayne Steadman – 17
Dale Merritt, – 26
Richard Graham – 31
Member Concerns
Please remember in your prayers.
Delores Emory Hattie Everson
Tammy Hewitt Vivian O’Kelley
Penny Smith Velma Underwood
Nancy Hess Roy Tillotson
Shirley Johns Beverly Polin
Dale and Harriett Merritt
Sandra Bath’s sister, Cheryl
IN MEMORIAM
Franklin Dean Kohel, polio survivor and long-time CEPSA member, died March 30, 2009. He attended in theearly days of our group. We appreciated his ready smile and support. Frank served in the U.S. Navy and the U.S. Marines during the Korean War. He worked for NASA at Cape Canaveral. Frank had been a resident of Tybee Island since 1958. We extend our deepest sympathy to his family.
Ashley K. Dearing, Jr., one of the city’s best-known polio survivors, died March 29, 2009. Contracting polio at age 16 years ended his baseball career but not his interest in sports. Mr. Dearing actively supported many sports organizations and young people in the community. He was a founding member of the Greater Savannah Athletic Hall of Fame, and he established the Ashley Dearing Award, which is given yearly to Savannah’s most versatile high school athlete. We extend our deepest sympathy to his family.
Post-Polio Syndrome is not:
1. A disease.
2. It is not the original Polio virus coming back on a person.
3. It is not a Polio virus that has laid dormant in the body for years.
4. It is not a new Polio virus.
Post-Polio Syndrome is:
1. A second disability.
2. It is the over use of muscles that were both affected and unaffected by the original Polio virus.
3. It is a chronic progressive neurological disorder.
Symptoms are:
1. Unaccustomed fatigue-either rapid muscle tiring or feelings of total body exhaustion.
[Commonly refereed to as hitting the Polio Wall.]
2. Function decline.
3. Decreased endurance and weakness.
4. Cold Intolerance.
5. Cramps in muscles [Supplementing Calcium & Magnesium may help.] Please check with your physician before taking any supplement.
6. Pain: [Joint, Muscle, that Aching allover flu like feeling.]
7. Poor Concentration: [Brain Fatigue.]
8. Respiratory Problems: Hypoventilation [Commonly referred to as under ventilation.] impairment of the diaphragmatic and intercostal muscles.
9. Sleep Disorders: [Sleep Apnea.]
10. Dysphasia: [Swallowing difficulty.]
credit: J.P.S.S.G. [ Carl E. Danielson, Jr. ]
Time and Contrast By Henry Holland, MD
IN THE 1986 FILM, PEGGY SUE Got Married, the main character portrayed by Kathleen Turner, is going through a divorce and attends her twenty-fifth high school class reunion. At the reunion event, she is recognized as her class’s high school prom queen, and as part of the reunion celebration, she is crowned again on the stage. In the deja vu (the sensation or illusion that one is seeing what one has seen before) excitement of the event, she faints and when she regains consciousness, she is lying in a hospital bed, but the year is the Spring of 1960, or twenty-five years earlier when Peggy Sue was a senior in high school. Her life had gone back in TIME twenty-five years, but she had retained total knowledge of the next twenty-five years. The plot of the story revolves around her dilemma in what to treasure and what to attempt to change with this fore knowledge. For example, she tries to tell her boy friend, who is in a rock band, that he should write a song entitled “You Love Me, Yeh, Yeh”, and she tries to make a pair of panty hose to no avail. She does call and visit her grandparents; an event which she treasures since they had died by 1985. The film raises the question of what would we do different if we had a second chance or what we would choose to savor at some time in the past in CONTRAST to what we know now. This might prove to be a perplexing dilemma if we experienced this Peggy Sue phenomenon. If I fainted at a party among old friends and awakened in July, 1950, the first thing that I would do would be to run through my entire neighborhood including the school yard playground. I would run until I could run no more because of exhaustion. I would race up stairs two and three steps at a time. I would avoid all elevators. I would play football, baseball, basketball, dodge ball and go swimming. I would go everywhere on my bicycle. I would do many things, but mostly I would RUN. I last ran on September 16,1950. The next day I became ill with the polio virus. If I had the “Peggy Sue” opportunity, I would give serious thought to convincing my family to send me to a different school at the beginning of that year. I would do everything I could possibly imagine to avoid exposure to that virus. If I had been able to do just that, what would be the CONTRAST in my life now? Would I have still gone to medical school, become a psychiatrist, married, and had three children? How would each of you answer this same mystery? If you had avoided that destructive virus, what might have been? Would your life have been vastly different, better, or possibly worse? Of course, some of us were more severely affected by this virus than others, and maybe for those who experienced good recoveries, the virus had little effect on the events and choices made in your life, but NOW after much elapse of TIME, we have post polio syndrome. We really do have a deja vu experience and the playing field is once again not level. We have another CONTRAST in TIME. Some of us with the best recoveries are having significant problems with PPS. The maintenance of past life energies are rapidly waning, requiring difficult life style changes. This is not simple aging, this is another surprise attack, just not quite as sudden, but equally unfair. “Oh, Peggy Sue, Peggy Sue, how my heart yearns for you.”
Or would we really like a second chance back in time? Maybe the mystery of life involves the dilemma of who is chosen for a certain experience and who is not; who is endowed with special gifts and who is not; who thrives in their existence and who does not. Without the eternal passage of TIME and evolving CONTRAST, we might be devoid of meaning. As a generalization in assigning some meaning to our group, possibly we were chosen for a certain unique experience, were endowed with the gifts to deal with this experience, and now have the striving, dogged determination of the past with the philosophic acceptance of the present. We have existed in TIME and now we are experiencing the CONTRAST, and hopefully we feel some exhilaration in the joy and miracle of our individual and mutual experience in this life. Peggy Sue, wake up from your dream and celebrate today and the hope of tomorrow.
Reprinted from the March 2007 issue of Second Time Around, the newsletter of the Boca Area Post Polio Group. It is re-printed here by permission of Dr. Holland
CONTRIBUTIONS The Coastal Empire Polio Survivors Association is a non-profit corporation which is tax exempt under IRS code 501c(3). We have no paid employees, only volunteers dedicated to helping all polio survivors.
Your financial support is appreciated at any level suggested below:
* CEPSA Member – $15.00 annual voluntary donation
* CEPSA Supporter – $25.00 $50.00 $100.00 $300.00
* CEPSA Memorial or Honor Gift – any amount
* CEPSA Sponsor – any amount
Your contributions are tax deductible and will be acknowledged appropriately.
Please complete this form and mail it along with your check to: CEPSA, Marty Foxx, 23 East 61st Street, Savannah, GA31405.
Name __________________________________________________
Address ________________________________________________
City ___________________ State_____________ Zip ___________
Phone _______________________ E-mail _________________________________
Are you a relative or friend of a CEPSA member, if so _________________________________
Name of member
Thank you for your support and encouragement.