Jim Jesenick, Polio Survivor Talked To The RCAAN Club On June 13, 2013

At Rotary Club of of Ann Arbor North lunch on June 13, 2013, Jim Jesenick talked about his experience with Polio. 

Jim Jesenick,  a past Rotary Club president and past district governor, told us his story, that of a childhood polio survivor.

Jim contracted polio in October of 1952, when he was just four years old. He clearly remembers walking home from the store and falling down for no reason. As his body became paralyzed, he was placed in the only medical apparatus that could save polio victims at the time, the iron lung. Jim said he did not feel pain while in the iron lung because of his paralysis.

Several children in the small town of St. Mary's Pennsylvania, were stricken with the disease, which attacks the neurological system and then the muscles. Jimmy and the others were isolated from their family members because polio was so very contagious. Parents could only see their children by looking through a window. They were not able to touch them or even talk with them.

The people of St. Mary's turned to prayer for the sick children. Jimmy recovered, but was left with limited range of motion in his left arm. Following a stay at a rehabilitation center (paid by the Shriners), Jimmy went to see a doctor in Pittsburgh who advised his patents to "throw away the arm brace" and exercise like crazy to regain his strength.

Our speaker's illness came during the polio epidemic of 1952-1954, during which more than 250,000 people contracted the disease. Polio had come to the nation's attention years earlier because President Franklin Delano Roosevelt hat been a victim as well. Roosevelt and a businessman created a national nonprofit organization to fight the disease. Their campaign came to be known as the "March of Dimes." School children and others donated dimes to fund a cure for the crippling illness.

Dr. Jonas Salk, developed a vaccine to guard against polio. The largest major vaccine trial began in the spring of 1954 and ended in 1955, with a 98 percent success rate in preventing polio. Jim's brothers and sisters were vaccinated.

After his recovery, Jim Jesenick went on to own his own business. He plays golf and swims and is able to lift and carry his grandchildren.

In 1991, Jim was invited to join Rotary. As soon as he learned that Rotary International service project was the eradication of polio, he was in.

Further Rotary work took Jim to the 1995 RI convention, where he saw an iron lung in Polio Plus display. That was his "Rotary moment." He knew then and there that he had to devote his energy to Rotary's cause, which was also his cause--polio eradication. Since then Jim has been to Nigeria and several other countries to distribute the polio vaccine.