The year’s polio epidemic had been the worst ever in California, and over 3,000 people had died. In many respects, Lyn was lucky – but right now she certainly didn’t feel it.
When Lyn had first arrived in hospital, she had imagined she might be there for a few days or weeks, but on the convalescent ward she began to realise she was in for the long haul. She soon settled into a routine. First there were more hot-wool treatments, which her physiotherapist explained would stop her muscles from contracting. ‘It’s to prevent the limbs from deforming,’ he told her, ‘as one muscle tries to take over from another that’s been damaged. If this muscle pulls too tight, the other one will end up like the strings on a tennis racket.’
After each application of the boiling-hot bandages, Lyn’s limbs would be forcibly stretched by a nurse, a process that was agonising to begin with. Then they began asking her to do some of the stretching herself, which Lyn found exhausting and demoralising. Making tiny improvements day by day, it was hard to imagine that she would ever have the strength to walk again, and Lyn spent many tormented hours wondering how far her recovery would take her.
At least on the convalescent ward Ben was allowed to visit without having to wear a mask. But it was a source of constant sorrow to Lyn that he couldn’t bring John with him. She missed her son more every day, and felt desperate to get out of the hospital and back home to him.
As well as Ben, Lyn had regular visits from Auntie Louise, who as a polio survivor herself knew more than anyone else in the family what she was going through. ‘You’ll be all right in the end,’ she told Lyn. ‘I know it’s hard work, but bit by bit you can make a big difference.’
It was good to have Auntie Louise’s support, but Lyn still found the progress unbearably slow, and the motivational posters plastered all over the ward by the physiotherapists – Aesop’s tortoise beating the hare in the race, along with insightful quotations about the rewards of hard work – did little to help boost her spirits.
At least with some help from the nurses Lyn was able to sit up in bed, which meant that she could read and write to keep her mind occupied. There was a task she had been putting off for some time that she knew she had to face – writing to let her parents know what had happened. After much delay and procrastination, Lyn finally put pen to paper. She told her mum and dad not to worry, that she was being well looked after, and that with enough physio she hoped one day to walk again. She waited anxiously to see how they would respond.
The letter she got back from Southampton made her feel worse than ever. Mrs Rowe was devastated to hear what her daughter had been through, so many miles away from home. ‘You broke my heart, Gwen,’ she wrote.
Lyn felt awful – all through her time in the cabin in the mountains, and through her struggles with Ben’s mother, she had never told her parents how hard she was finding life in America. Now that she had finally risked it, all she felt was guilt.
But the worst part of the letter was an off-hand remark. ‘I’m sure you’ll be up and walking again soon,’ Lyn’s mother told her, ‘but I hope you don’t have to wear those ugly iron braces.’ Lyn wept as she read those words – right now, she would have given anything to be walking with the ugliest braces in the world. For months she had been unable to move from her bed.
While Lyn’s mother was 6,000 miles away, wishing she could afford to fly over and see her beloved daughter, Mrs Patrino, who lived hardly any distance away, never came to visit her. But back at home, she was making her own adjustments to the new situation.
One day, Ben came in to see Lyn with an anxious, hangdog look on his face. ‘Hi, honey,’ he said. ‘How are you feeling?’
‘Terrible,’ Lyn replied honestly. ‘How are things in the real world?’
‘Well,’ Ben replied cautiously, ‘actually, I have something to tell you. John and I have moved back to my parents’ house for a while. We’ve given up the rent on the apartment.’
Lyn was used to feeling numb in her lower body, but now her whole spirit felt paralysed. Ben’s mother had got him back, and the home that she loved so much was gone.
Perhaps sensing that her spirits were low, her physiotherapist decided Lyn needed a motivational boost. ‘There’s someone I want you to meet,’ he told her, as he wheeled her in a chair through to another part of the ward. There, to Lyn’s horror, a woman lay encased in an iron lung. ‘She’s been here eight years,’ the physiotherapist told Lyn. ‘So you see, you could be a lot worse off.’
