RIP Polio Paul

[George K]

https://www.cnn.com/2024/03/13/health/paul-alexander-polio-iron-lung/index.html

Paul Alexander, who spent the vast majority of the past 70 years in an iron lung and defied expectations by becoming a lawyer and author, died Monday afternoon at the age of 78, according to his brother Philip Alexander.

Paul developed polio in the summer of 1952, at the age of 6. It was the height of the polio epidemic; more than 21,000 paralytic polio cases were recorded that year in the United States, according to the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Today, polio is considered eliminated in the United States thanks to vaccines that were developed in the late 1950s, according to the CDC.

The disease left Paul paralyzed from the neck down and unable to breathe on his own. He was placed in an iron lung, a large metal cylinder that varies air pressure to stimulate breathing, according to his autobiography.

“The doctors told us Paul could not possibly live,” Doris Alexander, Paul’s mother, said in his autobiography. “There were a few times when the electrical power failed and then the lung had to be pumped by hand. Our neighbors would run over and help us pump it.”

Paul spent the next seven decades in an iron lung. In March 2023, he was declared the longest surviving iron lung patient in the world by the Guinness World Records.

[Mik]

Hell of a life. Literally.

[George K]

Living your life on a bed, even with the most meticulous care is a set up for urinary tract infections, pressure sores, sepsis...

I'm amazed he lived that long.

[Copper]

It is difficult.

But it can be done.

The publisher, instantly famous, would soon become a millionaire; after five years, the magazine’s annual profit was $4 million, and its rabbit-head logo was recognized around the world.

Mr. Hefner ran the magazine and then the business empire largely from his bedroom, working on a round bed that revolved and vibrated.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/27/obituaries/hugh-hefner-dead.html#:~:text=The publisher%2C instantly famous%2C would,bed that revolved and vibrated.

[Mik]

@George-K said in RIP Polio Paul:

Living your life on a bed, even with the most meticulous care is a set up for urinary tract infections, pressure sores, sepsis...

I'm amazed he lived that long.

I’m amazed he wanted to.