SANDY | LOVE OF MY LIFE | FUR & FEATHERS WRITING COMPETITION MAY 2023
The Answer to Trauma Is Love
I adopted my first pet after my childhood polio isolation
Back in 1954, when I was four years old, I came home from a year in isolation from my polio rehab therapy. This was the protocol when you were one of “Salk’s Kids” polio victims.
I previously wrote about that experience here.
When I came back home from rehab, I was aloof and unsure of my family. I frankly didn’t remember them from before when I was taken away by ambulance. They had taken me away just before my third birthday. I was returned to my home after almost a full year. When I got back home, I was afraid of my strange new surroundings, including my family. I didn’t remember much.
To make me feel better, and get me more used to “normal,” my parents brought home a puppy. A small terrier, white and brown, and probably quite nice, small enough for normal children.
But when they brought him into the kitchen where I was, he excitedly jumped on me, coming up to my mid-thigh. I backed against the stove, screaming in abject terror as he jumped up on my legs, barking incessantly.