The poor woman told Lyn about the battle she was fighting with the city to be allowed home with a nurse and a special bed. ‘I’m not sure how much longer I can bear it in here,’ she said. And hers wasn’t even the worst polio story in the hospital – one man on the ward had been in an iron lung for almost a decade. ‘I keep asking the nurses to help me end it all, but they won’t,’ he told Lyn pathetically.
Despite the physiotherapist’s intentions, the sight of these people living through her own worst nightmare only made Lyn feel even worse. Her doctor was furious when he found out about the excursion. ‘What were you thinking?’ he asked the physiotherapist.
His own belief was that the carrot was more effective than the stick. ‘I’m going to make you an offer,’ he told Lyn one day. ‘If you can get to the point where you can sit up in bed without assistance, I’ll let you get out of here for Thanksgiving. We can get a nurse to look after you at home.’
‘Thank you!’ she replied. ‘I’ll try my best.’
The doctor’s offer had the desired effect. With a clear goal ahead of her, Lyn pushed herself like never before, strengthening her muscles day by day with excruciating and exhausting exercises. Sometimes it was a case of reawakening muscles that the polio had all but destroyed, and sometimes it meant learning to use new muscles to take over their functions. She had just one thought in mind: getting home in time for Thanksgiving dinner with her husband and son, even if it was at Mrs Patrino’s.
On his daily visits, Ben offered plenty of encouragement. ‘John is really looking forward to seeing you after all this time,’ he told her.
Bit by bit, Lyn continued to make progress, until one day, when the doctor arrived on his rounds, she was able to prove how far she had come. With tremendous effort, she raised herself up from her back and heaved her way to a seated position.
‘Well done, Lyn, you did it!’ the doctor beamed, as she sat there breathing heavily. She had never in her life imagined that she would feel so proud of such a seemingly minor accomplishment.
When Ben arrived, she shared the good news with him. ‘That’s wonderful, honey!’ he said. ‘But I’m afraid I have something to tell you.’
‘What is it?’ Lyn asked.
‘I’ve been talking to Mom,’ Ben continued. ‘Of course, she’s as pleased about you getting better as the rest of us, but . . .’ He broke off for a moment and sat looking at the floor. ‘She doesn’t think you should come back and stay in the house. She says Pop will find the wheelchair upsetting.’
Lyn was staggered. ‘You know that means I’ll be stuck in here for months?’ she said desperately.
Ben was clearly upset by the situation himself. ‘I tried talking to her,’ he said, ‘but she wouldn’t budge. I don’t know what else to do, honey.’
When Ben had gone, Lyn wept. She was powerless to fight his mother now. She couldn’t even get out of bed.
The next day, Ben’s Auntie Louise came to visit Lyn in the hospital. ‘I heard about what my sister said,’ she told her, ‘and I want you to know that I’m here for you.’
‘Thank you,’ Lyn replied. Louise had always been good to her, even before she had been ill.
‘I didn’t get much help myself when I had polio,’ Louise told Lyn, ‘and I want things to be different for you. If they’re willing to discharge you, you can come and stay with me and Sid.’
Lyn felt overwhelmed by Louise’s kindness. ‘That’s so sweet of you, but I couldn’t do that to you,’ she replied. ‘I’m going to need a hospital be
d and a nurse and all kinds of things.’
But Louise wouldn’t take no for an answer. ‘You’re moving in with me, kid,’ she said.
As Auntie Louise wheeled her out of the hospital, Lyn was transfixed by her surroundings. The trees, which had been fresh with blossom when she had arrived in July, were now bare, and the crisp smell of autumn filled the air. After four months in an air-conditioned ward full of clinical smells, it felt like breathing in life itself again.
Louise helped Lyn into her car and put the wheelchair in the boot. ‘We’ll be having some visitors tonight,’ she told her, as they drove to her house. Lyn felt overwhelmed by all the cars whizzing by, and the noises of the city as they drove through it. ‘Okay,’ she murmured.
