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. His body was encased in a machine that wheezed and sighed. This second doctor picked him up, ran with him to the operating theatre and performed an emergency tracheotomy to suction out the congestion in his lungs that his paralysed body couldn’t shift. He would have died had another doctor not decided to examine him again. Paul was left on a gurney in a hallway, barely breathing. When the boy was finally seen by a doctor, his mother was told that there was nothing to be done for him. Paul’s mother held him in her arms and waited. There were sick children everywhere, and nowhere to treat them all. Though the staff were well trained and there was a dedicated polio ward, the hospital was overwhelmed. His parents rushed him to Parkland hospital. Five days after he had walked into the kitchen barefoot, Paul could no longer hold a crayon, speak, swallow or cough. Over the next few days, the boy’s condition worsened. Paul had a better chance of recovering at home. It was clear that he had polio, but there were just too many patients there, the doctor said. But even as his fever soared and aching pains blossomed in his limbs, the family doctor advised his parents not to take him to hospital. Paul spent the first day in his parents’ bed, filling in Roy Rogers colouring books.
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