Wrote Paul Alexander, with a pencil (or pen) in his mouth, quoted in his obituary, "Lawyer, Author and TikTok Star Spent 72 Years in an Iron Lung/Paul Alexander, who died at 78, was paralyzed with polio at age 6 and relied on the machine to breathe. Still, he was able to earn a law degree, write a book and, late in life, build a following on TikTok" (NYT).
While innovations in science and technology led to portable ventilators for people with respiratory problems, Mr. Alexander’s chest muscles were too damaged to use any other machine....
Mr. Alexander launched his TikTok account in January.... “It’s lonely,” he said as the machine can be heard humming in the background. “Sometimes it’s desperate because I can’t touch someone, my hands don’t move, and no one touches me except in rare occasions, which I cherish.”
Mr. Alexander said in the video that over the years, he had received emails and letters from people who were struggling with anxiety and depression, and offered some advice.
“Life is such an extraordinary thing,” he said. “Just hold on. It’s going to get better.”...
@ironlungman Episode 1 of Convos with Paul! We will be responding to comments and questions about Paul’s life, his polio, and life in an iron lung! Please be positive 😊 #PaulAlexander #poliopaul #ironlung #conversationswithpaul ♬ Chopin Nocturne No. 2 Piano Mono - moshimo sound design
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I used to drive from Oakland to Berkeley a lot, the back way, by the Claremont. There was a house with a front window through which one could see a person in an iron lung, kind of looking out. Placed that way, obviously, to expand that poor soul's world. I waved occasionally, hoping he could see it. This went on for years and it blew. my. mind. every time I saw this person imprisoned there. Simply unimaginable. Major kudos to Paul Alexander for rising above that cruel existence.
There were wards full of those machines back in the '50s. I've seen stories from nurses of power outages where they had to run back and forth, pumping all the machines by hand. As polio disappeared and the technology moved on, keeping the last few running all these years was increasingly complicated, like Cubans maintaining old Studebakers.
Very very sad.
Living that life took a force of will that I struggle to comprehend.
Having witnessed such extreme social isolation, I firmly believe we should provide institutions -- not prison-like places, but housing where people with similar diseases can choose to live in dignity with other people going through what they are going through. We are in most cases already providing housing in isolation for the chronically disabled and ill. We rarely offer the option of decent comity, except for the elderly and the mentally disabled.
Now, a severely disabled young adult is often housed in a nursing home with seniors. I've seen some great kindness happen in such arrangements, but nothing beats being around people experiencing what you are experiencing. That's the point of life.
There's an amazing polio museum in Warm Springs, Georgia, near FDR's Little White House, where he conducted the war and died. The warm springs and clinic are why he built the Little White House there. They have displays of iron lung machines, the baths, and the center was still a gathering place for people affected by polio at least a decade ago.
Free at last.
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