Thankfully it was no great gathering of the Patrino clan, just Ben and John, who were already there to greet Lyn when she arrived. ‘Oh, honey, it’s so good to see you,’ Ben told her, rushing over to help her out of the car and into the wheelchair. He pushed her up to where little John was standing with Uncle Sid in the front drive, nervously hanging back. ‘Aren’t you excited to see your mommy?’ he asked the boy.
John nodded obediently, but there was something a little hesitant about him as he approached the wheelchair and awkwardly hugged Lyn’s legs.
He’s scared of me, she realised with a jolt of sadness.
‘Don’t worry,’ Ben whispered. ‘He’ll soon get used to the chair.’ He wheeled Lyn up the drive and into the house, where her private nurse was waiting.
That night, Lyn’s family ate their first meal together in what seemed like a lifetime. But when the time came for Ben and John to leave, Lyn felt so sad she could barely say goodbye. ‘Don’t worry, honey,’ Ben told her. ‘As soon as you can wheel the chair yourself, we’ll find a ground-floor apartment and we can all be together again.’
Now Lyn had another goal ahead of her, and once again she approached the challenge with relish. Day by day, working hard on her physical therapy with the help of her nurse, she continued to improve, until she was able to get from the bed into the chair with only minimal assistance.
Living with Auntie Louise and Uncle Sid, Lyn was able to see Ben and John every day now, but every time they left to go home to Mrs Patrino she felt another pang of frustrated jealousy. To make matters worse, John remained very nervous around the wheelchair, something Lyn found extremely upsetting.
‘I can’t bear it,’ she told her doctor when he came to visit for a check-up. ‘My own son is scared of me now.’
‘Lyn, that’s perfectly normal,’ he replied. ‘It’s not you, it’s just the chair.’
‘You don’t understand,’ Lyn protested. ‘Do you realise how much it hurts me?’
‘Come on Lyn, he’s a child,’ the doctor insisted.
It was true, she realised. What could she expect of John, after being without his mother for so long, and at such a young age? Suddenly, her sadness was replaced by a feeling of guilt.
Living at Auntie Louise’s, there were no set visiting hours, and Lyn found more people coming to see her. Mrs Patrino continued to stay away, but Ben’s sister-in-law Thelma began to turn up regularly, and Lyn even had a couple of visitors from the University of Santa Clara. Among them was Mr Stefan, the manager who had hired her. He had already written to Lyn in hospital offering his best wishes for her recovery, and letting her know that they had found someone to cover for her while she was off sick. ‘So, how’s the new girl working out?’ Lyn asked him when he came to see her a few months later.
‘Oh, she’s great,’ he replied without thinking. ‘We’ve just signed her on for a year.’
Lyn was devastated. ‘Does that mean I’m not coming back?’
‘Lyn, be realistic,’ Mr Stefan replied.
They were the most crushing words that anyone could have said to her. Lyn was terrified that she might never get out of the wheelchair – her physiotherapist was constantly encouraging her to keep going, but knowing that others had already decided her efforts were pointless, she struggled to find the will to continue.
Nevertheless, bit by bit Lyn continued to improve, until she had mastered the use of the chair by herself, and could even manage to get into and out of it from her bed. If she ever fell over she would be stuck on the floor until someone came to rescue her, but aside from that she was pretty much mobile.
It had been almost a year since Lyn first moved in with Auntie Louise, and when her physiotherapist told her, ‘I think it’s time you and your husband started looking for a place of your own,’ she was over the moon. She might still be confined to a wheelchair – with no guarantee from her doctor that this would ever change – but soon her little family would be together at last.
Before long, Ben found them a nice ground-floor apartment in a quiet part of town. Finally, Lyn and Ben felt like a real couple again, and despite the wheelchair they were able to lead a relatively normal life.
The next challenge for Lyn was to learn to walk using leg braces. The heavy steel encumbrances were intended to keep her legs straight, and had a catch that allowed them to bend at the knee so that she could sit down in them, and then lock when she stood up again. The mechanism took a lot of getting used to, and at first Lyn found it would often lock or unlock unexpectedly.
