My grandmother lost an eye to Whooping Cough, Pertussis,

[applegrove]

when she was a young woman in the 1930s.

I remember a boy in my elementary school who was severely damaged by polio.

— GOP==CRIME (@yd52.bsky.social) 2026-04-17T01:10:06.307Z

[greatauntoftriplets]

1. I had a cousin who had what we always called a "withered arm" resulting from polio.

There's likely a medical term for it, but I've never heard one. His arm (not his primary arm, thankfully) was extremely thin and barely functioned. It was bad enough to keep him out of World War II, even though he had a wife, two kids, and a successful career. Just so he could do it all with his one good hand and arm.

I'm sorry about your grandmother. That has to have been a terrible experience for her.

[applegrove]

2. She didn't feel sorry for herself. She drove and went to parties

with my grandfather and had a great life except for WWII where my grandfather was injured when his canadian battalion got run over by polish tanks and he was left for dead. Hurt his brain stem. My father said he was never the same though he still did important things due to his situation in Ottawa. He was a responsible man. She never once whined about anything in my experience. Going to the eye doctor was a chance for her and her sister to tease the living daylights out of him. When she had, I think, a cataract in her one good eye and Ottawa didn't have the machine to do the operation, she bought the machine for the Civic Hospital. She was very lucky in life and that's how she rolled.

[KT2000]

3. Anti-vaxxers grew up

when most were protected with vaccines. They did not see among their classmates, the devastation of certain illnesses; children in leg braces, adults experiencing a re-occurrence, and hearing about classmates who died. They believe their own immune systems will protect them from everything. It is a logical failure on their part. For example: We have learned that certain genetic makeup causes a person to be immune to Covid - not someone's superior immune system.

[Brother Buzz]

4. My mom had Whooping Cough as a kid in the twenties

She survived a rather severe case, unscathed, and is 101 years old today.

[applegrove]

5. Go Mother Buzz!!!

[Rhiannon12866]

8. Wow! Kudos to your Mom!

My grandmother also told me she had whooping cough as a kid - and at the same time as a neighbor kid who she was friends with for years. My Nana was born in 1900, so it must have been in the early 1900s - and both my Nana and Augustus Gerardis (her neighbor) both grew up unscathed.

[TexasBushwhacker]

6. I just recently found out that my uncle, born in 1929

had a little brother who died of complications from red measles. He and his twin both got it. He got an ear infection. There were no antibiotics back then. His father was a doctor. The little boy died and the father became an alcoholic.

My aunt, his widow, said that his brother's death haunted him for the rest of his life. He had a little brother he never got to know.

[applegrove]

7. So sad.

[Figarosmom]

9. Yeah, my Grandma was crippled by polio.

Her leg was very deformed. She could walk with a limp and holding someone's arm or using a cane. She was a dairy farmer and granddad did the heavy work, but they both did the milking because this was before the machines.

I think it's time for trump to fire RFK. Certainly trump only guaranteed a year for his support.

[C Moon]

10. Right now, too (just like the anti-vax thing) the "we never went to the moon" crap is building again.

When I first heard that from a friend 15 years ago, I was nearly knocked backward in my chair.

[Staph]

11. My 102-year-old mother had seven older brothers.

Three of them died before she was born, died of causes that are avoidable or easily treated these days, including whooping cough.

She hates Trump for many reasons, including the idiocy of RFK Jr. and his cronies who don't believe in science.

[applegrove]

12. Woah. 102!!!