This Business of Fatigue
By N.J. (6/26/10)

This business of fatigue I had only experienced

      but never analyzed

      until a post-polio survivor

      stepped into my awareness.

She visited her mother one week

      where I live in a retirement home

      and brought herself to my attention

      when she answered my question

      about her different kind of wheelchair. 

Standing at the front desk, she turned about.
“You see,” she started off. “I’m a polio survivor.”
“So am I!” (my excited return).
She was the first PPS I’d ever met
      instead of just reading about them.
We turned out to be the same age.

Explaining her lightweight, collapsible power chair
      (the first one I’d seen that didn’t look like a tank),
      this bubbly lady said,
      “I’d like to give you a copy of my book.”
The thin paperback was lying on her chair seat
      And titled Who Hit the Down Button?

Back in my room, I learned more about Phyllis D.
      from reading her little book.
Polio moved into her baby body at 18 months, 
      but she survived the main effects,
      other than two feet of quite different size.
She was successfully on the go days and eveningss
      in a life full of satisfying, productive activity
      as wife, college teacher, workshop giver, 
      and friend to many.

Then her upward-moving elevator,
      stopping at this and that floor to pursue her many interests,
      suddenly seemed to be going DOWN,
      not stopping anywhere for refreshment.

What was happening?
She felt horrible but couldn’t figure it out.

Finally forced onto her mind
      was a new realization:
      her polio had come back
      like a thief in the night—with intent to rob.
No longer did she feel like a “survivor”;
      she was in the grip of something else.
It was post-polio syndrome in her fifties,
      and almost no doctor, way past Salk,
      knew anything about polio and its sequellae.

National orgs and support groups educated her
      about the new round of pain, exhaustion, and mental fog.
Stripped of her old pursuits,
      she began sharing and writing
      to communicate with fellow sufferers.

Thanks, dear Phyllis, for bringing to notice
      that important term for my current state:
      “fatigue” and its cousins
      who zap me
      and make me feel
      useless.

I had no idea, until I met Phyllis,
      how long this had been going on with me,
      or how long I had made no allowance for it.

I now have to look it full in the face,
      and admit that it’s here to stay.
I have to push over to give room for its needs.
I suppose I shall even have to embrace it
      and stop calling myself “lazy.”