Clomping around in the braces was exhausting, and nothing like the easy movement she had been used to before the polio, but for Lyn the newfound freedom was exhilarating. She no longer had to look up at other people the whole time. Best of all, she no longer felt trapped – her greatest fear, that she would never leave the wheelchair, was behind her.
Once again, however, Lyn found that her disability was distressing to her son John, who disliked the braces even more than he had the wheelchair. Lyn explained patiently that they were to help her walk. ‘I’ll get rid of them as soon as I can,’ she promised him.
With the help of the braces, Lyn was able to regain her independence. She was gradually getting used to the awkward contraptions as the muscles in her legs began to grow stronger, and she even began to go out on her own. One day, she decided to go into San Francisco, to visit Macy’s in Union Square. It was a beautiful day, and as Lyn walked slowly up to the store’s grand marbled frontage, she felt a sense of pride and accomplishment. It wasn’t so long ago that she had been confined to a bed in the county hospital, staring up at the ceiling for hours on end, afraid that she would never walk again.
Inside the store, Lyn passed through the jewellery and cosmetics departments and took the elevator up to womenswear. She picked out a beautiful cashmere cardigan in bright pink, just the sort of thing the old Lyn would have bought.
‘That’s a pretty colour,’ the girl at the cash desk told her. ‘It’ll look nice with your complexion’.
It felt good to be noticed for something other than her braces, Lyn realised. She thought of Auntie Louise, always so impeccably turned out despite her own limp, and decided that she would always follow her example. She spent a good while wandering around every inch of the department, although her legs were already getting tired, and picked up several more garments before she decided to head home.
Since the elevator was at the far end of the department, Lyn decided to take the escalator down to the ground floor instead. She gripped the rail carefully with her right hand as she stepped onto the moving staircase. Then she heard a sudden click. The noise sent a jolt of panic through her as she realised her braces had locked. Lyn tried to jiggle her leg to release the catch but it was no use – the knee stubbornly refused to bend. She didn’t dare take her right hand off the rail in case she fell over, so she tried to use her left to disengage the catch, but as much as she fiddled the damn thing refused to budge.
The staircase was moving quickly and Lyn could see the ground getting closer. In a few seconds she would be there. She could see herself now, being thrown onto the ground, or caught up in the machinery of the escalator. Her heart raced as she continued to fumble wildly with the catch.
At the last moment, as the
escalator reached ground level, Lyn heard a second click and felt the catch release, allowing her leg to bend slightly. She pushed herself forward with all her strength and then took a moment to regain her balance, her heart still racing. All the confidence she had felt before seemed to have drained out of her, and she felt powerless and scared again.
‘Hey, lady, what’s the matter?’ a security guard demanded, rushing over.
‘My brace locked,’ Lyn replied breathlessly.
‘Your what?’
She gestured to the catch. ‘The brace locked on my leg.’
‘Well, stay off the escalator then,’ the man replied brusquely, before turning and walking away.
Lyn staggered to a nearby bench and lowered herself onto it, taking care to ensure the catch on her brace was properly released this time. She was still panting and she felt almost dizzy with the stress of the ordeal. It was yet another reminder of how far she still had to go on the road to recovery.
Lyn had always done her best to stay strong in the face of adversity, but right now, knocked by yet another setback, a new feeling suddenly overwhelmed her. For the first time since she had come to America, she felt an intense pang of homesickness. All she wanted was to go home and see her mum.
29
Sylvia
Sylvia woke suddenly in the dead of night. Lying next to her, Bob was yelling incoherently, sweat dripping from his brow. ‘Get down!’ he screamed, convulsing frantically and tangling himself up in the bed sheets.
‘Bob, it’s all right,’ Sylvia whispered soothingly. She cautiously reached a hand out to stroke his brow.
He started awake and stared at her with a horror-struck look on his face.
‘It’s all right,’ she repeated. ‘You’re safe here.’
He nodded, and drew a deep breath. ‘I thought I was back in France,’ he said.
She stroked his forehead again. ‘I know,’ she said softly. ‘You can go back to sleep now.’
GI Brides: The Wartime Girls Who Crossed the Atlantic for Love Page 26