Paul Alexander, who is 76 years old, has had a very interesting life. He is one of the few people in the world who still uses an iron lung, which was invented in 1928, and has been using it for most of his life. Even though his life isn’t normal, he’s had a good one and has never settled for less.
“No one is going to be able to put limits on my life.” I’m not going to do it. “I love my life so much.”
Paul ran into his family’s home in a Dallas neighborhood when he was six years old and told his mother he felt sick. Even though he had been a lively and busy child since birth in 1946, it was clear that something was wrong.
Paul remembers that his mom had said, “Oh no, not my son!”
According to the doctor, he should stay in bed for a few days to get better. But it was clear that the boy had polio, and his situation didn’t get better. He lost the ability to hold things, swallow, and breathe in less than a week after getting sick.
His parents rushed him to the hospital, where he was with many other kids who were having the same symptoms.
Before medicines were made, polio would paralyze more than 15,000 people. It can spread quickly and easily, even if only a few people are sick.
Polio can make you tired, raise your body temperature, make your muscles stiff, hurt, and make you throw up. Polio can sometimes make people unable to move or even kill them.
After being checked out by doctors, Paul was pronounced dead by one of them. But another doctor looked at him and gave him a second chance to live.
The second doctor did an emergency tracheotomy and put Paul in an iron lung right away after the surgery.
When he woke up three days later, he was surrounded by rows of kids wearing iron chests.
Because Paul had a tracheotomy, he couldn’t talk, which made the whole thing scary.
The first machine to help people breathe was made in the late 1920s. The “Drinker respirator” was its first name. From the neck down, the machine is shut, and negative pressure is used to get air into the patient’s lungs. To get rid of too much pressure, air is pushed out and the person blows out.
Paul got better from the first infection while he was in the metal cage for a year and a half. During this time, he had company. When looking at the numbers, 1952, the year Paul got the virus, was a very bad year.
In the United States in 1952, about 58,000 people, mostly children, got the virus. Sadly, 3,145 of them died.
Some people may have given up, but Paul’s determination only got stronger.
Every time doctors walked by, they would say things like, “He will die today” or “He should not be alive.” But he was determined to show them they were wrong.
In fact, that’s what he did!
When he got out of the hospital in 1954, he saw that his life had changed a lot.
In a 2021 video interview, he said, “Back then, people didn’t like me very much.” “It seemed like they didn’t feel safe around me.”
His life started to get better with the help of Mrs. Sullivan, a therapist who came to see him twice a week. He and his therapist agreed that she would get him a puppy if he could do the “frog-breathe” method for three minutes without using the iron lung. This technique involves flattening the tongue and opening the throat to trap air in the mouth.
Paul worked hard and was able to cut down on the time he spent in the iron lung within a year.
At age 21, he did something very impressive: he was the first person to graduate from a Dallas high school without ever going to class in person. He got awards for his outstanding work. Even though he was turned down by several colleges, he kept trying and was finally accepted to Southern Methodist University.
After graduating from Southern Methodist University, he went to the University of Texas at Austin to become a lawyer. He became a lawyer in the Dallas-Fort Worth area after passing the bar test.
“And I was a pretty good one too!”
He kept himself busy by writing a book, even though he had been a judge for 30 years. He was able to type the whole book by himself using a pen on a stick.
Paul, a 76-year-old guy, is thought to be one of the few people who still lives in an old machine called a “iron lung.” He always depends on this device and has spent a big part of his life inside it.
Because ventilators have gotten better and more complex over the past 50 years, Paul’s iron lung model has not been made.
The person who survived polio decides to stay with his metal box, even though new technology is available. But when the metal lung almost broke down seven years ago, the Dallas lawyer had to make an urgent YouTube statement. Luckily, there are still a lot of old tools lying around the country that can be used as spare parts. People who are interested in technology but like old technology have also helped Paul.
Paul is writing his second book now that both of his parents and older brother have died.
Paul said that he can say his life is so full because he “never gave up.”
Since 1979, the United States has been able to get rid of polio. Despite this, polio cases caused by the vaccine still happen from time to time, which is still a worry.
I really admire Paul. Even though he had a lot of problems, he wrote a brave and interesting story that I wish everyone would share.
Tell your friends and family about his story to inspire them. Because he didn’t give up, we are the only ones who can set limits for ourselves.
