My Iron Lung

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But the title of the book was Kathy Gaines’s idea. Kathy, 62, has been Alexander’s caregiver since he graduated from law school and moved to the Dallas-Fort Worth area, although neither can remember precisely when she found his advert in the paper and became his “arms and legs”. Kathy is a type-1 diabetic and, as a consequence of the disease, has been legally blind for years, so she can’t drive. During Paul’s five-month stay in hospital last year, she took the bus or got a lift there every day. She taught the nursing staff how to manage the machine and, to some degree, Paul. While we talked, Kathy brought us foam cups of hospital coffee, and a plastic bendy straw for Paul. She left it close enough for him to reach with his tongue and mouth, but not so close as to be in the way. Kathy knows how to shave Paul’s face, change his clothes and sheets, trim his hair and his nails, hand him his toothbrush, do his paperwork, make his appointments, do his grocery shopping, and that when he says “biscuit” he usually means “English muffin”. Sometimes, if she sees his head in a position that she thinks will be uncomfortable for him, she’ll move it without asking. (He doesn’t always appreciate that.)

Although he still needed to sleep in the iron lung every night – he couldn’t breathe when he was unconscious – Paul didn’t stop at the yard. At 21, he became the first person to graduate from a Dallas high school without physically attending a class. He got into Southern Methodist University in Dallas, after repeated rejections by the university administration, then into law school at the University of Texas at Austin. For decades, Paul was a lawyer in Dallas and Fort Worth, representing clients in court in a three-piece suit and a modified wheelchair that held his paralysed body upright.introduction. Really, all of these softer songs are incredible and nothing less. Very remarkable was "Lozenge Of Love", maily Sullivan made a deal with her patient. If he could frog-breathe without the iron lung for three minutes, she’d give him a puppy. It took Paul a year to learn to do it, but he got his puppy; he called her Ginger. And though he had to think about every breath, he got better at it. Once he could breathe reliably for long enough, he could get out of the lung for short periods of time, first out on the porch, and then into the yard. Kathy knows everything about him, Paul says. “Kathy and I grew together … she stretched herself over as many things as I needed,” he said. For most of their relationship, Kathy has either lived with Paul or nearly next door. They’ve moved a lot: his legal career was not lucrative, and he has struggled financially. Today, Kathy lives upstairs in their communal apartment building. She sees him every day, whether she’s working or not.

But Paul was right that most people have largely forgotten about the terror of polio, just as we have forgotten the terror of other diseases we now routinely vaccinate against – diphtheria, typhus, measles and mumps. And that could be fertile ground for their return if we do not remain vigilant. It’s hard to imagine, in the middle of this pandemic, that we’ll forget Covid-19, too. But we might. It’s hard to remember our nightmares the day after. The lesson of polio – and of every time we are confronted by our own terrible fragility and survive – is that sometimes we need to remember. By the time positive-pressure ventilators were in widespread use, however, Paul was used to living in his lung, and he had already learned to breathe part of the time without it. He also never wanted a hole in his throat again. So he kept his iron lung. you're a Radiohead fan. It's not a major addition to their catalogue, but it's definitely more enjoyableHe passed his bar exams, and on 19 May 1986, he slightly raised his right thumb as he took the oath promising to conduct himself with integrity as a lawyer in front of the chief justice of the supreme court of Texas. He was 40 years old, wearing a natty three-piece suit, living on his own, and able to spend most of his day outside the machine that still kept him alive. How much is reasonable to charge for such a release? Generally they seem to be priced at about two thirds of the price of an LP but with only half the songs, and it is hard not to ponder the question: Is This RIGHT? Three days later, Paul woke up. His body was encased in a machine that wheezed and sighed. He couldn’t move. He couldn’t speak. He couldn’t cough. He couldn’t see through the fogged windows of the steam tent – a vinyl hood that kept the air around his head moist and the mucus in his lungs loose. He thought he was dead.