Small Steps: The Year I Got Polio

Peg Kehret introduces readers to a disease called poliomyelitis. Polio was first known as infantile paralysis because it affected children much more frequently than adults. Before the polio vaccine, it resulted in physical disabilities or killed thousands of people annually. As an example, Kehret cites President Franklin D. Roosevelt, who was diagnosed with polio and used a wheelchair for the rest of his life.

Kehret also emphasizes how highly contagious polio is and chronicles the number of diagnoses reported in the United States in 1949—the same year that 12-year-old Peg contracted polio—which stood at a devastating 42,033 cases. Despite this high number of cases, Kehret vividly remembers being the only diagnosed polio case that year in her hometown of Austin, Minnesota. Peg defines polio as a virus that “attacks the nerve cells which control the muscles of the body” (11). If caught early, when the damage is slight, and muscle weakness or paralysis can be temporary. If caught later, when the damage is significant, the effects can be extensive and paralysis might be permanent. Kehret states the facts—there is no cure for polio, nor do treatments exist to reverse its effects.