 TRULY ORIGINAL
How do you start a small business with little or no money and build it into a 72 million dollar business? Additionally, how do you overcome the horrible affliction of polio and an iron lung? Truly Nolen did this and tells you how he did it in his absorbing and revealing autobiography, TRULY ORIGINAL.
From pages 51 59.
I had all of the polio symptoms---aches, pounding headache, pain in all of my muscles, and difficulty in breathing. The polio virus attacks the muscles through the nerves in the spinal cord. It can hit any nerve, including those controlling arms, legs, speech, and your diaphragm.
I became weaker and weaker. Finally, I could not breathe on my own and I had to go on an iron lung.
When you are in an iron lung you are on your back and you are contained in this pressurized tube. I was in constant pain and barely able to speak.
The pain continued to get worse. I was not able to sleep. To relieve the pain, I was given a shot of Demerol twice a day.
I wanted to die. The only thing that stopped me was being restrained in an iron lung.
I was starting to breathe a little better. I told the doctor that I could not stand this any longer.
the doctor suggested that I try the more traditional rocking bed since my breathing was getting stronger.
They put me in this rocking bed. I would have done anything to get out of the iron lung.
One night there was a person dying in the next room so my nurse went to assist with the dying patient. While she was away I turned off the rocker.
My nurse spent the night trying to comfort the dying patient. She was not aware of my actions.
The doctor came in the next morning. He saw the rocker turned off. He was furious and cried out for the nurse. He demanded to know why the rocker was turned off. The nurse said she did not turn it off.
I told them I had turned it off. It was not her fault. The doctor then stated, Oh well you lived through it so you will not have to turn it back on. You are breathing again
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